"The Servant of the People" Arakhamia is promoting a questionable ski resort project by the notorious Kaskiv

The Authorities Support a Dubious Project of Putin’s Relative’s Associate.

«I am not engaged in reputation management», — this is how the leader of the «Servant of the People» faction, David Arakhamia, explained to journalists of hromadske about his joint trip with the current deputy of the Zakarpattia Regional Council from the banned OPFL, Vladyslav Kaskiv, to the village of Pylypets in Zakarpattia. The President’s Office’s idea to build a new ski resort there was not halted by either the full-scale invasion or the controversial biography of the project’s main beneficiary.

Who is Kaskiv, and what does the Austrian investor have to do with it?

July 2020. President Zelenskyy’s Office, headed by Andriy Yermak, discussed the creation of the high-altitude all-season sports-tourism cluster «Borzhava». The most distinguished guest presenting the program was Austrian Gernot Leitner. Discussions revolved around building ski lifts, hotel-restaurant complexes, and other entertainment and tourist facilities in the village of Pylypets, Zakarpattia region, and nearby villages. While the Office of the President ceased publicly discussing it after the onset of the large-scale war, the ambitious idea did not disappear but rather went underground. However, it turned out that the Austrian company was merely a facade. The beneficiary of this plan is none other than Zakarpattia Regional Council deputy from OPFL, Vladyslav Kaskiv.

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In March 2014, Kaskiv was dismissed from the State Investment Project and moved to Austria. In February 2015, he headed the investment company Ozario Holdings. Before him, the director there was Peter Jandl — a member of the supervisory boards of Dmytro Firtash’s companies. While Ozario Holdings is now liquidated, it was registered in Vienna, at the same address as Yuliya Lyovochkina’s company Teleferic Holdings.

Lyovochkina’s company had a representative in Ukraine — Andriy Bantsner, who was an assistant to People’s Deputy Kaskiv. The director of Teleferic Holdings was Gernot Leitner — the same investor who visited the President’s Office meeting in 2020. His company Masterconcept, post the Russian invasion of Ukraine, realized several projects in Russia. Notably, the Sochi Olympics in 2014 and the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Additionally, Gernot Leitner owns the Slovak company Carpathian Mountain Resort, s.r.o, which owns 12 companies in Ukraine. They are managed by Iryna Kukh — a former employee of the State Investment Project when it was led by Kaskiv. By the end of 2021, these 12 companies owned 450 hectares of land in Zakarpattia, where they planned to build the «Borzhava» ski resort. But that was not enough.

From threats to criminal cases

On March 7, 2022, when fierce battles with Russian invaders raged near Kyiv and most of the country suffered from shelling, a fight for valuable land began at the «Grand Hotel Pylypets» in Zakarpattia.

Vladyslav Kaskiv tried to negotiate with local entrepreneur Ivan Borychko to get him to give up his hotel «Berloga».

In 2014, Ivan purchased a plot, completed all ownership documents, and began building a hotel-restaurant complex on it. Now Kaskiv insists he plans to build a lift there, and Ivan’s hotel would be in his way.

«The ultimatum was very simple: “If you don’t remove it, we will seize it at some point, remove it, figure out what to do with it, so you should understand this”. Such was the specific ultimatum», — the entrepreneur stated.

And they did devise a plan. Architect Valeriy Beznosko, who allegedly came to the position in their united territorial community by the end of 2022, was involved in the process. He reworked the village’s general plan so that a piece of the land where Ivan Borychko’s hotel is located turned out to be part of a plot belonging to companies associated with Kaskiv — «Borzhava SKi» and «Sky Land». After this, the designer went abroad and has not appeared in Ukraine since. The mentioned companies filed a lawsuit against the entrepreneur demanding he dismantles «Berloga». Moreover, criminal proceedings were initiated against Borychko for allegedly illegally possessing a plot that, before Ivan secured its ownership, belonged to the village council. Borychko’s land was seized.

«The prosecutor’s office is currently filing a civil case to confiscate this plot for the benefit of the village council. By the way, Vladyslav himself shared this scheme with me, saying that if I don’t do this, the village council will confiscate it, then either give it to him or sell it to him. So far, everything is happening as he told me», — Ivan Borychko says.

But Ivan’s story in Pylypets is far from unique.

Nadiya Hladyo

Nadiya Hladyo is a resident of the neighboring village of Podobovets, which is part of the same UTC. By an odd coincidence, her house, where her family has invested the last 10 years of their lives, is also being targeted for confiscation. The village council allocated the land to her family back in 2013. Later, they obtained all the documents and ownership rights.

«In 2013, we began construction. By 2017, the house was practically ready, and we privatized it, with all documents being prepared. This mess has been going on for the past three years. Anonymous calls. They say: “I will buy this house”, speaking in Russian. But I replied: “This house is not for sale; we are building it for ourselves”», — Nadiya Hladyo explains.

Nadiya decided to ignore the calls. Soon after, cables bringing electricity to their house were cut. When even this didn’t deter the Hladyos, a criminal proceeding appeared in the court registry in September 2022. Allegedly, Nadiya’s husband, in 2013, along with the then-village head, illegally acquired the land, which is supposedly located outside any populated area.

Next to Nadiya’s plot on the cadastral map is another one — 25 acres in size. It belongs to «Borzhava-Zamkova Hora» LLC. The beneficiary is Rovshan Huseynov, the father of Renata Huseynova. She was Kaskiv’s assistant in parliament when he was a People’s Deputy and is now his common-law wife, with whom Kaskiv has a son. Even though Rovshan is registered in Kyiv, he owns 97 land plots in the Mizhhirya district, most of which are directly in Pylypets. Renata owns another 40 plots. Her company «Borzhava Center» owns 25 more.

To understand who is suing whom and what about, and what’s up with the new general plan that locals haven’t seen, we went to the head of the Pylypets UTC, Vitaliy Pyrynets. He assured us that the new general plan exists, but he cannot show it because the architect has gone abroad, the lawyer is on sick leave, and he doesn’t have the authority to show the plan.

We agreed to meet with Vitaliy Pyrynets the next day — supposedly, the lawyer would be there, and we could review the new village plan together. However, the head of the UTC suddenly left the village.

UTC Head

Arakhamia is not engaged in reputation management

Vladyslav Kaskiv did not respond to journalists’ calls. So we managed to ask him questions only during an unscheduled session of the Zakarpattia Regional Council. However, he was not inclined to respond. «I am not interested in you or your questions. I don’t consider you a media outlet, so I have neither the desire nor the intention to communicate with you», — Vladyslav Kaskiv replied to us.

Vladyslav Kaskiv

During the investigation, it also became known that at the beginning of October, the head of the «Servant of the People» faction, David Arakhamia, visited Pylypets accompanied by Kaskiv. When asked by journalists what he was doing in Zakarpattia with Kaskiv, Arakhamia replied that he was involved in attracting investments and was looking at the «Borzhava» ski resort project.