ukraine: kyiv (sort of): mezhihyria: the president's 'house'

I woke up early Sunday morning, so I would be ready on time for a tour pickup.
Ever since I'd first visited the grounds of Mezhihyria three years ago after the violent end to the Maidan protests, I knew I wanted to come back. I knew back then that I wanted to get inside the house.
Mezhihyria is the house of the former president of Ukraine. Yanukovich never admitted to living in the house, which is part of what made people so mad at him. He only ever admitted to living in the other house on the grounds, which is actually where the prime minister lived.

Yanukovich fled Ukraine in the middle of the night, leaving behind a whole lot, but taking plenty with him.
Mezhihyria is a big property. The grounds are extensive, and the main house is huge. The main house is made of wood, and constructed in a way that requires no nails. The wood is all slotted together tightly, and the engineering makes sure it doesn't separate.
We started our tour in the sports building. This is where Yanukovich had his own private gym and spa. When I say private, I really mean private. He was the only one who used the facilities! (Though I'm not sure if his girlfriend did or not.)

The gym had an indoor tennis court, which Yanukovich never used because he didn't play tennis. He just wanted to be able to say he had an indoor tennis court. (He also had an outdoor court, and didn't play on that one either.) The only part of the gym that was used even a handful of times was the boxing ring, in the middle of the gym. Apparently, Yanukovich liked to box.
This building also had his personal spa. The entrance hallway to the spa had bird cages in it. Some of the birds had been illegally imported, but Yanukovich did such things just because he wanted to.

The entrance hallway has a long skylight, and was mostly made of marble.
Just outside the inner entrance door was the desk where guests would check in to the spa. If there were any other guests. As I said earlier, Yanukovich was the only person who used the facilities. Howeva, the spa was officially owned by another business, which is legal. Apparently it even paid rent to the legal owners of the property. The name of the spa was Green Side, they even had membership cards made up. Ridiculous. Just think: there were more membership cards made than members, for a 'business' that had only one client.

The spa had a tanning room, and a cryotherapy machine. massage tables, etc... The interior hallway was marble too, and even had a crystal table. All this for one person, ridiculous.
Our guide pulled back a hidden door to expose a marble lined hallway, that let you get to the main house without going outside. The doorway was in the back of an alleged cloakroom.
The group trooped down the hallway, which was lined with artwork, and places where artwork used to be. There were also stained glass windows at regular intervals. Again, all this was for just one person. Ridiculous!
I don't remember the exact order of how we walked through the house, (it must've taken the caretaker and his girlfriend quite a while to figure out the whole house, how it fit together, and who belonged where,) so I'll just write what I remember about different rooms and areas.

The floor in each room was different. Most of them are made from wood, and were absolutely gorgeous. I despise the man and what he did to the country of Ukraine, but I still admire the artisanship I saw all through the house. The wood floors were made of various shades of wood, with designs made of the different shades. There were marble floors in a few rooms, I remember especially in his and her bathrooms.
The bedrooms (Yanukovich and his mistress had separate bedrooms,) were both made of Lebanese cedar. I found out later that this type of wood is endangered, there is no way the bedrooms should've been made of the stuff.

Even though no one has lived in the rooms for a while, the smell of the wood is still quite strong. I like it for short times, but I can't imagine sleeping in there.
Off one side of each bedroom was a balcony that overlooked the entire backside of the property. Since I visited on a perfect fall weekend, the trees were a rainbow of colours, and the view was amazing.
Off the other side of each bedroom was the personal bathroom for each of them. Marble floors, of course. (Hers had blue marble in part of the design.) Each bathroom had a bathtub, separate from a shower.

Each shower stall wasn't nearly as big as I expected, howeva the decor was as over the top as I was coming to expect from this house. Each shower stall had mosaic decoration, and I could see a lot of gold. I could also see toilets, urinals, and bidets. Even the rubbish bins were really expensive. The faucets and what not had inlaid swarovski crystals. Oh, and there was a wide screen tv mounted above each bathtub.
Each bedroom had a walkin closet, which I think were the least impressive parts of the house. They weren't nearly as grand as everything else I saw. (In this case, when I use the word grand, or the word impressive, I don't mean them in a good way.) Apparently Yanukovich and his mistress weren't really into expensive clothing, or at least not in great quantities. 
There was no real kitchen in the house, which sounded like a joke to me at first. Then the guide explained to us that all the food was prepared in a special kitchen off sight, then tested for poison. It was only reheated and served in the house.

Throughout the house our guide pointed out doors in the walls that weren't easy to see. She explained that the doors were for the servants, because Yanukovich didn't want to see people wandering around the house. Each servant had a specific job, and was only supposed to be in a specific part of the house. After he fled, it was discovered that many of the servants hadn't seen much of the house, they'd only been in their specific areas. Ridiculous.
The official front entrance was over the top. A circular staircase going up one way, this one of marble. Some of the marble was blue marble, which is apparently rare. The ceiling of the front entrance was really high, and there was a chandelier hanging down. A big chandelier, with amber. Beautiful, but ridiculous.
The grand room (no one really knows if there is an official name for this room,) is big. Several sitting areas were arranged, as if it was the kind of room where a party would take place, and people would stand and sit in different areas.

Only guess what, he and his mistress were pretty much the only people who used the room. Occasionally others were here, but there were  no official parties, or state events.
Even the wood floor in the room was in different sections. Each part of the floor was beautiful.
There was a grand piano in the room, all white. It was an exact replica of what John Lennon used to write one of his songs. Our guide told us Yanukovich wasn't the only dictator to have an exact replica of this piano. Ridiculous.

There was a private Orthodox chapel in the house as well. Much of the iconostasis was decorated with valuable amber, the whole room was made of wood. It was beautiful, but there is no reason one man should have that all to himself. Ridiculous.
After exiting the house, we walked across the golf course (he had his own private golf course!) and wandered a bit. Now that the property is open to the public, families come out here for picnics. Totally awesome. The first time I visited, just after he fled, I wasn't allowed to walk on the golf course at all.

We made our way to the private retro car museum. All of the cars in the 'museum' were gifts to Yanukovich. Some were old, some were government type of cars, etc... I'm not really a car person, so we didn't spend much time there.
We walked down the hill to the water. The property is on the edge of the Kyiv Sea, and when Yanukovich lived there, the water was kept free of all traffic for quite a distance. In one area was a houseboat of sorts. It was permanently anchored and not open to visitors. I remember the first time I visited the property, when I looked in the windows of the boat and could see the alcohol and poker games owned by Yanukovich.

We came back up the hill and walked by the house in which the prime minister lived, the one Yanukovich declared as his official residence. It looks really puny next to the other house, but isn't small, not at all.
Eventually I was driven home.