Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A royal residence in Kievan Rus times, the small town of Vyshhorod is at least as old as
Kyiv, though today is no more than a dormitory town with a couple of pretty churches.
Around 1km east of the town a dam holds back the Kyiv Sea, obviously not a sea at all
but a 110km-long, 922 sq km reservoir extending north and supplying the capital with
drinking water and some electricity generated by a hydroelectric power plant.
The normally placid waters of the Kyiv Sea are popular with yachtsmen and fisher-
men, but the forests reaching deep into Polissya and the mile after deserted mile of sandy
beach are the real off-the-beaten-track reasons to come. Walks into the endless woods are
popular with foraging locals, but the northern end is worryingly close to Chernobyl so be
wary of picking mushrooms and berries.
The favourite spot of Princess Olga a millennium ago, royalty has returned to the Vy-
shhorod area in recent years. About 3km up the coast from the dam rises one of the most
controversial buildings in Ukrai ne -
President Yanukovych's residence
. Home to
Soviet bigwigs until 1991, the residence was built on the site of the ancient Mezhyhiriya
Monastery, which once overlooked the Dnipro. Yanukovych moved in when serving as
prime minister, then, it's alleged, illegally 'privatised' the 137-hectare complex. Since
then extensive building work has been taking place to bring the residence up to the stand-
ard expected by King Yanyk, with rumours abounding of solid-gold toilets, US$64,000
Lebanese cedar doors and a private zoo packed with exotic animals. It's Ukraine's very
own Versailles and, like the palaces of the Arab world's erstwhile despots, a definite fu-
ture tourist attraction when the day of reckoning comes for the Party of the Regions.
You'd be lucky to get anywhere near the place today, however, and even locals need spe-
cial passes to use the surrounding roads, Ukraine's smoothest and best maintained. Journ-
alists trying to get snaps of the complex are often met by heavily armed special forces.
To reach Vyshhorod take the metro to Heroyiv Dnipra station in far northern Kyiv,
from where
marshrutky
leave every few minutes.
