How "Dynasty" was built: land at half price, sand from cemetery, and double shifts
In July 2025, Bihus.Info journalists discovered four waterfront estates in Kozyn. It was revealed that they occupy nearly 8 hectares on the banks of the Kozynka River and are officially at the disposal of the Bloom Development company.
Since 2018, Chernyshov had been among the co-owners of this company.
At that time, Vitalii Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre (AntAC), suggested that, in addition to the former minister, estates could be built there for Timur Mindich, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Andriy Yermak.
At the end of July, an attack on anti-corruption agencies occurs, and in early November, it becomes clear that energy sector schemes were orchestrated for the sake of building five houses in Kozyn with the pompous name "Dynasty" for the president's close friends.
However, during all this time, due to "two millions to Moscow," feng shui specialists, and other details of the case, the actual history of the construction and its criminal component were lost.
And it is highly interesting.
Thus, according to NABU's statement, over the course of 2021–2025, the suspects laundered over UAH 460 million through the construction of a cottage town in the village of Kozyn, Kyiv region.
This concerns the construction of four private residences with auxiliary buildings and structures, as well as a separate shared residence—a spa zone, on land plots with a total area of about 8 hectares.
A portion of the funds spent on the construction was received through a so-called "laundromat" controlled by Mindich, the future owner of one of the residences. This amounts to nearly USD 9 million.
Financing, in particular, was carried out using funds obtained as a result of implementing corruption schemes at PJSC NNEGC Energoatom.
Charges: Part 3, Article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
This is what is on the NABU website and what made the news.
But here is what remained behind the scenes.
For instance, parallel to the serving of a notice of suspicion to the former Head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, the High Anti-Corruption Court reviewed other episodes of the case. And since they do not concern top officials who typically did not do anything with their own hands, these hearings are much more informative.
For example, in April, a ruling appeared in the register of court decisions detailing how this land in Kozyn was obtained in 2019. Because there is a separate criminal proceeding regarding that.
A hundred square meters at half the price
As is known from the case materials, the owner of the land in Kozyn is the Bloom Development company, the beneficiary of which until 2019 was Oleksii Chernyshov, and until 2023, his wife Svitlana.
Thus, according to the case files, Chernyshov's company, through collusion with the head of the Kozyn village council, received the land at an understated price; at the time of sale, land in Kozyn cost between USD 3,900 and USD 20,000 per hundred square meters. However, NESINA AND COMPANY LLC appraised this land for Oleksii Chernyshov's firm at only USD 770 per hundred square meters.
Therefore, instead of the minimum price of UAH 43,246,120, only UAH 8,758,275.15 was paid for the land.
At the same time, a "summary" file was found on the electronic devices of the persons involved in the case, which detailed how to obtain the land for USD 800.
The acquired land was transferred to the management of the Soniachnyi Bereh cooperative. In 2019, Chernyshov officially lent UAH 3.6 million to this cooperative. During 2020-2025, UAH 52 million was accumulated in the cooperative's accounts, which was then transferred to Active Technology for construction.
These funds were paid via bank transfer. The rest was paid in cash.
As the prosecutor explained during the hearing in the case of Chernyshov's assistant Medvedieva, there were two routes:
The first was through Mindich, based on the results of the operation of a so-called "laundromat," from which Chernyshov collected them, in particular, through his wife. Subsequently, they were transferred through Medvedieva, who, after coordinating the relevant actions, spent these funds to pay for the work performed by Active Technology LLC.
The third route was from Mindich to Nataliia Kvelenkova, who was the construction overseer.
The construction began during COVID and was not stopped even when the Russians were almost near Kyiv. During this time, Oleksii Chernyshov moved from the chair of the Head of the Kyiv Regional State Administration to the office of the head of Naftogaz. Even then, rumors were circulating that his rise was facilitated by his friendship with the president's family, as well as with Timur Mindich, one of the owners of Kvartal 95. In 2021, Serhii Shefir stepped away from affairs following a mysterious assassination attempt, and Mindich himself became the shadow overseer of the energy sector in his place. And, according to Censor.NET sources, it was Mindich who brought another figure in the NABU cases, Rostyslav Shurma, to the Office of the President.
Furthermore, as journalists later discovered, Olena Zelenska and Andriy Yermak baptized Oleksii Chernyshov's youngest daughter.
On June 4, 2020, Chernyshov's assistant, Maryna Medvedieva, sent a letter to Ihor Martynkevych (a representative of the construction company), proposing a meeting for the following Saturday at 12:00, provided Chernyshov does not have a conference call.
Later, Chernyshov himself wrote to Martynkevych asking for a brief conversation, and also passed on the contact details of Timur, whose phone number was identified as Mindich's.
Next, Chernyshov wrote the following message in Russian: "The discussion was conducted mainly by comparing options 1 and 3. Option 2 was excluded due to unsuitability. Option 3 received the most votes. As a next step, we plan to develop option 3 in terms of content and the location of infrastructure facilities. A decision was also made on the need to develop a master plan option that includes the neighboring plot with the lake. The timeframe for preparing new materials is expected by the next meeting of the participants," the prosecutor noted in the case regarding the selection of a preventive measure for Chernyshov's assistant, who was disbursing the funds.
Also in June 2020, Martynkevych arranged meetings with Mindich and Syranchuk, who managed Soniachnyi Bereh.
In July, Medvedieva arranged another meeting with Martynkevych from Active Technology so that Chernyshov's wife, Svitlana, "could go over the layout once again."
Martynkevych again sent the files with the house plans through Medvedieva, and additionally forwarded the entire project to Mindich.
Mindich pointed out the need to increase the security zone and include the lake. Bloom Development later purchased the lake for fishing.
On a computer seized from one of the Soniachnyi Bereh representatives, Nikolaienko, detectives found a preliminary financing plan that envisaged USD 8,524,548.
Approved wardrobe and sand from a cemetery
Active construction began in the summer of 2021. On this occasion, the site was consecrated, and a commemorative capsule was buried. A priest was invited to perform the consecration; his wife would later feature in another case involving Che Guevara (Chernyshov) as the person under whose name one of the apartments, given to the minister as a bribe for the allocated land, was registered.
In December 2021, Kvelenkova asked Andriy Yermak to provide final approvals for the projects so as not to delay the construction.
On February 16, 2022, which was considered one of the dates of Russia's attack, Kvelenkova asked the Head of the Presidential Office to approve the wardrobe project.
Construction was not stopped even during the full-scale invasion. They were looking for people who could come to work.
On March 29, 2022, Chernyshov exchanged messages with his wife, and a phrase was mentioned that construction had to be resumed because windows and roof tiles were arriving. Evidently, the horrors of Bucha left some people unmoved.
But in the summer of 2022, the unpredictable happened at the construction site—the National Police arrived there with searches, as they discovered that the sand for "Dynasty" had been stolen from a cemetery in Ukrainka, which a concerned citizen had reported by calling 102.
"The pre-trial investigation established that the Obukhiv District Police Department received a report on the '102' line from an employee of the Security Service of Ukraine stating that unknown persons were illegally extracting minerals, namely sand, at a cemetery located near the railway in the city of Ukrainka, Obukhiv district, Kyiv region. Two vehicles are located on the territory of the cemetery and are extracting the sand," reads the court ruling in this case.
"The sand, the extraction of which was carried out by unidentified persons on the territory of the cemetery in the city of Ukrainka, was likely transported to a private territory, specifically a land plot located in the urban-type settlement of Kozyn, Obukhiv district. The removal of sand is carried out using Mercedes-Benz trucks," the text continues. Accordingly, an SBU operative in the Obukhiv district asked the court to conduct searches on the plot. He was granted permission.
Whether the investors were informed about the story with the cemetery remains unknown.
One can only hope that Yermak's visits to the contractors in June and July 2022 were not related to this.
Tenders for dad
At the same time, judging by the correspondence between Yermak's father and the contractors, the clients approached both the construction and the pricing very meticulously.
"Serhii, my dear, everything was clear to me even after our meeting. I want our position to be clear. As a person who is directly related to R2 and has the corresponding authority from him, and you know this, I want not only to track what the funds transferred for the construction of R2 are spent on, but also to participate in the approval, including tender procedures for the cost of purchasing materials and equipment, as well as to conduct an audit of the certificates of completed works," wrote Yermak's father to Serhii Syranchuk, who oversaw the construction on behalf of Chernyshov.
But even despite this, as early as the summer of 2025, Kvelenkova and Mindich discussed that Chernyshov might have used the shared funds to finish building his house faster.
Kvelenkova: Look at this house and this one. Look at this combination. They made this one ready. This one is fully insulated with internal engineering, air conditioners, fans, and underfloor heating. This first house is fully loaded, and the fourth one too. Andriy only has the facades. And you do not even have that.
Kvelenkova: I told you back then that he was bullsh#tting when you first sent me there. I told you that we were short. Damn, I can see what he is doing. Even here, even here, what he is doing—now that one is running around, crying. By the way, what should we do about the electricity? The bastard disconnected it. If we do not pay by the fifth, he will cut it off. He pays for everything, after all: for garbage collection, for electricity.
Mindich agreed with her: "I think Chernyshov was building at our expense."
As noted in the NABU video, prior to the notice of suspicion being served to Yermak, only 10 percent of the funds that went into the construction had been legalized. The rest was gray cash.
And in 2024, the company that carried out the construction exchanged internal messages on how to agree with their "favorite client" on a better money laundering percentage.
We will not repeat how the money was taken from Tsukerman's laundromat and handed over to Chernyshov's wife at a clinic.
Then, the funds ended up in the safe of Chernyshov's assistant, Medvedieva, and she distributed them for the completed work. As well as for family needs.
In particular, it was within the framework of her case that interesting fragments of the Chernyshovs' family relations were revealed.
In the correspondence, Svitlana Chernyshova asked her husband where she should get money for personal items.
To which her husband wrote: "The procedure is as follows: you ask me, and I give her (Medvedieva - ed.) the order."
However, at the moment when NABU served the first notice of suspicion to Chernyshov regarding apartment bribes, the entire scheme collapsed. Continuing the financing became dangerous. Chernyshov's team left the construction project. And Mindich decided to freeze the construction.
But it was already too late...
P.S. Despite the fact that the persons involved hid and threw away their laptops and phones, most of the information and correspondence was extracted from the contractors' phones. And the court materials regarding preventive measures for secondary figures sometimes turned out to be more informative than those for Chernyshov and Yermak.
Tetiana Nikolaienko, "Censor.NET"
