When Ukrainian autocrat Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia after a popular uprising in 2014, thousands of citizens poured into Mezhyhirya, his 340-acre estate on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Ordinary people, eager to see the lifestyle Yanukovych’s thievery had financed, found an opulent palace filled with chandeliers, exquisite inlaid wood and gilt. It had a private movie theater, bowling alley, golf course, dog kennel and ostrich farm. A tunnel connected the main house to a spa with an oxygen chamber and rooms devoted to different styles of massage. There was a sauna where journalists and activists dried out documents that members of the fallen regime had thrown into a lake before they departed.