Odesa Court Invalidates Sale of Historic Dubetskyi Estate, Orders Return to Vyhodianske Community

The Economic Court of Odesa Oblast has upheld the prosecutor's claim and invalidated the contract of sale of non-residential real estate concluded between Vasylivka Village Council (now Vyhodianska community) and Ukrainian Cable Company Limited Liability Company.

This was reported by Yevhen Volosevych, a deputy of Vygodianske village council.

The agreement was concluded in 2010, and litigation over its termination began in the summer of 2023. The LLC is obliged to return the non-residential building "Panskyi Mestok" (former estate of General Dubetskyi) with an area of 2,306.9 square meters located in the village of Vasylivka to the Vyhodianske village council.

The Dubetsky-Pankeyev Palace-Estate ("Wolf's Lair") is an architectural monument located in the village of Vasylivka, Odesa district, Odesa region. It includes a palace (now in ruins) and an adjacent park with a fountain (abandoned). The most famous patient of Sigmund Freud, Serhii Pankeev, grew up and lived here.

The estate was built between 1830 and 1854. According to some reports, the palace building could have been designed by the author of the Potemkin Stairs, Odesa architect Franz Boffo. Another famous architect, Ivan Dallakva, was in charge of the park around the estate. The estate belonged to the Dubetskyi family and was built by Major General Vasyl Dubetskyi.

There is a version that Vasyl Dubetskyi built his estate as a smaller copy of the Winter Palace, for which he fell out of favor with Emperor Nicholas I.

From 1917 to 1920 the estate was occupied by a police station (NKVD). After 1920, local residents lived here. There were administrative offices, a club, and a cinema. After 1991, the building began to deteriorate. Local residents took out window frames and doors, and broke the walls into bricks for their own buildings. As a result, the roof and floors collapsed; in early 2000, the main western wall of the central building collapsed.

In 2007, the manor was sold for 1 million hryvnias to the Ukrainian Cable Company LLC under the obligation of historical reconstruction by 2017. However, the restoration work has not been started.

Кирило Бойко