History of Xpark 2002-2023. From the swamp to the largest active park in Europe. Zozulya Yuriy.

How did "X-park" appear 20 years ago?! Most of citizens don’t remember, but we have Google Maps from 2001 that remember everything.

Of course, nowadays, the desire to seize "X-park" is constantly appearing among authorities and raiders in power. There is already a developed infrastructure for active leisure businesses for citizens here. But let’s remember how it all started back in 2003 when it was just a swamp. Although, everything actually began even earlier, in 2000. During breaks from kitesurfing training, we started wakeboarding in Kyiv and began searching for a place to create a wake park. We studied foreign experience in wake parks and involved German consultants to choose the best water body in Kyiv for a wake park. To our surprise, after analyzing the water from almost 60 water places in Kyiv, the experts identified only two places with the cleanest water, one of which was the backwaters of the Desenka River. At that time, it was part of "Friendship of Nations Park" near the "Moscow Bridge".

The problem was that this was one of the worst places for investment. It was an abandoned park without lighting, electricity, toilets, sewage or water supply, with piles of trash. There was no mobile connection in the park.

You couldn’t even call the police or an ambulance, making it unsafe, and locals avoided it. There were no external utility networks.

And it was obvious why this part of the park was not developed. But it had the most important thing for a wake park — the cleanest water in Kyiv. Not for nothing, from which water flows in taps all over Kyiv. The Germans convinced us that only here we could be allowed to do world championship-level competitions and train children. We started planning and development, but later it turned out that this unguarded park had open access and had for decades been a free car wash spot for cars and trucks in the river, a dumping ground for waste from nearby areas, and for dumping waste from nearby districts and discharging sewage from vacuum trucks, which led to constant conflicts with our security team. The low elevation and swampy terrain prevented the development of the eastern part of the park. Therefore, everything was built on the western, higher bank, on the side of the Dnipro River near 'Borysfen' and 'Chervona Kalyna.' Meanwhile, the swampy part near Desenka was very expensive to develop the infrastructure, but we considered such swampiness was not critical for our seasonal wake park project with cableways but we were shocked when we ended up flooded in 2013. I'm standing right on the place where it used to be reeds and swamps, and in 2013 I was paddling here among the reeds on a SUP. Even more in 2023, when the entire 'X-park' ended up with one and a half meters underwater. The flooding caused massive damage each time, we built roads along the shore for reinforcement, cleaned the water bodies, raised the banks, and adapted to the floods. As a result, 'X-park' entered the top ten wake parks in the world, where we held a series of European World Championships and all Ukrainian championships since 2004.

In 2007, the city leased this flooded area to us. We installed electricity, installed Ukraine's first circular cable car with a wakepark road, built sewage treatment plants, toilets, installed lighting, agreed with operators and covered the territory with high-quality mobile connection and the Internet.

In 2010, the utility company "Pleso" began dredging operations in the swamp, north of "X-park", with the removal of sand on the beach of Kyiv, and as a result of which a quarry appeared from which they took sand and which in 2013 after the "Revolution of Dignity" they left.

After the investment competition in 2015, we were given the excavated area, and from 2015 to 2017, we reinforced the shoreline and leveled the quarry to fit the configuration the wakepark ropeway according to the requirements of the Federation for world-class competitions.

Now the SBI with the prosecutor's office and the mastermind of the attack Trubitsyn, his media whores from the pro-government crap channels, claim that they handed over this valuable piece of the community for which they could take another 140 million payments from us. But the fact is that for such crazy money, then in 2013, it would not have been interesting to us at all, and especially to other investors.

Even now, for such price it is literally absurd! Because this is a flooded, swampy area, without engineering structures, which we have transformed from a wasteland into a unique sports and attractive area, thanks to our own large investments recreation center of Kyiv and the largest asset park in Europe. Even before us, none of the investors took this land, and no one around "X-park" still takes it, by understanding the level of problems and costs. This place was constantly looking for investors and did not find any. Therefore, they once again turned to us with a proposal for the development of a social project - " The Great Kyiv Skatepark". We agreed, because for us it complements the sports infrastructure and adds to the record of the largest sports park in the world. But such level of attack on "X-park" as during the war, in all 20 years of construction, under all mayors and five presidents, and even under the criminal power of Yanukovych, the park did not experience such coordinated raids by law enforcement officers, with seizure of property and bans on business activity, there was never any in "X-park".

From 2015 to 2020 was the best turbulent time for the development of "X-park", where we organized the park and created locations for 190 sports. Since 2016, a unique, innovative rehabilitation center called "Base 4.5.0" has been opened for wounded soldiers. in 2018, together with the mayor, they initiated the renaming of the "Friendship of Nations" park to the "Muromets" park and the installation of a monument to Ilya Muromets,

a crane sculpture and an alley of wooden sculptures of heroes. It is very important to note that "X-park" was built without a penny of state funds.

Not a penny is spent on the maintenance of the park from the budget of Kyiv, while hundreds of millions are spent annually on such parks from the budget for improvement and tens of millions for maintenance. For all 20 years, we have not even received any support from state structures, neither during the pandemic, nor during the war, floods and other force majeure events beyond our control. On the contrary, the budget receives taxes, rent from us, not to mention the fact that about 400 employees are employed during the season. Since the beginning of the war, we have built a fortified area to contain Russian helicopter landing forces and then created a drone range with pilot schools. Even during the war, the development of "X-park" was not stopped. But in the fourth month of the war, a self-proclaimed deputy and briber named Trubitsyn, who is now hiding in Israel, initiated a commissioned criminal case together with the Security Intelligence Service on frivolous charges of violating the "X-park" development project. - You are filming the investigative action now! - No, this is not an investigative action!

- This is an investigative action! Leave the territory if you don't leave...

So began the frantic pressure on enterprises with arrests, sealing and prohibition of business activities, and this is all during the war. For one and a half years, the case has not been brought to court, there are no charges and nothing has been proven, and everything has already been arrested and the activity has been blocked. They are also purposefully trying to bring "X-park" to bankruptcy.

"- Leave the area." Currently, "X-park" has stopped its development and is engaged in the fight against attacks by pro-government criminal groups. At the same time, we are spreading the word so that other investors know how in one minute in Ukraine, a judge and a prosecutor can arrest everything that an investor has created for 20 years and spent 300 million of his investment on it, without charges or proof of guilt.

High-ranking raiders understand that the main value is not gazebos with cafes and sports fields, but hundreds of millions of investments spent, mainly on site preparation and engineering infrastructure. Namely - the area raised from the swamps, coastal fortifications, cleaned reservoirs, roads, bridges, electricity, sewage, water supply and the Internet.

Therefore, they and the prosecutors, first of all, seize this property.

But we do not give up, even though there are many trials ahead.

-Glory to the Nation! - Death to the enemies! -Ukraine above all else!

© All materials of the article are copyrighted by Yuriy Zozulya. When using theses, especially in presentations, dissertations and theses, the reference to the article is mandatory for the elimination of conflicts "plagiarism monitoring".

Yuriy Zozulya (businessman, philanthropist, public figure, founder and investor of Хpark, president Ukrainian Wake Federation UWF, officer)

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