A story is unfolding in the capital's Peremoha Park, which may end with the disappearance of one of Kyiv's key children's sports facilities - the Kryzhynka ice arena. The land plot in the recreational area was changed for development, and the facility itself went through a series of resales and legal transformations.
This is a skating rink at 7 Knyazya Romana Mstislavycha St. (formerly 7 Zhmachenko St.), which for many years served as a training base for two children's and youth sports schools - "Leader" and "Suite". In December last year, the head of the Ukrainian Figure Skating Federation, Danil Amirkhanov, appealed to Vitali Klitschko with a request to intervene in the situation. According to him, from January 1, 2026, the rink's activities should be discontinued due to the sale of the building for other use.
A petition to preserve Kryzhynka, registered on the Kyiv City Council website, quickly gained over 6,000 votes. However, this did not stop the process of changing the status of the object.
The history of the skating rink begins in 1982, when it was built under the patronage of Kyivkhimvolokno OJSC. In 2003, by order of the Kyiv City State Administration, the assets of the enterprise, including Kryzhinka, were to be transferred to the municipal property of the city. Subsequently, the facility was assigned to the Kyiv City School of Higher Sports Mastery.
However, in 2014, the building was sold to Entoris LLC, which is associated with businessman Yevgeny Vorchilov, a figure in a number of high-profile land cases in the center of the capital. In 2021, Entoris sold the skating rink to Force-Pharma Distribution LLC, which specializes in importing medicines.
In 2022, Yevhen Taranyuk became the owner of the company. Already in 2023, Force-Pharma Distribution appeared in criminal proceedings regarding the possible circulation of counterfeit medicines. Investigative actions were carried out as part of the investigation of the National Police.
In 2025, the rink building was resold again — this time to Energy Energo Invest LLC, owned by Mykola Galitsky. He publicly announced the reconstruction of the building. At the same time, an ice arena is no longer expected after the reconstruction.
A key element of the scheme was the change in the status of the property. In 2021, the building was formally divided into two objects - 29.3 sq. m and 2410 sq. m. After that, it was transferred from a sports facility to the category of "non-residential building". This allowed changing the purpose of the land plot from recreational to residential and public development.
The plot of land with an area of 0.2977 hectares with cadastral number 8000000000:66:134:0016 has been registered under the new status. Thus, the Peremoha Park is actually losing part of its recreational area.
In parallel, the city continued to rent the skating rink for children's classes. According to the Prozorro system, in 2025, the "Leader" and "Suite" schools concluded lease agreements for UAH 6.6 million with Atek-Sport LLC. The cost of an hour of rental increased from UAH 4,100 in 2023 to UAH 6,700 in 2025.
The Kyiv City State Administration claims that the complex was privately owned, and the city only rented it for training. At the same time, the question of why the mechanism for returning the facility to municipal ownership has not been implemented over the years remains open.
Against the backdrop of the fact that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, at least six professional ice arenas have been destroyed or damaged — including Altair in Druzhkivka, Saltivskyi Ice in Kharkiv, and the Ice Palace in Severodonetsk — the story of Kryzhynka seems particularly telling.
If the reconstruction takes place in the planned format, Kyiv may lose one of the key children's figure skating bases not because of the war, but because of legal manipulations with land within the city park.
