Conceived as a 'playground for millionaires', Vozdvizhenka is modeled after 19th century architecture, featuring winding roads and colorful, elaborate architecture. Due to its proximity to capital of Ukraine (~0.5 mile away), it is chosen as the perfect real estate development opportunity. Similar to many other empty cities, Vozdvizhenka never came to be due to the 2008 financial crisis. The street sits empty now, with only a fifth of its homes sold.

      Compounding that fact is that the developers constructed the estates in poor qualities, disregarding the needs to strengthen foundations by adding floors to older existing buildings. The buildings began showing cracked walls, leaky basements and heating breakdowns ever since 2010. This further lowered investor confidence in the area, rendering the properties undesirable.

     While Vozdvyzhenska Street features a retail quarter, it never became quite as popular to the locals. ‘Tourism residential development’, similar to that of Hallstatt in China, did not seem to take off here. As people in the Ukraine are often exposed to these types of architecture, Vozdvyzhenka did not offer something that was particularly enticing to warrant its high price (in the beginning stages. The price has dropped quite a bit sincethen). The 2008 market crash did it no favors either; not only did the developer ran out of money, confidence in real estate was at an all time low, rendering many buyers hesitant, or flat out refuse to invest in properties.

Recently, there has been a renewed effort to breathe life into Vozdvyzhenska Street. The developer seems to have poured more money into the project into fixing the buildings and redoing some of the roads. Whether this will be a successful endeavor to attract buyers is still in the question.

RELATED MEDIA COVERS

DAILY MAIL: The 'oligarch's ghost town': 42-acre estate of mock 19th century houses at the heart of Kiev which have sat EMPTY since they were built because of the economic crash