Zelensky's apartment in Crimea auctioned for almost half a million dollars

The apartment that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his wife, Olena Zelenska, owned in the Crimean resort of Yalta was auctioned this Monday for 44.3 million rubles ($475,400).

According to the official Russian agency TASS, the property, confiscated last May by the Parliament imposed by Russia on the annexed Crimean peninsula, was auctioned in a prefinished state, since the presidential couple never lived in that property and only the walls They were whitewashed.

The apartment, for which two bidders bid, was awarded to a businesswoman specialized in real estate sales and apartment renovations, the Russian agency said.

The Zelensky family home has an area of 119.5 square meters and is located in the Imperator residential area in the town of Livadia, located on the outskirts of the popular seaside resort of Yalta, one of the main tourist destinations on the peninsula.

The property, which was registered in the name of Olena Zelenska, was put up for auction with a starting price of 24.6 million rubles (242,875 euros or $257,562 at the current exchange rate).

Zelensky's apartment has several rooms: a living room with a panoramic window to the balcony, a bedroom with a bathroom and a kitchen combined with a dining room.

The apartment is located on the fifth floor and from its balcony there are views of the Black Sea and the Livadia Palace with the adjacent garden. This palace was the resting home of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, shot by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

In February 1945, that imperial palace hosted the Yalta Conference that brought together the Soviet leaders, Joseph Stalin, the British leaders, Winston Churchill, and the American leaders, Franklin D.. Roosevelt.