Lviv IT-company SoftServe plans to invest over $100 million in the construction of a creative office campus on the site of Lviv penal colony No. 48 acquired for UAH 377.5 million at a privatization auction.
According to a SoftServe press release on the Business Wire portal, construction will begin in 2022 and it will take about five years. An international architectural bureau will be involved in the work on the project.
“The new campus will not only breathe new life into the whole district of Lviv, but will also continue the development of the city as a major educational and technological hub in Ukraine and in the world,” the co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of SoftServe, Oleh Denys, said.
According to the project, the campus will house SoftServe offices, as well as the company’s corporate university, conference rooms and exhibition grounds, a school and a kindergarten, and apartments.
As reported, SoftServe acquired Lviv penal colony No. 48 on a 10.7 hectare plot for UAH 377.5 million at a privatization auction held on June 3.
SoftServe specializes in software production, development services, quality control and support of information systems and business solutions. To date, about 10,000 employees of the company work in 38 offices. The main offices of the company are located in Lviv and Austin (Texas, the United States). The company’s development centers are located in Lviv, Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernyvtsi, Sofia (Bulgaria) and Wroclaw, Bialystok, Gliwice and Warsaw (Poland).
The city of Odesa in June this year attracted five-year loans from the state-owned Oschadbank, Ukreximbank and Ukrgasbank for a total of UAH 1.2 billion, and the cities of Lviv, Novomoskovsk and Khmelnytsky – three more five-year loans for UAH 350 million.
According to the information of the Ministry of Finance on its website, apart from Khmelnytsky, all loans were obtained at a floating rate pegged to the key policy rate of the National Bank of Ukraine.
In the case of Odesa, the loan price was the NBU key policy rate + 4.5%: Oschadbank and Ukreximbank each allocated UAH 450 million, and Ukrgasbank – UAH 300 million.
Lviv managed to attract funds the cheapest of all – UAH 220 million from Ukrgasbank at the NBU key policy rate + 2.5%, while the smaller city – Novomoskovsk (Dnipropetrovsk region) raised UAH 70 million from Ukreximbank at the NBU key policy rate + 5.3%.
Khmelnytsky was able to get UAH 60 million from Ukrgasbank at 11.9%.
Danylo Halytsky Lviv International Airport in January-June 2021 increased passenger traffic by 36.6% compared to the same period in 2020 – up to 512,370 people.
In particular, the airport served 4,450 international and more than 1,000 domestic flights.
For the six months of this year, the number of flights for arrival/departure from the airport amounted to 5,514, which is 47.4% more than a year earlier. In particular, the airport served 4,450 international and more than 1,000 domestic flights, the airport said on its official Facebook page on Friday.
The most popular destinations in terms of passenger traffic are Antalya, Istanbul (SAW, IST), Sharm el-Sheikh, Hurghada and Kyiv (Boryspil International Airport).
As reported, in 2020, the international airport Lviv reduced passenger traffic by 2.5 times by 2019 – to 878,500 people.
Flynas Airlines (Saudi Arabia) will start operating direct regular flights from Riyadh to Lviv from July 3.
According to the information on the airline’s website, flights will be operated twice a week.
In addition, direct flights of the airline from Jeddah to Kyiv will be launched on July 2. They will be operated three times a week.
Earlier, the Ukrainian SkyUp Airlines announced the launch of charter flights from Lviv to Saudi Arabia (Al-Qassim).
Vaccination centers were opened in Kyiv, Lviv and Odesa during May 29-30, where local residents can get vaccinated.
According to the press service of the Kyiv City State Administration, 3,467 people were vaccinated at the COVID-19 vaccination center created on the basis of the International Exhibition Center in the capital. In particular, 2,072 people received vaccinations on Sunday.
“Today the number of people wishing to get vaccinated was extremely large. For me, this is an evidence of the awareness and consciousness of people. Such a willingness to be vaccinated gives hope that with the availability of vaccines we will be able to overcome the pandemic in the country and in the world as a whole,” first deputy head of the Kyiv City State Administration Mykola Povoroznyk said.
As reported, the residents of Kyiv who registered in the Diia application were vaccinated with the CoronaVac vaccine. Some 16 teams worked at the Vaccination Center. The vaccination team included a registrar, a doctor and a nurse, who underwent special training.
“All conditions have been created here for a safe vaccination process, and an ambulance team is on duty to provide emergency medical assistance, if any,” the message says.
In Lviv, a vaccination center was created on the basis of the Lviv Arena, which will work next weekend.
According to head of the Lviv Regional State Administration Maksym Kozytsky, 1,041 local residents were vaccinated in two days.
“Lviv region is the leader in terms of vaccination rates, today almost 78,000 people were vaccinated and protected themselves from the coronavirus,” Kozytsky wrote on his Facebook page.
He reported that the entrance to the center is free. Also, if additional vaccine is available, the possibility of deploying such centers in other districts of the city will be considered, which will be announced additionally.
Another COVID-19 vaccination center was opened in Odesa on the territory of the stadium of the National University Odesa Law Academy, which will work from 0900 to 1700.
The State Aviation Service of Ukraine has granted the new Ukrainian airline Bees Airline the rights to operate the Kyiv – Lviv – Kyiv, Kyiv – Odesa – Kyiv and Kyiv – Kherson – Kyiv airlines. Order of the State Aviation Service No. 655 dated April 26, 2021 was published on its website.
According to the document, the frequency of these flights and the duration of the rights are not limited.
As reported, the State Aviation Service of Ukraine issued an operator certificate to Bees Airline on March 12, 2021. Later, the regulator allowed the company to operate flights on 31 routes – 15 regular and 16 charter flights.
Bees Airline made its first charter flight from Kyiv to Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt) by order of the tour operator Tez Tour Ukraine on March 18, 2021.
According to the public register of civil aircraft of Ukraine, Bees Airline registered two aircraft in Ukraine – Boeing 737-800 with registration numbers UR-UBA and UR-UBB. Both aircraft are produced in 2010 and belong to San Clemente Leasing LLC (the United States).
According to Bees Airline CEO Yevhen Khainatsky, by the end of 2021 the fleet will be replenished with two more aircraft. Another two are planned to arrive in 2022.
The base airport of Bees Airline is Kyiv International Airport named after Ihor Sikorsky.
According to the data in the register, the beneficial owners of Bees Airline are Serhiy Smirny (90%) and Khainatsky (10%).
Previously, Khainatsky was CEO of another Ukrainian airline – SkyUp Airlines.
