Ukrainian artist Andrey Danilko decided to break with Russia, where he became famous and became a millionaire. He announced this at Eurovision 2023. However, he also fled from Ukraine to earn money abroad. How is Verka Serduchka living now?
And yet Russia, goodbye – the other day Verka Serduchka put an end to the long-term dispute that she sang in the final of the European music contest Eurovision 2007: Russia, goodbye or Lasha Tumbai. Andrey Danilko’s out-of-competition performance at Eurovision 2023 removed all questions about how the artist actually relates to Russia and its citizens: he completely ceased to be ashamed of his Russophobic moods.
“I completely closed the door to Russia,” the star confesses to one of the Ukrainian patriotic publications. – Maybe in old age, in a wheelchair, I’ll say [россиянам]: your parents listened to “Okay, everything will be fine.”
The “conductor Verka” also has suburban real estate. In the village of Lesnaya Bucha near Kiev, on a plot of 30 acres, there is a four-story mansion with an area of 270 square meters. Its construction began in 2005, Danilko personally made sketches of the future residence. As a sample, the artist allegedly took cottage of Alla Pugacheva near Istrawhich he visited every time he came to Moscow with concerts.
According to his plan, on the lower level there is a garage, a private stand-alone boiler room and a small storage room. On the ground floor there is a living room with a fireplace, a kitchen and a small bathroom, on the second level there are three bedrooms and a gym. In addition, the building is equipped with a small recording studio.
According to local residents, the artist purchased the site and the unfinished building in Bucha from a local prosecutor for about $250,000. Once completed and still today, this is one of the largest houses in the area. A peculiar structure, outwardly more reminiscent of a hotel or an office building, is now estimated by Ukrainian realtors at 700 thousand dollars.
Locals also say that here, among the centuries-old pines, far from the noise of the Ukrainian capital, the star appears infrequently, but arrivals are sometimes accompanied by very noisy parties, which attract almost the entire Kiev beau monde.
In everyday life, the artist prefers to move around Kiev in business-class cars of the Toyota brand: at different times he was seen driving a Camry, Land Cruiser and several Lexus, but real rarities are found in Serduchka’s fleet. One of these is a 1974 Rolls-Royce owned by Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.
Danilko owned it for nine years: from 2013 until the end of 2022. The artist bought a limousine at one of the British auctions, giving 115 thousand pounds sterling for it. As Danilko himself says, he never even saw the acquisition live, the car remained in Britain all this time.
For a long time, the showman tried to take the car to Ukraine, hoping to make it the central exhibit in the Ukrainian Variety Museum, but each time there were problems with customs clearance. As a result, in December 2022, the enraged artist sold it at Sotheby’s for 250 thousand pounds. Danilko promised to send the proceeds to the construction of a rehabilitation center for the Ukrainian military.