For the past 30 years, a private company with the telling name “Petro the Great” has used corrupt officials to effectively monopolize the funeral services market in Kyiv. Thanks to this grip on the market, the company’s founder and director, Alla Landar, has been making massive profits off the families of deceased Kyiv residents — charging prices far above market rates without facing any consequences.
How Alla Landar, a Pro-Regions Party Supporter and Maidan Opponent, Threatened a War Veteran
“Back off if you want to stay alive“. These were the kinds of threats received by war veteran and Azovstal defender Oleksandr Skoryk, shortly after he was appointed deputy director of Kyiv’s municipal funeral service, “Spetskombinat.” He began receiving these and other messages like “Funeral services aren’t for soldiers. Stay out of this business!” after reporting the activities of a private company called “Petro the Great” to law enforcement. For over 20 years, “Petro the Great” has held a monopoly on Kyiv’s funeral services and used this position to charge grieving families outrageously high prices—making enormous profits from their loss.
“This is worse than the orcs,” blogger Andrii Fedorov commented. The company is named after both a russian emperor and a nuclear-powered missile cruiser — flagship of the russian navy. And even now, almost three years into russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the company has not changed its name. Clearly, this is no coincidence.
Its owner, Alla Landar, appears to be a staunch supporter of the “russian world.” According to open sources, she actively supported the pro-russian Party of Regions during the Yanukovych era and opposed the Euromaidan movement. Until 2012, Landar served as an assistant to Party of Regions MP Ihor Prasolov — one of Rinat Akhmetov’s top business managers and later Minister of Economy under Prime Minister Azarov.
In 2014, activists accused Landar of obstructing organizations that were helping injured Maidan protesters. She was also repeatedly seen cooperating with representatives of the moscow patriarchate church.
Because of all this, some journalists and civic activists now suspect that Alla Landar—the head of “Petro the Great” — might be working with russian intelligence services.
But this isn’t even the most disgraceful thing Alla Landar is accused of. What outrages Kyiv residents the most is how “Petro the Great” exploits its corruption-driven monopoly over the funeral market to bleed dry the families of fallen Ukrainian soldiers—charging them sky-high prices for burial services. Why? Because they know the families of the deceased receive state compensation of 15 million UAH (around $380,000).
“Unfortunately, for some people, burying soldiers is just a profitable business. The more soldiers die, the more money the funeral mafia makes,” said veteran Oleksandr Skoryk.
How “Petro the Great” Took Over Kyiv’s Funeral Market
After someone dies, doctors or police often leak this information directly to funeral companies. These companies then immediately start calling the deceased’s relatives, pressuring them to use their services. This is a common practice among many private funeral providers in Ukraine. They bribe medical staff and law enforcement to get early access to the information. Sometimes, it even leads to literal fights between firms competing to “claim” the body.
But “Petro the Great” didn’t want to share clients with anyone. Their strategy was to make sure grieving families had no other choice. The idea was simple: be physically present in every hospital and morgue in Kyiv, and make deals with hospital management to send all families directly to Alla Landar’s company. Once you have a monopoly, you can set prices as high as you want.
The private firm “Petro the Great” was founded back in 1994 — during a time of deep poverty, street violence, and high mortality. The idea to turn death into a profitable business came from Alla Landar’s father, Petro Pohrebnyi, a former Communist Party official who had moved into the construction business by the early 90s. At the time, he was heading the agro-industrial association “Budmaterial.” According to him, he started the funeral company to help employees arrange burials.
The name itself — “Petro the Great” — says a lot. There’s something grandiose, almost imperial, about naming your company after yourself with such a title. It speaks volumes about the mentality behind it. By 2009, according to media reports, the firm had already become a dominant player in Kyiv’s funeral services market.
But when Leonid Chernovetskyi became mayor of Kyiv, he started to shake up the market. Pohrebnyi took the dispute public, accusing city officials of steering all funeral-related profits toward firms they controlled. Eventually, the conflict ended in Pohrebnyi’s favor. He seemed to realize that to survive in this business, you needed to become friends with the authorities — not fight them.
It’s unclear what exactly he offered the city leadership, but in September 2009, Kyiv’s Health Department issued Order No. 337. This order introduced “temporary rules” for declaring deaths at home and handling bodies in medical facilities. Under these rules, doctors and city services were instructed to deliver bodies to just four of Kyiv’s nineteen morgues — those located on Kharkivske Highway, Rizka Street, Pidvysotskoho Street, and Kondratiuka Street. “Petro the Great” had already rented office space inside three of those hospitals, and soon opened up shop in the fourth as well. Overnight, the entire flow of clients was directed to one company.
Pohrebnyi passed away in 2011, and his daughter Alla Landar took over. She clearly learned her father’s key lesson — if you want privileges in business, you need to stay close to those in power.
Even before her father’s death, she founded a public organization called “Kyiv City Committee for Business Protection.” Among its co-founders were two other businessmen close to city authorities: Mykola Kryvorot, who owns many kiosks (MAFs), a bar on Khreshchatyk 12 called “Tusa Bar,” and a restaurant at Khreshchatyk 50. In GetContact, his number is tagged with names like “Mykola KCSA Lawyer” and “Khreshchatyk Kiosk Lawyer.” The second co-founder was Yurii Artemenko, the owner of the passenger transport company “NadiyaPasTrans,” which also works under Kyiv City Administration contracts.
To maintain a monopoly, you also need ties to the agency responsible for fighting monopolies. So, on September 30, 2011, Alla Landar became a member of the Public Council at Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee. From 2012, she also joined the Public Council under the State Regulatory Service of Ukraine, and in 2013 — the Council of Entrepreneurs under the Cabinet of Ministers. At the time, the minister in charge was none other than her former boss from the Party of Regions, Ihor Prasolov. At this point, she wasn’t just a businesswoman — she was a businesswoman with serious political connections and influence.
Why Alla Landar Created a Whole Funeral Empire of Companies and Sole Proprietors
Alla Landar’s funeral empire is much bigger than just her main company, the private firm “Petro the Great.” It’s a sprawling network of businesses and sole proprietorships registered to her family members.
In addition to the flagship company, her empire includes:
- “Petro the Great-Fastiv,” a private firm founded in 2007
- “Internet Bureau of Funeral Services” LLC, established in 2015 and owned by her brother Yurii Pohrebnyi and his wife, Lithuanian citizen Erika Pohrebna-Poshke
- “8 200” LLC, registered under Alla Landar’s name in 2017, which operates as the sales arm for funeral merchandise in retail shops
Most of her family is involved in the business — at least on paper. In reality, it’s likely that these family members only registered the businesses, while all operations are handled by Alla Landar herself.
Here’s the list of individual entrepreneurs tied to her:
- Alla Landar (registered in 2002)
- Her son, Vladyslav Landar (registered in 2015)
- His wife, Yelyzaveta Landar (registered in 2018)
- Her brother, Yurii Pohrebnyi (registered in 2018)
And his wife, Erika Pohrebna-Poshke (registered in 2016)
All of these businesses are officially registered under either funeral services or catering as their primary activity. Most of the companies and sole proprietorships in Landar’s funeral empire share the same legal address — 20 Kolomyiskyi Lane in Kyiv.
That’s where Alla Landar’s office is located: a three-story building covering 1,110 square meters, which used to be a kindergarten. She took ownership of the property through a court ruling.
This network of nearly a dozen legal entities and sole proprietorships exists for two main reasons. First — tax optimization. Running funeral income through sole proprietors (FOPs) is much more profitable than through LLCs or private companies, which are required to pay VAT, income tax, and other corporate taxes. That’s why most of Alla Landar’s businesses consistently report minimal profits — or even losses — in their financial statements.
For example, her main company, “Private Enterprise Petro the Great,” reported about 3 million UAH in revenue in both 2015 and 2016. But its net profit was tiny — just 10,000 to 100,000 UAH per year. In 2017–2018, revenue grew to 4–5 million UAH, yet the company still reported a net loss of 180,000 UAH. In 2019, the story was the same: 5 million in turnover, 360,000 UAH in losses. The trend didn’t change in recent years. With revenues ranging from 4.3 million to 7 million UAH, the company either showed a small profit — between 78,000 and 300,000 UAH — or a loss of over 1 million UAH.
The same pattern applies to PE “8 200.” Each year, the company reports no more than 1.2 million UAH in revenue, while its net profit is laughably low — just 28,000 UAH in 2023, and only 1,700 UAH in 2022.
As for Alla Landar’s other two companies, they haven’t filed any financial reports at all.
But it’s a very different story with the family’s sole proprietorships. While her companies report losses or minimal profits, Alla Landar’s own sole proprietorship brought in 9 million UAH in 2023. Her son’s sole proprietorship earned 5.5 million UAH, his wife Yelyzaveta’s — 7.5 million UAH. Her brother Yurii Pohrebnyi earned 2.9 million UAH, and his wife Erika — another 1 million UAH.
This clearly shows how Alla Landar avoids paying taxes. Her VAT-paying companies report almost no profits, while a web of related sole proprietors quietly rakes in millions each year. In 2020, these sole proprietors earned a combined 5 million UAH. In 2021, the total rose to 8.4 million. In 2022 — 9.4 million. And in 2023 alone, the Landar family’s sole proprietors pocketed a massive 26 million UAH.
In just four years, this scheme helped the “funeral queen” multiply her income fivefold — all while dodging nearly 10 million UAH in VAT.
How Kyiv City Officials and Doctors Help Alla Landar’s Funeral Business Thrive
The second reason for maintaining a network of sole proprietors and private companies is to create the illusion of competition in tenders for renting space in hospitals and morgues — a key pillar of Alla Landar’s funeral empire. Together, “Petro the Great,” LLC “8200,” LLC “Internet Bureau of Funeral Services,” and Landar’s sole proprietorship currently rent premises in 17 medical institutions across Kyiv.
These locations include some of the most well-known hospitals in the city: the Main Military Hospital in Pechersk, the Amosov Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery, Kyiv Emergency Hospital, City Clinical Hospital No. 6, the central forensic bureau on Dorogozhychi, and many others. By our estimate, Landar’s businesses have a presence in nearly half of Kyiv’s largest medical facilities.
Technically, these premises are leased through public tenders. But in reality, Landar’s firms frequently compete only against each other in staged “mock auctions.” For example, in 2021, “Petro the Great” won the lease for 122 square meters at the Kyiv Emergency Hospital on Bratislavska Street by competing against Landar’s other company, LLC “8200.” In another case, in 2022, Erika Pohrebna-Poške (Landar’s brother’s wife) won a lease at Children’s Hospital No. 7 — her sole proprietorship narrowly beating that of Alla Landar herself.
In every case, the Department of Municipal Property of Kyiv — specifically deputy directors Yurii Berehovyi and Oleh Shmuliar — approved the results and signed off on the contracts with Landar’s firms. Shmuliar has been repeatedly accused of corruption and negligence regarding the leasing of city-owned properties, resulting in millions of hryvnias in losses.
And it’s easy to see why. These officials consistently ignore the obvious ties between bidding entities, allowing Landar’s companies to rent prime spaces for next to nothing. For instance, Landar pays just 1,197 UAH per month for 20 square meters at the Main Military Hospital — located in one of the most expensive areas of Kyiv. Given the average market rate in Pechersk is around 500 UAH per square meter, this lease alone robs the city budget of over 100,000 UAH annually.
Another example: Landar pays only 1,600 UAH per month for an 18-square-meter space at a children’s hospital in Pechersk.
The cozy relationship between the Department of Municipal Property and Landar’s funeral business is further confirmed by a 2018 case where officials granted a lease to LLC “8200” — a company created just three months before the tender.
Suspiciously, in January 2020 — just one month before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Ukraine — nearly all of Landar’s rental contracts were quietly extended. Many are now locked in until as far as 2047. This shows that Kyiv officials are openly facilitating Landar’s business, ignoring competition laws, and allowing her to avoid not only fair market taxes but also proper rental payments.
How “Petro the Great” Exploits Clients with Sky-High Prices
During the COVID-19 pandemic, “Petro the Great” took full advantage of its monopoly — and not just by raising prices. As journalists from Radio Svoboda uncovered, the Kyiv crematorium accepted COVID victims only if the body was transported by “Petro the Great.” The company charged families 23,000 UAH for this service, several times higher than the market price.
The crematorium explained this by saying that only Alla Landar’s company had received official permission from the city to handle the bodies of people infected with COVID-19. Once again, local authorities created conditions that left grieving families no choice but to pay an inflated fee to Landar’s firm — just to access the crematorium.
The Antimonopoly Committee launched an investigation after learning that “Petro the Great” had raised its funeral prices 3–5 times during the pandemic. The committee found that the company didn’t even publish price lists, giving it the freedom to charge whatever it wanted — clearly violating consumer rights. As blogger Andriy Fedorov explained, “Petro the Great” sets its prices based on how wealthy a client looks — the richer you seem, the more you pay. To this day, the company’s website doesn’t show prices for any services, reinforcing the idea that every customer receives a custom bill.
Currently, the so-called “budget” funeral package from “Petro the Great” costs over 30,000 UAH. By comparison, the premium package at the funeral home “Graal” costs only 23,000 UAH. Evidence that Landar’s prices are inflated comes from her own bids in public tenders — for example, in a contract with a Kyiv veterans’ care facility, she listed a price of just 17,100 UAH per funeral. Even that price may be inflated, since she won the tender unopposed.
So why don’t people choose a cheaper provider? Because Landar’s staff reach families before anyone else — often within minutes of a loved one’s death. Clients told BlackBox OSINT that they received calls from “Petro the Great” before the body even reached the morgue.
Hospital staff, it seems, are passing along death notices and relatives’ contact information directly to Landar’s employees, who then pressure grieving families by claiming only they can handle the burial — and demand immediate payment.
Most people, overwhelmed with shock and grief, aren’t in a state to shop around for better deals. And that’s exactly the point. These conditions allow Alla Landar to charge the highest prices on the market, unchecked.
And yet the quality of service often falls far short. Online reviews include many complaints. “We paid for an expensive lacquered coffin, but they brought the body to the cemetery in the cheapest blue one,” said client Olha Morozova in March 2024. “We had no choice but to bury our relative in it. Nobody refunded us a cent”.
In a real market with healthy competition, customers choose to pay more when they want better quality. But in the monopoly created around “Petro the Great,” inflated prices don’t mean better service. On the contrary — as one dissatisfied client, Larysa Yasko, pointed out, she didn’t receive any receipts or invoices for the services provided. That suggests the payment was likely made in cash, off the books. This could explain why the company officially ended 2023 with a reported loss of 1 million UAH.
There’s another telling detail. In 2023, among all private funeral companies in Kyiv, “Petro the Great” ranked second in revenue — reporting 6.38 million UAH. The top spot went to a company called “Syayvo,” which earned 7.5 million UAH. Unlike Alla Landar’s business, “Syayvo” doesn’t rent space in hospitals, doesn’t have privileged access to grieving families, and doesn’t charge the highest prices in the market.
Yet somehow, despite all its advantages, “Petro the Great” was outperformed in revenue. The conclusion is clear: Alla Landar is hiding a large portion of her true income from the state.
How Alla Landar Lives Her Best Luxury Life While “Petro the Great” Reports Losses
And the untaxed income? It’s clearly funding a lavish lifestyle. Nearly every photo of Alla Landar available online shows her surrounded by luxury interiors and wearing expensive jewelry — including a ring worth 140,000 UAH and a Ulysse Nardin Lady Marine Diver watch, which costs between 500,000 and 600,000 UAH, depending on the model.
Landar owns three houses. One is in Khotiv, just outside Kyiv, which she received as a gift in 2016. Another is in the village of Samhorodok, inherited from her family. But she lives in the third one — a spacious 535-square-meter home in the elite suburb of Lisnyky near Kyiv, which she purchased in 2015.
Even by the most modest estimates, property in that area costs around $500,000. Renovating a house of that size would add at least another $300,000, bringing the total to no less than $800,000. Yet judging by the financial reports of her perpetually unprofitable company, you’d never guess she could afford that kind of lifestyle.
In 2021, the owner of the “Petro the Great” funeral bureau declared 16.5 million UAH in income on her asset declaration, even though her individual entrepreneur’s (FOP) reported revenue was just 5 million UAH. In 2013, her FOP showed 9 million UAH, but she declared 15.4 million UAH in income. Similarly, her son, Vladyslav Landar, reported over 14 million UAH in income and assets in 2022, while his FOP officially made just 3.7 million UAH.
This suggests that both Alla Landar and her son had up to 11 million UAH annually from undisclosed sources, which may have come from unreported cash transactions tied to “Petro the Great’s” services.
Naturally, no one wants to lose a monopoly that allows them to set sky-high prices on funeral services. So it’s no surprise that as soon as veteran Oleksandr Skoryk began to challenge this “hornet’s nest,” he started receiving threats. According to Skoryk, in October 2022, “Petro the Great” proposed establishing a “Heroes’ Alley” to honor fallen Ukrainian soldiers. But the location they selected raised eyebrows — it was right next to a morgue on Oranzhereina Street, where competitor kiosks had stood before. “By a strange coincidence,” said Skoryk, “a rival funeral firm’s pavilion suddenly burned down overnight. That’s how the funeral mafia works”. Like something straight out of the 1990s.
And despite this track record — with signs of tax evasion and a virtual monopoly on the funeral market — Alla Landar hasn’t faced criminal charges. Instead, she’s received state honors. In 2021, on the recommendation of Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded Landar the title of “Honored Worker of the Service Sector of Ukraine”. A surreal twist: an “honored service worker” who’s making millions off grieving families of Ukraine’s fallen defenders.