Mykolaiv Zoo earned ₴22 million over the year

Mykolaiv Zoo, photo by NikVesti.

Mykolaiv Zoo earned 22 million hryvnias in 2025.

This was announced today, 23 December, by the zoo's director, Volodymyr Topchyi, during a speech at a joint meeting of the parliamentary commissions on budget and law, according to NikVesti.

«The zoo is visited by about 200,000 people a year. This year we have earned 22 million hryvnias on our own. This is a considerable amount compared to the income of other zoos in Ukraine. It is important to take into account the ratio of the number of visitors to the city's population, and 200,000 visitors a year is a very good indicator for Mykolaiv,» said Volodymyr Topchyi.

He added that the zoo employs 230 people, and about 80% of the staff receive the minimum wage of 8,000 hryvnias.

«I have 80% of my staff on the minimum wage of 8,000 hryvnias. How can people survive on this money? The working day is from 8:00 to 17:00. Today we are short of workers. People come in, ask about their salary, laugh and leave — it's impossible to live on this money. According to the staff list, the salary is 2.5-3.5 thousand hryvnias, and we add bonuses to bring the amount to the minimum. But how do you keep the team? There are still those who have been working for 20-50 years and simply have nowhere else to go. In fact, today everything rests on women and pensioners. I don't know how we will work next year,» added Volodymyr Topchyi.

Commission on Budget and Legality, screenshot from the broadcast

During the commission, Yurii Liubarov, head of the culture department of the Mykolaiv City Council, asked to allocate 71 million hryvnias for the next year to increase the salaries of zoo employees.

The director of the Mykolaiv Zoo explained the ₴600,000 worth of trips abroad.

As a reminder, the municipal institution «Mykolaiv Zoo» has spent more than 600,000 hryvnias on foreign and domestic business trips of its director Volodymyr Topchyi since the start of the full-scale war.

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During 2022-2025, Volodymyr Topchyi travelled abroad several times, including to Portugal, Poland, the United States and Germany, and also had business trips within the country, to Kyiv and Odesa.

The purposes of his business trips included participation in professional conferences, meetings of zoo directors, visa applications, and animal health assessments for exchange programmes. The most expensive trip was to the United States in October 2023 to attend a conference of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), which cost more than 272 thousand hryvnias.

A trip to Warsaw in August 2023 to obtain a visa to travel to the United States was also separately accounted for. According to the city council, it cost more than 47,000 hryvnias.

At that time, the journalist of NikVesti separately asked Volodymyr Topchyi how his participation in international conferences was paid for. He explained that his business trips were funded by the municipal institution «Mykolaiv Zoo».

Thus, during the three years of the full-scale war, the zoo director's travel expenses in foreign currency equivalent amounted to approximately 8,600 euros and 5,700 US dollars. He also emphasises that these trips helped to raise much more money.

Read also the NikVesti article: «Mykolaiv Zoo during the war: how the Prague Zoo and other zoos help their Ukrainian colleagues»