Some time ago the University of Amsterdam organised a data sprint focusing around the everyday lives of people in the regions of Ukraine occupied by Russian military. One of the topics was to look into the “ownerless property” as was declared on the Russian websites in the newly established regions, specifically Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

I wanted to see what kind of data there is, and before focusing on particular items of property I wanted to see the bigger picture.

What did I find?

The range of items is very broad. From a construction ladder (“in original packaging” as described on the site) to objects of movable and immovable property, such as granite quarries.

I searched on Google and this is what one of those ladders could’ve possibly looked like. source: site

And this is an actual photo of one of (yes there are more than one) granite quarrys, that I found online based on the address of the property Запорожская область, с. Трудовое, ул. Трудовская, 1 (ООО «Токмакский гранитный карьер»); source: facebook

Here is a summary of other goods only from the Zaporizhzhia region site of the newly established site by the Russian Government

This is a not a complete list, some items weren’t processed, so the real numbers are higher.

If you visit the site you would notice it’s split by year and each item has a date when it was added. Plotting it on a timeline shows an interesting picture.

At first, the buildings and business areas were taken and listed, then, possible as people have left - houses and apartments.

There are many other items, that may look surprising for example, police stations:

24 Sep 2022

• Запорожская область, г. Васильевка, ул. Лихачева, 2 (административное здание МВД)
• Запорожская область, г. Васильевка, ул. Шевченко, 36,38 (административное здание МВД)

However, this is the reality of the everyday life for people in these territories that were taken by force. Businesses, houses, cars and even ladders that were once somebody’s, have been transitioned to new hands.

When I initially searched for the granite quarry mentioned at the beginning, it was still listed as “ownerless”, however, now it can be found listed on a Russian website brokenstone.ru selling crushed stone.