The head of the State Property Fund conducted an unannounced inspection of the saltworks
Dmytro Natalukha, head of the State Property Fund, arrived unannounced at the Drohobych Salt Works in Lviv Oblast. He purchased a guided tour, coffee, and souvenirs, and then noticed that he was not immediately given fiscal receipts when he paid.
According to Natalukha, after he asked for a receipt, the employees began to get nervous. Subsequently, the official decided to investigate exactly where the money from tourist services and the sale of goods on the premises was going. He said he chose not to notify the employees of his visit in advance. The official purchased a standard guided tour. He also paid for coffee and souvenirs. In total, there were three non-cash payments.
Natalukha says that after none of these transactions did the employees offer him a receipt. So he asked for the receipt himself. “This caused some strange nervousness and suspicious glances among the staff, but they did eventually give me a receipt—or what could be called one,” wrote the head of the State Property Fund. According to him, the paper he received looked more like a receipt with a random phrase on it than a regular fiscal receipt.
His friend decided to check out the situation
Later, Natalukha’s friend joined him. The official told him about the situation, after which the man went to the register himself and made a purchase. The result, according to the head of the State Property Fund, was similar. The employee did not issue a receipt right away. After being asked to provide a fiscal receipt, the situation at the register, as Natalukha describes it, became more tense.
“There was a real commotion at the register, and someone asked if he was from the tax service,” the official said. When the man replied that he was an ordinary citizen and wanted a receipt for his purchase, he was told that a “supervisor” would be coming over shortly. Eventually, the receipt was issued. But then Natalukha had another question.
The receipt turned out to be issued to a sole proprietor
According to the head of the State Property Fund, the receipt was issued not to the enterprise but to an individual entrepreneur, L. O. Harkusha. This is what piqued the official’s interest the most. He speculated that some of the money from tourism services, souvenir sales, and other goods might be funneled through a sole proprietor rather than directly through the state-owned enterprise.
At the same time, Natalukha did not claim that he had already established any violations or illegal misappropriation of funds. He emphasized that an audit would reveal the exact figures. “The exact amounts of revenue must be determined during the audit,” noted the head of the State Property Fund. The Drohobych Salt Works is under the management of the State Property Fund. Currently, its legal form is a limited liability company (LLC), and the Fund owns 100% of the enterprise’s shares. According to public registries, the company’s primary activity is salt production.
How Much Revenue Can Tourism Generate for the Saltworks?
Nataluha also drew attention to guided tours. The Drohobych Salt Works is not only a manufacturing enterprise but also a tourist attraction. It houses a museum and offers guided tours for visitors. The saltworks itself reports that thousands of tourists visit it every month. According to Natalukha’s calculations, a single tour ticket costs 150 UAH. Assuming a group of about 35 people, a single tour can generate approximately 5,250 UAH.
Four such tours per day, according to his calculations, would amount to about 21,000 hryvnias. But this is only an approximate estimate, assuming that all groups are fully booked. The official also cited data from the Lviv Regional State Administration, according to which more than 9,400 people visited the saltworks during the first half of 2025. Based on this number of visitors and the cost of tickets, Natalukha estimated the potential annual revenue from tours at approximately 2.5–4.5 million hryvnias.
At the same time, tours are not the only source of potential revenue. Tourists purchase coffee, souvenirs, salt, and other products on the saltworks’ grounds. The enterprise’s official store also sells various types of salt, coffee, cosmetics, and merchandise.
The City Wants to Take Over the Saltworks
Natalukha’s visit took place amid discussions about the future of the Drohobych Saltworks. The Drohobych City Council had previously appealed to the state and the State Property Fund (FDM) with a proposal to transfer the enterprise to municipal ownership. Among the city’s arguments are the saltworks’ importance to the community, its historical significance, and the condition of certain structures on the enterprise’s grounds.
The saltworks itself is considered one of the oldest enterprises in Ukraine. The enterprise’s official website states that the first written mention of it dates back to 1390, and the traditional salt production technology has been preserved for centuries. The question of the enterprise’s future is particularly relevant right now. On the State Property Fund’s website, the saltworks is also listed among the facilities being prepared for privatization. In August 2026, the Fund made the corresponding changes to the list of small-scale privatization projects.
What Natalukha Says About the Saltworks’ Future
The head of the State Property Fund stated that his visit does not imply a final decision regarding the transfer of the enterprise to the city or any other form of its management. According to him, the Fund first wants to understand how the saltworks actually operates, how much revenue it generates, and how its tourism and production processes are organized. “At this time, I want to reassure everyone who cares about the fate of the Drohobych Saltworks—at this stage, the Fund has only two specific goals: to gain a complete and comprehensive understanding of the complex’s internal processes and operations, in order to make an informed decision about which model and form of ownership will be most beneficial for the saltworks as it transforms into a true gem not only for the city or region, but for the entire country,” Natalukha wrote.
He added that all other assumptions about the enterprise’s future remain mere speculation for now. Now the Foundation must conduct an audit and review the enterprise’s financial and operational processes. Only then will it become clearer how much the saltworks actually earns from production, tours, and retail, and which management model would be best for it.
For now, however, the main focus is on the simple question that started this whole story: why visitors were not issued fiscal receipts immediately and why, according to Natalukha, some payments were processed through a sole proprietorship. Dmytro Natalukha wrote about his visit on Facebook.
