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"For the past 96 hours, a group of journalists that have been holed up at ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych\u2019s 343-acre palatial estate have stuck to a routine: Dry the documents. Scan the documents. Analyze the documents. Publish the documents. Repeat.\nFound floating near a dock close to the fugitive president's opulent estate, the documents expose Yanukovych's lavish life: $2.3 million on dining room decorations, $1 million for a lawn watering system and $17,000 for tablecloths. And that's only the beginning, which is why these journalists are racing to rescue and publish this cache of documents on the website yanukovychleaks.org \u2014 before they are gone forever.\nSee also: 5 Big Questions About the Future of Ukraine\nHowever, there\u2019s one thing that Mezhyhirya, which was exposed to the public after the president  fled town, doesn't have much of at all...\nHigh-speed Internet.\nSpeaking to Mashable at 5 a.m. local time from the estate, Natalie Sedletska, one of the journalists, says the connection at Mezhyhirya was so bad in those hectic first hours that they turned to Facebook for help. \n\u201CIt was impossible!\u201D Sedletska says, her voice withering with exhaustion. \u201CThere are no towers around here, we couldn\u2019t get mobile, 3G or whatever, and so I posted on Facebook, \u2018Hey guys does anybody have a satellite?\u2019\u201D\nAn owner of a local Internet and TV service provider responded: \u201CI can do that,\u201D and arrived shortly after with his workers and a satellite dish.\n\u201CWe are strong when we come together,\u201D Sedletska says. \u201CWe learned this from Euromaidan.\u201D\nSedletska, an investigative journalist with Radio Free Europe, is entering her fifth day encamped at the former Ukrainian president\u2019s estate just outside of the capital city of Kiev. She's been there since the Euromaidan\u2014the name Ukrainians have given this time of political unrest\u2014sent the president fleeing into neighboring Russia.\nShe's hunkered down alongside reporters from the Kyiv Post, Hromadske TV and members of a global network of investigative journalists called the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). Others on the technical side of the team, like Dan O'Huiginn, who \"threw together a site over the weekend,\" are based off-site in Bosnia and Germany.\n\u201C[We] are working for different media outlets, and usually we are competitive\u2014in a good way,\u201D Sedletska says. \u201CThese documents are something that brought us together, and now we are working as one team. We don\u2019t compete anymore on this project.\"\n\nsorting thru Mezhyhirya files. day 2. @natasedletska @annababinets @MichaelShchur @akymenko_y #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/3fuCmYbbLK\n\u2014 Katya Gorchinskaya (@kgorchinskaya) February 24, 2014\n\nOne of the noteworthy things about this project is\u00A0the journalists' willingness to preserve first and report later, O'Huiginn tells Mashable. \"They're deliberately not spending their time reporting, but getting docs together.\"\nCollaborating on this scale, on this timeline, and under these circumstances is no easy feat.\n\"There will be stories posted,\" O'Huiginn says. \"But I'm not sure when.\"\nSome of the documents, as Mashable's Christopher Miller reported from Kiev on Tuesday, had been scorched. Others were pulled soaking wet from the sea floor. But already their efforts are paying off.\n\n\u0417\u0430\u043F\u0440\u0430\u0446\u044E\u0432\u0430\u0432 \u0441\u0430\u0439\u0442 http://t.co/R4U0A2rexU\u0412\u043D\u043E\u0447\u0456 \u043F\u043E\u0447\u0430\u043B\u0438 \u0432\u0438\u043A\u043B\u0430\u0434\u0430\u0442\u0438 \u043F\u0435\u0440\u0448\u0456 \u0441\u043E\u0442\u043D\u0456 \u043C\u0435\u0436\u0438\u0433\u0456\u0440\u0441\u044C\u043A\u0438\u0445 \u0434\u043E\u043A\u0443\u043C\u0435\u043D\u0442\u0456\u0432. #yanukovychleaks pic.twitter.com/52zm5shxGW\n\u2014 Natalie Sedletska (@natasedletska) February 25, 2014\n\n\"We've been building the boat while sailing it, so to speak,\" says O'Huiginn. \"The first priority was to get the information out. The situation has turned out very well so far, but at the start we didn't have any idea whether everybody would be removed. So we wanted to get documents secured, and get them out in public to show that this is about transparency and accountability.\"\nAs Yanukovych hides out in Rostov under the protection of Russian government, the journalists at his estate continue to work relentlessly. Things like food and sleep are an afterthought.\n\u201CThis was something that we never thought of doing \u2014 eating!\u201D Sedletska\u00A0says with a laugh.\nBut they are getting support from the community. Food, drinks, towels, clean T-shirts are just some of the things that appeared at various points during their week-long investigation. \n\u201CSomebody came in and said, \u2018Here\u2019s the food.\u2019 Somebody saw a report on TV that we are here and they just brought hot soup,\" Sedletska says. \"It\u2019s all about just regular people who want to help who think that it is important what we do.\"\n\nMore than 20K docs out of about 40K from Mezhygirrya are already scanned and soon will be on http://t.co/pVDrk1xsol. #yanukovychleaks\n\u2014 Oleg Khomenok (@khomenok) February 27, 2014\n\nBanned from working within the living quarters of the president itself\u2014which is fine by Sedletska, who calls the place \u201Cincredibly disgusting\u201D for its tackiness\u2014the team has set up shop in an adjacent three-story guest house, where they\u2019ve found couches and sofas.\nAfter a few days in the guest house, they discovered another trove of documents in a nearby administrative building for the shell company that Yanukovych established to run the estate. Even this one is ridiculous in its excessiveness, Sedletska says, describing a cafeteria for the workers with a room used entirely for washing chicken eggs. \nA handful of the journalists spent Thursday night in the new building, examining the most explosive revelations while huddled around a table. Down the hall they were joined by a roomful of volunteers, who were diligently working to scan and preserve the new bounty. Online, the technical team chatted over Skype, loaded files into a GitHub repository and monitored their server.\nThe \"scanning team\" works around the clock to get the documents uploaded to the website.\nImage:  Natalie Sedletska\n\n\nAll of this, Sedletska explains, is just \"phase two\u201D of the operation. After days of coordinating and five sleepless nights, the team is ready for their biggest collaboration yet: their first exclusives based on the documents.\n\u201CWe really want to finish this story,\u201D Sedletska says. \u201CWe are investigative journalists.\u201D\n\n\nUkraine: Protesters Seize President's Residence\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPeople walk on the territory of Ukrainian President Yanukovych's countryside residence in Mezhyhirya, Kiev's region, Ukraine, on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014. Ukrainian security  and volunteers from among Independence Square protesters have joined forces to protect the presidential countryside retreat from vandalism and looting. \n\nImage: Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA protester waves an EU flag at the Ukrainian President Yanukovych's country residence in Mezhyhirya, Kiev's region, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014. \n\nImage: Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA protester guards the entrance to Ukrainian President Yanukovych's countryside residence in Mezhyhirya, Kiev's region, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014. \n\nImage: Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nProtesters relax at Ukrainian President Yanukovych's countryside residence in Mezhyhirya, Kiev's region, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014. \n\nImage: Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAn anti-government protester tries to protect suspected supporters of Ukraine's embattled president Viktor Yanukovych from getting assaulted in Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014. Fears that Ukraine could split in two mounted Saturday as regional lawmakers in the pro-Russian east questioned the authority of the national parliament. Protesters took control of Ukraine's capital and parliament sought to oust the president. \n\nImage: Marko Drobnjakovic/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAnti-government protesters shout as a suspected supporter of Ukraine's embattled president Viktor Yanukovych is assaulted in Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014. \n\nImage: Marko Drobnjakovic/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPeople wave Ukrainian flags as they enter Ukrainian President Yanukovych's countryside-residence in Mezhyhirya, Kiev's region, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014. \n\nImage: Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nProtesters stand guard in front of a presidential administrative building in central Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014. Protesters in the Ukrainian capital claimed full control of the city Saturday following the signing of a Western-brokered peace deal aimed at ending the nation's three-month political crisis. The nation's embattled president, Viktor Yanukovych, reportedly had fled the capital for his support base in Ukraine's Russia-leaning east. \n\nImage: Darko Bandic/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA woman walks past a column of protesters with shields and sticks moving towards the parliament building in central Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014. Ukraine's embattled president is calling the country's political crisis a coup and says it resembles the rise of Nazis in the 1930s. Viktor Yanukovych also says he has no intention of resigning or leaving the country. \n\nImage: Darko Bandic/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA protester poses next to an captured armored vehicle, in central Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014. \n\nImage: Darko Bandic/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMen shout slogans during mourning for protesters killed in recent clashes, in central Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014. \n\nImage: Darko Bandic/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nProtesters react at Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's countryside residence, in Mezhyhirya, Kiev's region, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb, 22, 2014. \n\nImage: Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n      window._msla=window.loadScriptAsync||function(src,id){if(document.getElementById(id))return;var js=document.createElement('script');js.id=id;js.src=src;document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0].parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);};\n_msla(\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\",\"twitter_jssdk\");"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/02/28/ukraine-journalists-yanukovych-documents/>