Hasidim Collect Taxes in Ukraine. A Sensational Scheme Operates in Uman

In early September, about 50 thousand pilgrims came to Uman to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Chief Rabbi of Ukraine Moshe Reuven Asman said that during the holiday period pilgrims paid 25 million UAH of tourist fees into the city budget.

According to city authorities, this year the official rate for foreigners in Uman is:

216,18 UAH/day – in hotels, hostels, and other hotel-type establishments;

432,35 UAH/day – in apartments, houses, and rooms.

For the tourist fee to be credited to the local budget, it is collected through a tax agent, one of which in Uman is the municipal enterprise “Komunalnyk.” The fee can be paid by bank transfer, via the Privat24 app, self-service terminals, POS terminals, or by SWIFT transfer. When paying the tax, the pilgrim indicates the number of days of stay. After that they receive a receipt with a QR code, which allows them to enter the city through a checkpoint.

In response to journalists’ requests, the Uman authorities detailed the payment methods for the tourist fee. But for some reason they “forgot” about one more method…

However, there is another route. In August of this year, Bratslav Hasid organizations began circulating announcements urging people to pay the tourist fee at a fixed price – $27 for the entire period of stay. That is, no matter how many days you spend in Uman, you only pay that amount. Although, according to the law, the fee should be charged for each day of residence. For example, for six nights in the private sector a pilgrim should have paid 2594 UAH, whereas through the online service proposed by Bratslav Hasidim – about 1161 UAH.

Hasidim are offered to pay the tourist fee online at a fixed amount lower than the official rate

photo: glavcom.ua

Glavcom investigated who organized this unprecedented generosity auction for pilgrims, how the scheme works, and how much the local budget might be missing out on.

Why the tourist fee for Hasidim amounts to $27

The Union of Bratslav Hasidim offers pilgrims to pay fixed $27 for the entire Rosh Hashanah period through the site aumantax.com. The organization claims that this payment method for the tourist fee is agreed with the Uman City Council. After entering personal data and making a payment, a person receives an electronic code that must be presented during a check when entering the city. If a pilgrim did not prepay the fee through the site, on the spot they are offered to pay $45.

Glavcom sent a request to KP “Komunalnyk,” which is the tax agent for the tourist fee in Uman. Journalists asked whether the enterprise has official agreements with the Union of Bratslav Hasidim or with aumantax.com, where payments for the tourist fee are received and how they are credited to the city budget. The editorial board also asked to explain how the fee amount was calculated for pilgrims who now pay fixed $27 for the entire period of stay in the city, and whether the enterprise considers the electronic confirmation with a code after payment on the foreign site aumantax.com an official document confirming payment of the tourist fee.

We will note immediately that the municipal enterprise did not provide any concrete answers to the questions asked.

In connection with this, journalists called the director of KP “Komunalnyk,” Stanislav Nazarov, directly. He also refused to comment on the phone and advised sending a written request to the enterprise again, despite the fact that the previous request was effectively ignored.

The Union of Bratslav Hasidim states on its resources that it has an agreement with the Uman authorities regarding payment of the tourist fee

screenshot: aumantax.com

During online registration the site asks to provide the pilgrim’s personal data

screenshot: aumantax.com

At the same time, aumantax.com notes that the proposed payment mechanism will avoid queues and speed pilgrims’ entry into the city. It appears that the online collection resource operates only during the pilgrimage. As of mid-September, it was already inactive, and users with questions were redirected to the Bratslav Hasidim’s email.

As of 15 September the aumantax.com site is inactive

screenshot: aumantax.com

Glavcom sought explanations from the Uman city authorities. However, officials’ explanations were also very contradictory.

Uman mayor Iryna Pletnyova, who is now fighting to keep her post in the courts, when asked by Glavcom where the fixed sum proposal $27 came from and whether the city changed the tourist fee rate, quoted legal provisions in response: “The tourist fee rate is established as a percentage in accordance with the amount of the minimum wage, as is clearly provided by law. The minimum wage changes and the tourist fee amount is automatically recalculated. This is a mathematical formula provided by the legislation, and we cannot arbitrarily influence this process.”

First Deputy Mayor of Uman Oleg Hanich, in a comment to Glavcom, also started from afar. At first he explained that the official tourist fee depends on the type of accommodation and the duration of stay in the city. But he ultimately admitted that $27 did not appear out of nowhere: “Since the minimum pilgrimage term is three days, we asked the system developers to set a minimum payment for three to four days.” But regarding statements about an agreement between the Uman City Council and the Bratslav Hasidim, the deputy mayor said literally: “A lot of things can be written on a fence.”

However, on the Bratslav Hasidim’s YouTube channel you can still find a video from 2024 years ago in which the same Oleg Hanich effectively promotes the Hasidim’s online resource and explains that pilgrims have the option to pay the tourist fee two weeks before arriving in the city. In that two-year-old video the deputy mayor claimed that in such a case the fee would be reduced to $27.

The deputy mayor could no longer comment on that video with the phrase “a lot of things can be written on a fence.” He explained to Glavcom that the city did set a minimum term and effectively established the same amount $27 as the minimum payment so that pilgrims would not cheat on the length of stay: “When a pilgrim pays the fee, they enter and fill in the period of stay. And they can fill it in as if they will be in Uman for one day. But we understand that this is not the case. So we asked the programmers who made the site to set payment for a minimum of three days of pilgrimage. I don’t know what other site there is; we have an official Uman city site. Since there are almost no official hotels in the pilgrimage area, we began to collect at least something. When I came to office, I took this issue under control, and we raised the tourist fee already to 25 million UAH.”

Commenting on a video in which he urges Hasidim to pay a fee of $27, Oleg Hanich explained that pilgrims needed to be forced to pay at least something: “All the rabbis resisted, so they wouldn’t pay. So we made it clear to them: you will not enter the city until you pay. Well, thank God, they started to pay. All official payments come through KP ‘Komunalnyk’ as the tax agent. The money goes only there and is transferred to the city budget within a month. This practice has been in place for more than one year.”

According to Hanich, the mayor’s office even appealed to rabbis and representatives of Hasidic organizations to remind pilgrims of the Torah’s requirement to obey the laws of the country they visit.

“Regarding warnings that some Hasidic organizations collect the tourist fee through their own, unofficial channels, I understand who is pouring oil on the fire and I always say this: if you can collect more, then come and do it,” the deputy mayor said.

At the same time Hanich still did not answer directly whether the city council has any agreements with aumantax.com and whether funds paid through it are received by the Uman community budget.

Does a Hasidic organization collect the tourist fee in Uman?

People’s Deputy Anton Yatsenko, elected to parliament from the district centered in Uman, told Glavcom that in 2025 the money went not to KP “Komunalnyk” but to the account of Echod Breslev – a structure associated with Bratslav Hasidim in Uman. According to him, payments from pilgrims who paid the tourist fee through the mentioned site aumantax.com were accepted through this structure. The deputy, who is now actively exposing Uman’s leadership, said that last year about 12 thousand pilgrims paid the tourist fee at a fixed rate of $27 through that site.

Yatsenko also recalled that in 2025 year there were booths by the checkpoints through which pilgrims passed where the tourist fee could be paid in cash. According to him, the duty officers at the checkpoints were instructed to let people through on receipts from aumantax.com. At the same time, the money, the deputy claims, was not paid to the city’s official tax agent. That, he says, can explain the city officials’ unwillingness to comment on the situation.

The online platform offers to pay the tourist fee at a price of $27

photo: glavcom.ua

Yatsenko notes that this practice of paying the tourist fee in Uman has already attracted the interest of NABU detectives: on 17 October 2025 the anti-corruption agencies opened a pre-trial investigation under Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine regarding possible abuses by officials of the Uman City Council and KP “Komunalnyk.” However, there is currently no information about any charges announced in this investigation.

The Hasidim site states that the Uman City Council agreed with the Hasidic organization on payment of the tourist fee

screenshot: aumantax.com

For its part, Deputy Mayor Oleg Hanich admitted that the city has a problem controlling pilgrims’ periods of stay in the city: “It is extremely difficult to control whether a pilgrim stayed longer than the period for which they paid the tourist fee. Of course, none of the foreigners want to overpay, but to keep control over every person is almost impossible.” He said it is better that they at least pay something, even if less.

Where the tourist fee money might go

To give aumantax.com an official appearance, the site even displayed the Uman City Council coat of arms. However, a Glavcom source familiar with the Hasidic pilgrimage to Uman and the legal support for such tourists, speaking on condition of anonymity, explained: that is only a façade. Funds received through the site likely go abroad, and the city budget does not get a single kopeck from them.

“Last year it was exactly the same story: the same resource, the same information and even the same amount – $27. It looks like there is a certain Hasidic site through which the tourist fee is paid, the money goes to an Israeli company outside Ukraine, and the Uman city budget receives nothing from transfers on that site. The pilgrim receives payment confirmation with a QR code, comes to Uman and passes control. At the checkpoints foreigners scan QR codes using scanners and their own program, confirming that the person supposedly paid the tourist fee. But that person paid the fee not according to the law, but transferred $27 to who-knows-where. Meanwhile they are calmly allowed into the territory,” the source told the publication.

During Rosh Hashanah in Uman, Israeli police patrol the neighborhood where Bratslav Hasidim live together with Ukrainian law enforcement

photo: Cherkasy Police

The source recalled that under Ukrainian law part of the tourist fee should be paid through hotels. At the same time, in Uman, according to him, only a few hotels officially operate, so that collection model practically does not work.

For legal payment last year the State Agency for Tourism Development created a special payment system for pilgrims that allows paying the tourist fee in advance, before arriving in the city. The State Agency’s site specifically stresses: payments through third-party sites do not replace the tourist fee calculated according to the established rate.

The appearance of such a warning is not accidental: schemes with shadow collection of funds from pilgrims in Uman have thrived for years. By the end of 2024 the Cherkasy police were investigating a criminal case for alleged embezzlement of funds that should have gone to the local budget from the tourist fee from foreign tourists who arrived in Uman to celebrate Rosh Hashanah in September 2023. There is currently no information about the outcome of that investigation.

At the same time, the court register contains other mentions of abuses by Uman officials during Rosh Hashanah. In particular, in September 2025 the court closed a criminal case against the former director of the Uman municipal enterprise “Komunalnyk,” who was accused of receiving an illegal benefit. According to the case materials, back in September 2017 the official received an illegal benefit from an entrepreneur for granting permission and a place for trade in the area of mass presence of Hasidic pilgrims. At that time the matter concerned… $200.

The court closed the criminal case against the former head of KP “Komunalnyk.” Screenshot: court decisions register

Despite this, the case review dragged on for eight years and in the end the court released the accused from criminal liability due to the expiration of the five-year statute of limitations, and the proceedings were closed. The former official himself never admitted his guilt in committing the crime.

Mark Lyubarov, Glavcom