The buyer of Kyiv’s Dnipro Hotel plans to invest $20 million to make it “the world’s first Esports Ready Hotel,”

The buyer of Kyiv’s Dnipro Hotel plans to invest $20 million to make it “the world’s first Esports Ready Hotel,” he tells ain.ua news site. Alexander Kokhanovsky in partnership with Smartland, won the last week’s privatization auction, committing to pay $41 million for the 186-room hotel. He says his company has no Russian connections and has no plans to build a casino. “Our goal is to make Kyiv the Mecca of world esports, and bring Ukraine closer in level to South Korea and the United States,” he said of the $2 billion a year competitive video gaming industry. Kokhanovsky writes on his Facebook page: “The victory in the tender for the Dnipro Hotel wasn’t won by Russian oligarchs, but by Ukrainian tech guys.”