No takers for homes in Kiev's luxury ghost town of Vozdvyzhenka

They call it the millionaires' ghost town; dozens of brightly coloured houses in mock-19th century style, positioned elegantly in a ravine in the historical heart of Kiev.

By day, Vozdvyzhenka is popular with city walkers, wedding photo sessions and music clip shoots. But by night, the 17-hectare development falls quiet, its buildings dark, its street all but deserted.

Despite its prime location and agreeable facades, hardly anyone lives there. It was conceived 10 years ago as a desirable neighbourhood for the great and the good of the Ukrainian capital.

But after a deep economic downturn withered Kiev in 2008 and 2009, the £85 million (HK$1 billion) development has lain fallow, a headache for its developers and a monument to the folly of grand designs in fragile economies.

"We were knocked down in 2008,"says Taras Ziabkin, deputy head of Kievgorstroy-1, the company that developed the project. "I will not hide that the demand dropped drastically then."

Ziabkin remembers that at the peak of sales in summer 2008 an average price of a 120-square-metre apartment was more than £533,000. Now the same flat costs only £228,000. Ziabkin rejects descriptions by locals of Vozdvyzhenka as a "dead town", saying that 50 of its 250 apartments have residents and that repairmen are working on a further 50 for new tenants.