When Viktor Yanukovych fled Ukraine on February 22, his palatial Mezhyhirya estate was left unguarded. Ukrainians quickly noticed that the usual security detail had vanished; hundreds soon arrived to scour the property. They found a private zoo, golf course, vintage car and boat collections, Yanukovych-branded vodka, and golden bricks in the shape of bread loaves, among other indulgences (you can take 3-D tour of the grounds here).

They also found scores of documents detailing exactly how the Yanukovych presidency had operated: receipts for cash bribes, files on opposition journalists, and records of the president's private meetings. It seemed clear that Yanukovych left in a hurry: He made a botched attempt to destroy his files by throwing them into a nearby lake. Some of the materials were still floating at the surface; more of them were quickly uncovered by volunteer divers. But security camera footage examined by the Kyiv Post shows that Yanukovych's exit was actually planned days in advance. "He even oversaw the operation himself in the hours ahead of his final departure late on Feb. 21," the Post writes. "Some videos show what appears to be a small arsenal of weapons being carried away, including at least three apparent automatic rifles fixed with scopes and more than two dozen other rifles, some in a glass case."

For the past several weeks, a group of journalists now living at the compound has been working to recover, parse, and scan the thousands of records that were left behind. They have launched YanukovychLeaks, an online platform for publishing and analyzing the files, and so far they have only had time to go through a small fraction of the tens of thousands of documents found at the estate.

Межигір'я, Хонка, 4 ранку. Спальня Януковича.// 4am. Man sleeps in president's bed at abandoned residence Mezhygirya pic.twitter.com/FbexxubdQd — Natalie Sedletska (@natasedletska) March 11, 2014

The team has uploaded 9,504 files online and has invited the rest of the world to help with the investigation. What they've uncoverd as yet reveals just how paranoid and powerless Yanukovych was in the weeks leading up to his ouster, and the gruesome extent to which his presidency depended upon violence and corruption. Here are a few of their discoveries that Yanukovych might have wanted to be more careful about concealing:

Putin pressured Yanukovych to crack down on the Maidan protesters. Ukrainska Pravda found that the notebooks of Yanukovych's security chief, Kostyantyn Kobzar, detail a private meeting between the two leaders at Putin's residence at Valdai on January 8, as the Maidan protests continued to grow.