A treasure trove of documents dumped in a Ukrainian lake reveal years of lavish spending by ousted President Viktor Yanukovych — including millions of dollars spent on decor and nearly $4,000 for a “bribe.”
Huge heaps of paper were pulled from the Kiev Reservoir near Yanukovych’s opulent estate on Sunday after he fled following his unopposed impeachment by Ukraine’s parliament.
Journalists who arrived at the sprawling Mezhyhirya compound outside the capital of Kiev found thousands of pages floating on the water’s surface or sunk to the bottom near the shore, the Kyiv Post reported. A diver later retrieved about 160 folders stuffed full of financial records — including invoices, contracts and cash payment orders, according to the English-language newspaper.
Some of the papers were reportedly burned around the edges, suggesting a failed attempt to incinerate them before they were hastily hurled into the lake.
Reporters and activists laid out the papers to dry inside a marine hangar, spreading them on the floor, along the railings of a speedboat and plastered to the side of a yacht.
The documents detail extravagant spending by Yanukovych, who basked in luxury at the 345-acre estate as his country teetered on the brink of default and then descended into deadly chaos when months of protests in the capital turned violent last week.
Records show $2.3 million spent on wooden decorations for a dining hall and tea room, $1.5 million for plants, and $110,000 for curtains in a room called the “knight’s hall.” Yanukovych, an avid hunter, apparently blew $115,000 on a statue of a running boar for an outdoor shooting range.
Other papers showed even more shady spending, including a receipt for $12 million in cash and an invoice for a payment of $10 million. On one page listing a series of expenditures, item No. 47 recorded payment of almost $4,000 for a “bribe” used in a bidding process.
The Kyiv Post said many of the accountings “look like a money-laundering operation.”
Meanwhile, thousands of Ukranians flocked to gawk at the excess of Mezhyhirya, which had long been seen as a symbol of government corruption, with Yanukovych refusing to answer questions about it and maintaining that he lived in a modest house on a small plot of land there.
The Euromaidan activist group took control of the estate after Yanukovych fled, and opened it to the public before the crowds got too big. It was closed at around 1 p.m., with a traffic jam more than 12 miles long stretching all the way back to Kiev.
The luxury compound boasts a massive mansion and numerous other buildings, along with private golf courses, a pig farm and a small zoo stocked with peacocks and ostriches.
Visitors were both stunned by the spectacle and disgusted by the decadence.
“Compared to our meager salaries, this is awful,” said Gena Rudenko, who came as part of a tour organized by the Euromaidan activist group.
“But it’s also beautiful.”
The nation’s parliament, known as the Verkhovna Rada, voted Sunday to turn over control of the estate to the government, while some Ukrainians have called for it to be preserved as a “Museum of Corruption.”
The parliament also named speaker Oleksandr Turchynov interim president ahead of an election set for May 25.
Turchynov is a close ally of Yanukovych rival and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was convicted of abusing her office in 2011 but freed from jail after Yanukovych’s ouster. It was unclear if she would seek to regain power, but some demonstrators outside the Cabinet of Ministers were already protesting against her.
One protester held a sign showing her succeeding Yanukovych as president and reading: “People didn’t die for this.”
With Post Wires