No Kidding!

"No cops, no president. Just the regular security guards, they let us in and we came to an agreement -- we maintain the perimeter and don't let anyone in or out, they look after the building."
"Where's he gone? Somewhere abroad. Definitely not in Ukraine. He could have left at any time -- you do realize there are tunnels under here, right?"
Volodomyr Pravosodnov, commander, "hundreds" activists

AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

Hundreds, in fact, were the number of documents floating in the Dnieper River close by the Mezhihirya residence. Detailing evidence of bribery and extravagant costs related to sumptuously ostentatious living. A man proud to represent his country and receiving the munificent salary of $111,000 annually was able to transfer millions of dollars to local bank accounts from unknown sources; a criminal offence in Ukraine.

REUTERS/Konstantin Chernichkin

 

The 140-acre estate, once owned by the state, but under President Viktor Yanukovych transferred to his private ownership, has become a public symbol for Ukrainians, of greed and corruption. This is a five-storey mansion. With a luxury-car collection. A greenhouse graced with banana plants; who knew presidents enjoy picking their own bananas? And being nature-lovers requiring their personal zoo to watch ostriches and peacocks of their very own strut about.

REUTERS/Konstantin Chernichkin

 

And, just like the Villa Vizcaya in Miami, Florida, a most unique folly, a stone 'ship' meant for entertaining located margincally offshore; in the case of Mezhihirya, the shape is that of a galleon, a banquet hall moored on the Dnieper, stocked with costly wines and spirits. Nothing too good after all, for the president of a vast country that just happens also to be poverty-stricken, in economic collapse.

Those who hovered watchfully around the residence for days previously claimed to have counted 44 helicopter trips in and out of the compound on Friday night. Viktor Yanukovych and his stalwarts shuttling personnel and valuables away from the complex and to a place where they could safely be recovered at some future time, for he would dearly miss his belongings, and they are his, after all, are they not?

At Kharkiv where Yanukovych ended up two days later he insisted he remained president, a president under siege from a coup by fascists and thugs. Ukrainian border service later described armed men in the entourage of the president offering inspectors cash in lieu of documents, to leave Donetsk airport. When he was denied takeoff the poor president left the aircraft, driving off with a motorcade.

To consult, from a distance, with his mentor Vladimir Putin no doubt.