The saga of the helicopter pad being built in the town where national poet Taras Shevchenko is buried continued this week, as the authorities gave another excuse why it needed to be built. At a cost of just over $10 million, the expense may seem excessive, given the endless struggles to fill the budget.
The first reason given by the authorities was that many foreigners of Ukrainian stock may wish to visit Kaniv and, being rich, would fly in a helicopter.
On March 9, President Viktor Yanukovych’s main mouthpiece, deputy chief of staff Hanna Herman, gave reporters a different reason for the elite transport infrastructure.
“We need an area like that as Shevchenko’s place should become a place for pilgrimage not just for poor people, but also for famous people from across the world – presidents and prime ministers,” she said, adding that a visit should become an “obligatory” part of protocol for visiting foreign officials “as in other countries.”
It’s not clear which other countries she was referring to, but we’re not aware of, say, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron dragging foreign guests to visit William Shakespeare’s grave in Stratford-upon-Avon, or German Chancellor Angela Merkel escorting leaders to see Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s resting place in Weimar.
In short, this sounds like complete hogwash, another reason plucked out of the air to cover up what’s really happening.
But perhaps it is getting closer to the truth.
The chopper pad will certainly be used by one president who has already shown his predilection for that form of transport by arranging to use one for his daily commute to work (at enormous state expense).
Yanukovych, of course, needs to visit the Shevchenko shrine once or twice a year to buff up his credentials as a real Ukrainian president.
And who would want the great one to be inconvenienced by Ukraine’s terrible roads, which, incidentally, his government has done little to improve?
