You're reading: Exclusive video shows Yanukovych’s birthday party in 2011 (VIDEO)

Former President Viktor Yanukovych received greetings and presents for his birthday in (gaudy) style at the state residence in Crimea's Foros, an exclusive video shows. The video was released on Oct. 15 by Vesti, a daily newspaper which has been linked to the young gas and media mogul Serhiy Kurchenko.

Yanukovych turned 61 in 2011. The video shows that much of the Ukrainian
elite arrived to hug and kiss the president. Among the people who
came to greet him were billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky and long-time loyalist Andriy Klyuev,
mayors and governors of several cities, and leader of Strong Ukraine party Sergiy Tigipko, among others.

The
description of the video provided by Vesti, said that instead of
giving actual presents, guests arrived with photographs of presents
neatly placed in folders which they passed to Yanukovych. Communist
party leader Petro Symonenko, for example, brought a crimson red
folder which had a symbol on it that resembled the symbol of his
party.

The rich and powerful fawned over the richest and most powerful at the time — ex-President Viktor Yanukovych — for his birthday party in 2011.

One
of the most controversial appearances at the party was that of Lviv
Mayor Andriy Sadovy, a critic of Yanukovych who supported the
EuroMaidan Revolution. Unlike other guests, Sadovyi showed up in a
vyshyvanka,
an embroidered shirt, and brought a book.

Leader
of Samopomich, a party running for parliament in the Oct. 26
election, Sadovy was challenged in the social networks about his
presence at the birthday party. He responded to questions on his
Facebook page.

“What
was I doing there? (Getting) money for the city for Euro 2012
(football championship),” he wrote.

Sadovy also said he gave Yanukovych the first volume of pastoral epistles
Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky to the faithful. Sheptytsky
was Metropolitan
Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church from 1901 until his
death in 1944,
and is one of the most authoritative leaders and thinkers of that
church. Sadovy said he gave Yanukovych the second volume of his
works in 2012.

“If
he had read it then, maybe it would have all ended better for him,”
Sadovy wrote.

Yanukovych
ran away from Ukraine to Russia in February, fearing for his life
because of the EuroMaidan revolution.

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