You're reading: Viktor In English and Berkut Guy look for laughs with Twitter posts

When a Dutch national who owns a tire business in Kyiv was charged on Feb. 10 with supporting terrorism for allegedly selling tires to activists in the EuroMaidan movement, a guy who calls himself Viktor Yanukovych took to Twitter to joke about it.

“I feel bad charging that Dutch tire shop with terrorism. Now I need to find a new place to buy tires. And also weed (marijuana),” he wrote.

Of course, these weren’t the words of the president of Ukraine, but rather of Viktor In English (@ViktorInEnglish), a fictitious and facetious Yanukovych character born out of the anti-government protest movement known as EuroMaidan.

Since January Viktor In English has pumped out snarky witticisms on Twitter about putting the country up for sale, revoking Ukrainians’ civil rights and tapping the phones of journalists. “Just the best president of Ukraine money can buy, yo!” reads his Twitter biography.

Among his many quips, Viktor In English has said: “State of dictatorship is only temporary. Someday I’d like 2 be a wedding photographer. Constructive feedback welcome.” and “Hey, I already dissolved the civil rights of 45 million people, how hard can dissolving parliament be?”

Among his Twitter followers is another comical character, Berkut Guy (@ShitBerkutSays), who says he loves “fist making, head kicking and Molotov cocktail catching” and is “From Russ… errr, From Ukraine.”

Revered by the government and despised by EuroMaidan, Berkut are the Interior Ministry’s special riot-control police. On Nov. 30, a group of them violently dispersed a crowd of peaceful pro-European demonstrators from Kyiv’s Independence Square, leaving dozens injured. During the most violent clashes between police and protesters on Hrushevskoho Street in late January, they heaved tear gas, Molotov cocktails and fired guns into the crowd, injuring hundreds and killing at least four.

“Growing up, I loved to play whack-a-mole. So much fun. Never imagined I’d be able to play it with humans,” Berkut Guy wrote on Twitter on Feb. 2.

The two men behind the facetious accounts are Corey Rakowsky, 43, and Andrew Mandzy, 36, both descendants of Ukrainian diaspora. Growing up in the Ukrainian communities of Cleveland and New Jersey, respectively, the two have known each other for years. But each started his account independently on Jan. 29. Rakowsky, who publishes as Viktor In English and is a creative director at an advertising agency in New York City, said he created Viktor partly out of frustration with Ukraine’s slow-moving revolution.

“When you live in New York, you feel a little helpless,” he said, so he tries to “use satire to expose what I see as corruption and incompetence and flat out embezzlement of state funds (in Ukraine).”

While he doesn’t have a huge following, “any little things we can do to point out injustice, I think we should do that,” Rakowsky added.

Like Rakowsky, Mandzy, a New Jersey native whose grandparents emigrated to the United States from the western Ukrainian city of Rivne in the 1950s, was also looking for an outlet to help EuroMaidan.

“I sort of have a snarky, sarcastic sense of humor. So after I saw Viktor in English, I created Berkut Guy,” he said.

Why the character of a riot police officer?

“I think the Berkut has become a lightning rod for the cause, other than Yanukovych himself,” Mandzy said. “I think they’re the group that’s really responsible for violence on the streets and directly opposing the EuroMaidan movement. They are the ones who really turned this thing into what it has become, when they on Nov. 30 went in and cleared out Independence Square.”

Both Rakowsky and Mandzy said they enjoy their respective roles and will continue to do so as long as they feel it helps reach people who might not otherwise hear the news out of Ukraine.

Plus, comic relief helps.

“If I can help people by (getting them) laughing, then that’s great,” Rakowsky said. “But also, if (my messages) could maybe get re-tweeted once, or on someone’s feed who might not be hearing this news… you never know what might help.”

“It’s been fun, in a weird way,” Mandzy said. “Doing it, I think, has given some levity to the situation.”

Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller can be reached at [email protected], and on Twitter at @ChristopherJM.