A popular saying goes that in Russia there are two problems: fools and roads. In Kyiv, the fools are those at the summit of power who think it’s OK for the presidential motorcade to clog up the capital’s roads almost every morning.
President Viktor Yanukovych races from his suburban mansion to the center of Kyiv along a nearly 20-kilometer route.
Cops stop traffic, leaving thousands of cars standing still up to 15 minutes waiting for the commander-in-chief to whizz by in his high-security convoy. The episode repeats nearly each morning as motorists struggle to make it to work on time.
Presidential motorcades are permanent fixtures of any country’s traffic routine.
[Viktor] Yanukovych, however, prefers to relax in his opulent out-of-town surroundings."
But they happen on a less-than-regular basis abroad because presidents tend to live at their workplace. In many nations, the state’s money is spent on improving roads, rather than making sure the boss and his cronies live in luxury.
Yanukovych, however, prefers to relax in his opulent out-of-town surroundings. While relaxing there, does he ever wonder about those that suffer from his motorcade, including a taxi driver that was killed earlier this year in an accident caused by it?
Hanna Herman, the president’s deputy aid, said her boss may get a helicopter. There’s no rush, however.
The new Gavansky Bridge connecting Obolon with central Kyiv is used exclusively by Yanukovych. Before it opens officially, other drivers have to go around it covering and extra five kilometers and getting more impatient in the jams.
The problem goes beyond delays and inconveniences.
It is rooted in the disregard for others, the division of Ukrainians into the haves and have-nots, the cans and can’ts, them and us.
To Yanukovych, it seems, other drivers are only subjects. So until he finds enough money in the bare state coffers for a chopper, or to move downtown, his motorcade will send out the same message morning after morning: Out of the way, peasant, the king is coming!
