Ukraine’s First Lady Maryna Poroshenko was photographed on May 17 next to the mayor of Odesa, Hennadiy Trukhanov, who is under investigation in a $7-million embezzlement case, on the occasion of Ukraine’s Vyshyvanka Day, which celebrates the country’s traditional embroidered shirt, a national icon.
The president’s wife was visiting Dobroslav, a town in Odesa Oblast some 450 kilometers south of Kyiv, and took part in sewing a huge rushnyk, a traditional embroidered towel, together with Trukhanov, Odesa Oblast governor Maksym Stepanov, and some local children, according to the descriptions of photos posted on the president’s website.
However, unlike Poroshenko and Stepanov, Trukhanov, who also has Russian citizenship, wasn’t wearing a vyshyvanka.
Trukhanov has been charged by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau with embezzling state funds along with seven accomplices, including his deputy mayor.
The BBC revealed in April, based on information from the Paradise Papers data breach, evidence of Trukhanov’s alleged involvement in a mafia gang.
The Organization for Corruption and Crime in Europe, the Kyiv Post partner, together with Slidstvo Info investigative program has also found that Trukhanov has an elite apartment in London worth $5.2 million.
President Petro Poroshenko (C) participates in a national flashmob of vyshyvankas in the city of Dnipro on May 17. (www.president.gov.ua)
Meanwhile, President Petro Poroshenko, also wearing a vyshyvanka, participated in a national flashmob in the city of Dnipro, forming along with 1,560 people an ethnographic map of Ukraine.
In parliament, most lawmakers also wore vyshyvankas. They included Poroshenko’s son Oleksiy, Poroshenko’s childhood friend and lawmaker Ihor Kononenko, Serhiy Liovochkin, the former chief of staff of the ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych, former Donetsk Oblast governor Serhiy Taruta, and parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy.
Lawmaker Sergiy Kivalov, another former Yanukovych ally, wore an embroidered tie instead of an embroidered shirt.
President Petro Poroshenko’s childhood friend and lawmaker Ihor Kononenko in white vyshyvanka (center left) talks in parliament next to lawmaker from Opposition Bloc Serhiy Kivalov (center right), who wears an embroidered tie in parliament on the national Vyshyvanka Day on May 17. (forum.pravda.com.ua)
