Alexander Omelchenko
Local elections are just around the corner, and candidates for mayors of Ukrainian cities are already preparing for them in full force. The most honorable, of course, is the seat of the mayor of the Ukrainian capital – Kyiv. One of the main candidates for this post is Alexander Omelchenko, the ex-mayor of Kyiv “with ten years of experience.” Just two years ago, Alexander Alexandrovich could have been called a political corpse, however, as political scientists predict, he should become the main competitor of the current mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko. More than 9 years have passed since his tenure as head of Kyiv, but the townspeople still cannot forgive him for some of his “exploits.”
How Omelchenko became “San-Sanych”
Alexander Omelchenko was born back in 1938 in the Vinnitsa region. Immediately after graduating from the construction university and serving in the army, he began working at the enterprises of Glavkievgorstroy. It was in this state-owned company that Omelchenko rose from an ordinary worker to the director of a reinforced concrete products plant and the chief engineer of a house-building plant. For his good service, he was eventually promoted to first deputy head of Glavkievgorstroy. After returning from Afghanistan in 1989, Alexander Alexandrovich’s career actively took off. After working in the structure of the State Construction Committee, he became the deputy executive committee of the Kyiv City Council of People’s Deputies, and served as the general director of the State Communal Enterprise Kievrekonstruktsiya. After 1994, Omelchenko first became deputy chairman of the Kyiv City State Administration, and already in 1996, its chairman.
Alexander Omelchenko
10 years on guard of Kyiv
From the first days in power, Alexander Alexandrovich chose the path of a “business executive”, because there was little prospect for him in politics due to his arrogant “politicization”. This image helped Omelchenko win the favor of almost all parties in power. When assessing his work as mayor, he is often compared to former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov. The official never denied that he looked up to him. And having come to power, Omelchenko gradually began to create a kind of “subsystem”, which, with the help of municipal-bureaucratic business and the media, helped him provide various propaganda activities.
At one time, the “successful builder” Alexander Omelchenko was accused of corruption, which was associated with the reconstruction of Khreshchatyk and the Ukraina Palace, but at the same time, it was under his rule that Kyiv began to acquire the features of a “European city,” or so they actively wrote Media controlled by him. Alexander Alexandrovich was often accused of exceeding his powers, both in the socio-economic sphere and in personal affairs. A striking example of this can be the behavior of Alexander Omelchenko during the mayoral elections in 1999, when in the full sense of the word all municipal authorities down to the lowest level worked for him.
Igor Surkis
In the local elections in 1999, Omelchenko was able to receive the support of almost all parties. He managed to reduce the mayoral election to a winning confrontation between two candidates: “businessman Omelchenko” versus “oligarch Surkis.” This is what ensured his complete victory – 76% voted for Omelchenko; for Surkis – 16%. Before the 1999 elections, San Sanych was positioned as “Kuchma’s man,” but the presidential elections showed that he gradually began to move away from the “ruling elite.” As the 2002 parliamentary elections approached, Omelchenko began to increasingly position himself as an independent politician. Rumor has it that he entered politics at the behest of President Kuchma’s administration. In 2001, he became the leader of the Unity party, which “went into politics” in order to draw votes from the Our Ukraine bloc of Viktor Yushchenko, with whom Alexander Omelchenko was actively “flirting.”
As facts show, Omelchenko owes his rise solely to Leonid Kuchma; it was under his rule that he managed to take over all the levers of power, including control over the Kiev City Council. For his loyalty to Leonid Kuchma, he received a one-year postponement of the election of the city chairman, who in 1998 could have elected anyone except Omelchenko, who was unpopular at that time. In the year that he received at the instigation of Kuchma, with the help of controlled utility bodies and the media, Omelchenko raised his rating almost from zero to heaven.
But all “patrons” sooner or later lose power, and with them their wards also lose it. With Leonid Kuchma leaving the post of president, Omelchenko soon followed him, who, although he “flirted” with other parties, always remained faithful to his patron. Without the president’s support, in the 2006 elections, Alexander Omelchenko received only the third result, losing to Leonid Chernovetsky and Vitali Klitschko. The ex-mayor was supported by 305 thousand residents of the capital. Omelchenko’s attempts to challenge the election results in court ended in nothing.
Printout of the conversation between Omelchenko and Yushchenko:
1. Hello?
2. Hello. This is an assistant…
1. Yes…
2. …Yushchenko Viktor Andreevich.
1. Yes, yes. Now.
2. Do you know…
1. Now, yes, now, just a second…(020)
023
O. Hello, hello!
Y. Hello, hello…
O. Good afternoon!
Yu. Alexander Sanych. Good health!
O. Viktor Andreevich?
Yu. Yes.
A. How could you do this, leave… uh… uh… to Vinnitsa on the day when Medvedchuk is the first question being voted on today, and they didn’t even say a damn thing, he doesn’t know anything… They took Poroshenko with you. Udovenko doesn’t know, Kostenko doesn’t know and the King doesn’t know. How could you do this?!!
Yu. Alexander Sanych… They vote. They vote.
O. I ask you how you could do this, Viktor Andreevich!!! I’ve been working with you… with Ivy for four hours now. How could you do this?! Why, why didn’t you gather people?!
Yu. They vote, Alexander Sanych.
A. Do they vote?
Yu. What should I collect? I have signatures. What should I collect?
O. Do you know that the King did not pass?!
Yu. The King will hand over in 15 minutes.
O. Viktor Andreevich… Be afraid…
Yu. Unintelligible, speaks simultaneously.
O. Viktor Andreevich, Viktor Andreevich. I congratulate you on the Day of St. Andrew the First-Called, Your Holy Father.
Yu. Thank you.
A. And I ask you, if the King does not bring the wet lists and hand them over in 15-20 minutes…
Yu. Alexander Sanych…
O. Fear God! Come back please!
Yu. No questions…
A. Leave Vinnitsa today. Come back from halfway! I beg you! Return to Kyiv!
Yu. Alexander Sanych, that means now… I, I spoke with Poroshenko this morning. There are no questions!..
O. I ask you, come back to Kyiv! Or in 15 minutes let Poroshenko and the King come to me and collect lists, wet lists. Wet lists, not a copy!
Yu. Yes, yes… I’ll call you in 15, 10 minutes.
O. I beg you! Or return to Kyiv!
Y. Good.
O. Do you understand me? The fate of Ukraine is being decided! Return to Kyiv!!!
1. Hello!
2. This is Yushchenko’s assistant. Give Alexander Sanych, if possible…
1. Yes, now, just a second, now.
O. Good afternoon!
Yu. Alexander Sanych?
O. Yes…
Yu. Good health. “Solidarity” brought lists?
A. I didn’t bring it. The king just said to Matvienko… Hello…
Yu. Yes…
O. …and Bondarenko, that Poroshenko’s lists are closed. Tell him to let the asshole break the safe. Do you understand?! Moroz did not pass – 20. And Poroshenko – 20. Forty votes! Victor, what have you done?!!!
Yu. Alexander Sanych…
O. Viktor Andreevich! What have you done?!
Yu. Alexander Sanych…
O. I asked you to come back from the road!!!
Yu. Alexander Sanych… that, well, I’m out of the way… I, I’m in Vinnitsa…
O. I asked you to turn the car back, Victor?!
Yu. Alexander Sanych… So I’m in Vinnitsa. Well… It’s two and a half hours.
O. So Poroshenko is also with you!
Yu. So I say – two and a half hours. If you insist, he will return. Well, it’s two and a half hours, the voting is already over…
A. Why didn’t he give the command to the King? Why doesn’t he now give the command to the secretariat to open the safe and bring the King into the hall… uh… uh… lists?! And you me… Why did you sell me?!!! You sold me!!! You are a traitor!!!
Yu. At the same time, very illegible – Alexander Sanych…
At one time, Alexander Omelchenko became interested in football, and to be precise, in the money that could be earned from it. During the 2001-2002 football season, the capital’s CSKA team was renamed and made municipal (and the revived CSKA played in the first league with the huge support of Igor Surkis, Omelchenko’s main competitor). The renewed Arsenal was a grandiose project, the budget of which included 40 million UAH per year (8 million dollars), a colossal amount at that time that exceeded all sports expenses in Kyiv combined. Within a few months, it became clear that the project was unprofitable, no one wanted to see the team in Kyiv, and millions of hryvnia continued to fly in the wind at the empty “republican stadium”, where the main “municipal” team of the capital played their matches.
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Fatal accident
In November 2009, the ex-mayor of Kyiv and, at that time, people’s deputy, Alexander Omelchenko, shot down and killed Alexander Karpinsky, a 46-year-old builder. According to witnesses, Karpinsky crossed the road along a zebra crossing without violating traffic rules, but Omelchenko stated something completely different. According to Alexander Alexandrovich, the pedestrian violated the rules by walking not along the zebra crossing, but diagonally across the highway. As a result, the case was hushed up due to the “lack of evidence of a crime”; the press service of the capital’s police claims that after a series of examinations it was found out that Karpinsky was shot down 12 meters from the zebra.
Alexander Omelchenko after an accident
Oddly enough, his relatives did not protest at all against this decision, because according to Alexander’s common-law wife Svetlana Tetyusheva, the ex-mayor of Kyiv bought the son of the deceased and his half-brother a two-story house near Kiev and a new car, and also paid all the expenses that were associated with funeral, moreover, he himself came to the funeral.
There are quite a lot of contradictory factors in the biography of Alexander Alexandrovich, which show him, on the one hand, as a wonderful person, a family man and business executive, and on the other hand, they question everything that he achieved during his work in the civil service. The Ukrainian media are already prepared in advance for the second round of mayoral elections in Kyiv, other Omelchenko as the main competitor to Vitali Klitschko, whether this will be so is difficult to say, but the fact that each of these persons has their own skeletons in the closet, alas, is impossible to deny.
Read also:
Vitali Klitschko. The dark past of “looking to tomorrow”
Dmitry Samofalov, for SKELET-info