Yushchenko Decorates His Office

KIEV, Ukraine -- While Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko's office at the presidential secretariat still holds traces of its previous occupant, former President Leonid Kuchma, it has a decidedly more Ukrainian style, a Ukrainian pro-government daily has said. The authors describe the antique furniture and interior of the presidential study.

Yushchenko tells them he wants to move his office from the former presidential administration in Bankova Street to another location in Mariyinskyy Park. The building in Bankova Street could house the Foreign Ministry.

The president re-outfits an interior which he will take with him to a new office in Mariyinskyy Park, and [former President Leonid] Kuchma's office will be re-done in its "original" look as a museum.

A NEW INTERIOR

Just as a theatre begins with the cloakroom, the president begins with his office. The decor of [Ukrainian President] Viktor Yushchenko's place of work has always eloquently characterized him, and legends have been told about the Ukrainian flavour of the offices of the leader of Our Ukraine [parliamentary faction].

But you have to see it. It is rare for a person of such high position to have such a beautiful hobby, and one which can be seen and sometimes even touched at his place of everyday work.

Yushchenko collects Ukrainian antiques and objects from his large collection please the eyes not only at his home and dacha, but actively surrounded him, for example, at his office on Borychevyy Tik. And now it turns out he has brought some of it over to the office on Bankova Street, the same office which earlier belonged to Kuchma.

Last week, these apartments underwent radical redecoration. Thanks to many things in Yushchenko's "natural habitat", the premises on the fourth floor of the former presidential administration (and now the state secretariat) have become significantly more comfortable and have turned into truly human premises. Viktor Yushchenko, who has taken a stand against "Byzantine" politics, has with this same view got rid of many elements of "Byzantium" in decorating his new office.

Although of course, it would be difficult to get rid of all the gilt. It remains on the luxurious chandeliers "from the palace" with numerous crystal "dangles", and on the walls...[ellipsis as published] But Yushchenko took care of the furniture in a pretty radical way. When Ukrayina Moloda journalists asked him about changes to the interior, Yushchenko answered: "The only thing left from Kuchma is that telephone table there (the president points out an "add-on" on the right side of his working table - author) and these two chests (he points out two high cabinets on four legs which, like the telephone table are liberally adorned along the edges with gilded designs - author)."

THE FORMER OCCUPANT

There are two telephones on the telephone table with antediluvian "selectors", which would be most becoming on the table of the director of Pivdenmash in the 1970s [an allusion to Kuchma who was the director of the Pivdenmash rocket-design bureau in the 1970s]. And the table itself
with all its gilt is a hot topic: it cost a whole 10,000 dollars. Like the other pieces of "Byzantine" furniture, it was bought by the former Department of State Affairs [DSA].



The "golden" tables, chairs, chests and couch in Kuchma's working apartments overall cost 2.6 million dollars, although the new leadership of the DSA suspects that since even prestigious furniture cannot be purchased for so much, money was simply laundered through the accounts of a few firms close to Kuchma and [former head of the presidential administration Viktor Medvedchuk.]



And now Yushchenko is washing the image of the "first office of the state". A few old things are still left. For example, judging from the old photographs of Leonid Kuchma at his working table, the pen-holder is of a bright green colour, which looks like marble, has gone to Yushchenko.
Some of the chairs are new, but many of them have the same "lion's paw" legs as did Kuchma's. They stand on a soft beige carpet.

There is no trace of "Melnychenko's sofa" [a sofa in Kuchma's office under which former presidential bodyguard Maj Mykola Melnychenko claims to have placed a recording device, capturing the conversations of high-ranking officials in the presidential office], or of a long table for counsel (it cost Kuchma 34,000 dollars). In their place two dark-green sofas have appeared in Yushchenko's office,, one leather and one textile, both of them not so much office as home in appearance, old-style and with high backs. And the new head of state holds meetings using small book tables, no matter how many ministers, MPs and prosecutors come to talk.

By the way, there is one more manifestation of democracy here: while talking to your Ukrayina Moloda journalists, besides the traditional coffee and milk next to the president, there was a dish with dried apricots, hazelnuts and small Ukrainian bread-rolls. A bit farther over was President-brand, of course, yoghurt and bottles of Morshchynska mineral water.

ACCESSORIES IN THE INTERIOR

At Yushchenko's left behind the working table there hangs a political map of Europe, testimony to the geostrategic choice. On the visitor's table, which stands perpendicular to the [president's] working table, there is no gilding, but there is a pile of red binders with titles like "Budget", "Local self-government" and "Oil and Gas Complex". And there is a pile of newspapers, where one sees the front page of the Donetsk-based Ostrov.



On the table further back, between the state flag and the presidential standard, there is a mace on a stand, an icon, and there are also icons on the chest of drawers and the writing table, which stand along the wall across from the window. On one of the chest there is even a fair-sized Buddha sculpture. Probably not a Ukrainian antique, but spiritual anyway.

Yushchenko has already brought several of his favourite paintings to work, one with Cossacks, and another, famous one with Maksym Kryvonis on a horse, slicing Yarema Vyshnevetskyy in battle. In an prominent place, tucked into the frame of a large painting is a photo with small Taras
[Yushchenko's baby son]. On the wall across there is a framed portrait of the big Taras, Shevchenko [Ukrainian 19th-century poet and painter].

It is just under this painting that the new authorities hold meetings. [Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr] Lytvyn, [State Secretary Oleksandr] Zinchenko, [Prime Minister Yuliya] Tymoshenko and others have to look at a huge tapestry on the other side, from which Cossack Mamay and five hetmans (Khmelnytskyy, Sahaydachnyy, Mazepa, Bayda-Vyshnevetskyy and another one, not so easy to identify) look back at them.

In the corners of the tapestry of 1990 lines of poetry are embroidered: "The hetmans will come alive in golden attire, fate will awake and the Cossack will sing", "And the good glory of Ukraine will awake" and so on.

Between the chests of drawers, in the same way as between the windows, there are sculptures of Moses with the Table of Commandments, saints, angels and so on. They seem to be wooden, but they are pretty. On the windowsills are simple vases. And among the books for some reason
there is a folio with the title "Russia - a great destiny". But on the old clock with a pendulum and gong, there is a whole string of Ukrainian Easter eggs. And once again they convince the visitor: this is the working office of the UKRAINIAN president.

COLLECTING ANTIQUES

[Viktor Yushchenko about his office] "This version is not final, but what is important is that my contents have been brought in here. The furniture here is mainly from the 1850s. And among them are some chests that are 300 years old. There is furniture which belonged to one of our great church activists of the 20th century.



The idea is as follows: the president's office should reflect the epoch. Right now we are still forming just a part of the future office, which I will take with me to the new place. So here I have brought a few paintings, sculptures and the photograph of Taras...[ellipsis as published] These
things which illustrate my imagination, but the interior is not fully outfitted. Although I know for sure there will not be a single spot of gold in my new office, not on the ceiling or on the furniture. But that will be when we get to the new place, to Mariyinskyy Park.

By the way, when we move, I intend to put back the furniture which was here, on Bankova Street under Kuchma. Let it be something of a museum. But personally, it is hard for me to work here now.

For example, a "Kuchma-time" painting is still hanging here, they haven't taken it away yet. (He points to the wall. A small painting in dark tones shows autumn trees in poor weather, a muddy road, a bit of a field and a lonesome figure - author). What is it saying? Some guy is going somewhere. Is that the place it should hang? I suspect that earlier there was a much more costly painting here that someone took away. And they hung up this one.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

[Correspondents] Viktor Andriyovych, what will be in this building when you move to Mariyinskyy Park?

[Yushchenko] There are plans to put the Foreign Ministry in here.

[Text] The president goes up to the window which overlooks the Building of Chimeras, points to the square below and says, like a professional designer:

[Yushchenko] Here it would not be bad to put in a driveway, make a nice park area, a little square for official ceremonies...[ellipsis as published] And to join this with the other level, there at the foot of the Building with Chimeras. To make a winter garden...[ellipsis as published]

[Text] It appears Viktor Yushchenko is serious about the aesthetic view from the Bankova Street windows, because he speaks animatedly even about the type of trees which it would be good to plant in this quarter all the way to Lyuteranska Street. The president, who is collector, designer and architect rolled into one, continues:

[Yushchenko] A so-called "government quarter" would be good to make not too far away, next to parliament. First, we have to put Mariyinskyy Palace back in its original appearance. You know, now official delegations and participants in other ceremonies enter through the back door. But we plan to make it so the entryway was like it was before, from the side of the current Cabinet of Ministers. The State Secretariat will be where the Health Ministry is now, in the park across from Mariyinskyy [Palace]. And you can add that building a bit down the hill or Park Alley to the complex. And that will be the president's representative [quarters].

[Correspondents] Will it be possible to picket it, like now?

[Text] Yushchenko frowns; he is obviously dissatisfied with such constant and tiresome "manifestations of democracy". He says it would be good if it did not hinder the functions of the president and did not look like paid-for PR actions over the most petty of things. There, he says, for three weeks people have been standing with megaphones over some small holograms on excise duty stamps.

Source: Ukrayina Moloda