Saturday, February 11, 2012

No shopping in London for Kharkiv mayor

On Friday a story appeared that the mayor of one of Ukraine's biggest cities, Kharkiv, was refused a visa to travel to Great Britain several days previously, allegedly, 'because of his criminal past'.

Hennadiy Kernes was due to travel to London with a delegation led by deputy PM, Borys Kolesnikov on Tuesday in connection with preparations for the Euro 2012 Soccer tournament.

Later on Friday, a spokesman for the Kharkiv city council claimed Kernes does have a two-year British visa in his passport, but he could not fly to London 'because of his large workload'.

Smells rather fishy. I do not believe Kernes would turn down the opportunity to travel to 'Londongrad' in such a high-power delegation...best hotels..VIP treatment etc.. World and European Football Associations are very, very wealthy bodies...and hardly squeaky-clean..]

[Over the years I've heard many times and seen situations where dozens of people wait, sweating for hours outside a high-ranking 'chinovnik's' office for an appointment....meanwhile the 'chinovnik' has gone home early because it's a sunny afternoon..Work ethic is not the first thing that springs to mind when characterising highly placed Ukrainian officials.]

Or a visa may have been granted to Kernes...and then 'pulled' at the last minute... A visa does not guarantee entry...immigration officials can detain anyone they like at the border...

And this may be warning shot across the bows of Borys Kolesnikov. Many consider him the most ruthless 'businessmen' to have emerged during the 'wild-east' '90's days in Donbas region when the Yanukovych-Akhmetov-Kolesnikov triumvirate came to dominate there.

The black list I mentioned in my previous blog may be taking shape...

And no January sales shopping for Genyk..

"There’s a man goin’ ’round takin’ names.
An’ he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won’t be treated all the same.
There’ll be a golden ladder reaching down.
When the man comes around."

"When the man comes around"...Johnny Cash.

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