Alexander Gorgan-Lyalka: Medvedchuk's puppet in the Kyiv governor's chair. Part 1
A professional populist since his school days, the current head of the Kyiv Regional State Administration loves to talk about patriotism, love for Ukraine, and the merciless fight against corruption. And he's capable of fooling many naive ordinary people, especially those who didn't know or have forgotten who Oleksandr Gorgan was and who he was before the Maidan. Thanks to our ignorance and the "blindness" of law enforcement agencies, people like Gorgan "stole" before and after the Ukrainian revolutions, all the while climbing the career ladder.
Spurring on Patriotism
Alexander Lyubomirovich Gorgan was born on November 5, 1975, in the city of Kalush (Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast). From that time until 2008, he bore his parents' surname, Lyalka. His parents, Lyubomir Vasilyevich (born 1940) and Anna Nikitovna (born 1946), worked as doctors and, in the late 70s, acquired an apartment in a multi-story building on Pushkinskaya Street, the ground floor of which housed several shops. Doctors and Soviet retail workers quickly found common ground, so young Sashko Lyalka fortified himself with sandwiches laced with "doctor's sausage" before sports classes. However, this didn't seem enough for their family, so they became ideological opponents of the "communist regime," although they did not express their views publicly for a time. It wasn't until 1989, when the era of political liberalism began in the Ukrainian SSR and all sorts of parties and movements began to emerge, that 14-year-old Oleksandr Lalka joined the SNUM (Union of Independent Ukrainian Youth). And it was with this step that his entire subsequent career began, which he owes to his ability to connect with the right people. Behind their backs, Lalka grew first into a social activist, then a politician, and now a high-ranking official.
In 1992, Oleksandr Lyalka entered the Law Faculty of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Skelet.Org There is information that Lalka's choice of this university, as well as his admission to it, were facilitated by his older patrons from the youth movement, with whom he actively "partied." It's worth emphasizing that the Ukrainian "social activist" and "patriot" Oleksandr Lalka simply had no time to fulfill his military duty to his homeland at the time. He never served in the army—let's remember that! However, in our time, when any involvement with the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) carries significant political weight, Lalka has appeared several times at public events in military uniform and boldly waved the flag.
Alexander Gorgan-Lyalka, who never served in the army
I really love dressing up as a "defender of the fatherland"
Moreover, in 2016, Oleksandr Lalka, now known as Oleksandr Gorgan and a member of the Kyiv Regional Council, decided to involve his son Lyubomyr (born in 2005) in the theme of "defending the fatherland," making him a young hero. And so, a story about the head of the ministry appeared in the Ministry of Defense newsreel. Stepan Poltorpak Personally (!) presented young Lyubomir Gorgan with the medal "For Assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine." The pretext for the award was a heart-wrenching story about how a young patriot and exemplary scout (meaning "scout"), Lyubomir, saved for five years for his future studies abroad (which isn't exactly patriotic), scraping together dollar for dollar the gifts his parents gave him for good grades and athletic achievements. And when the ATO began, he used the $2500 he had saved (the boy turned out to be richer than many adult Ukrainians) to buy a jeep for a friend of his father's, a volunteer soldier. Naturally, no one mentioned who his father was or where he got so much money (how many fathers put $2500 in his young son's piggy bank?). One can only guess how many more dollars, in addition to the 2,5 "for the jeep," Alexander Gorgan spent to "visit" the Ministry of Defense and negotiate a medal for his son. But you must admit, a "volunteer medal" from the Minister of Defense himself at age 11 is a good start for the career of a future "patriotic social activist," if Lyubomir decides to follow in his father's footsteps! No expense is spared here.
If the father wanted not just to give his son a gift but also to achieve fame, he succeeded. However, attention was focused not on Lyubomyr Gorgan, but on his father. Someone simply wondered where his money came from, but began digging into his past. They uncovered that Gorgan's last name was Lyalka until 2008, when he later changed it for some reason, and that Oleksandr Gorgan was a candidate for the Kyiv Regional Council chairmanship from pro-presidential forces. This interest intensified when Gorgan-Lyalka became head of the Kyiv Regional State Administration.
Under Medvedchuk's wing
In fact, Oleksandr Lalka had no time not only to serve in the army but even to study—after all, since 1994, he had already headed the "Union of Ukrainian Students" and was seen far more often at events than at lectures. And in 1995, he not only became the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian National Committee of Youth Organizations (UNCYO), but also traveled to England, where he completed a course at the Edwards Language School. Moreover, these two events were directly related—Lalka paid for his travel (travel, accommodation, and tuition) from the public organization's funds.
However, "Edwards Language School" is just a language school with a short (two to three months) intensive course of learning English, but Alexander Lalka always proudly demonstrated this episode of his biography as "getting an education in England."
But apparently, spending money on foreign trips and receptions wasn't limited to this, because in that same year, 1995, Lalka co-founded the law firm "Yustinian." This was done primarily for show; the firm wasn't making a profit, and his student stipend clearly wasn't enough to cover office rent and taxes. However, Lalka wasn't shy about dipping his toes into the money flowing through UNKMO. And there was a lot of it, since it was through UNKMO that state funding for Ukrainian youth and children's organizations (over 9 million hryvnias in 1997) was channeled, along with funds for loans for youth construction projects and mortgages. And not just state funding: at first, they also "mastered" numerous grants from Western foundations. There are reports that Lalka was already mastering the art of kickbacks in exchange for providing more funding to some youth organizations at the expense of others.
But Lalka's immediate boss was the chairman of the Ukrainian Youth Maritime Union (UNKMO), Volodymyr Ryabika (born 1962), with whom he worked closely for almost a decade. Moreover, Ryabika, who had previously worked for the LKSMU and then headed the Youth Maritime League of Ukraine, knew Lalka well even before 1995. Ryabika himself was one of the people of the odious Viktor Medvedchuk, and it was through Ryabika that Alexander Lalka came to “serve” Medvedchuk.
Kumovya V. Putin and V. Medvedchuk
In 1997, after graduating from university, Lyalka remained deputy chairman of the Ukrainian National Committee of Ukrainian Lawyers – he couldn't give up such a lucrative position! But in 1998, he became a co-founder of the joint venture "OLAS Law Firm." This firm has long been in liquidation, leaving no trace in the public media, and could have been dismissed as yet another shell company if not for rumors that it was linked to Medvedchuk's organizations. But, again, Gorgan-Lyalka has recently been meticulously erasing all information about his dealings with Medvedchuk, and even this firm ceased operations just as Medvedchuk was appointed governor of Kyiv.
In February 1999, the already balding Viktor Medvedchuk (born 1954) became the chairman of the National Council on Youth Policy under the President of Ukraine (he headed it until 2005). He immediately appointed Ryabika (his deputy) and Lyalka to the committee. For the next three years, these three men—Medvedchuk, Ryabika, and Lyalka—steered youth policy and youth organizations in Ukraine. The only ones beyond their control were the national-patriotic youth organizations financed directly from abroad, but even they could exert pressure on them through administrative channels.
Funding for the UNKMO increased sharply (12 million in 1999 and 13 million in 2000), but even then, financial audits revealed numerous violations and even outright embezzlement. Years later, these embezzlements were not reported.People's Deputy from Batkivshchyna, Alena Shkrum, will remember Lyalka. But despite the scandal, Ryabika and his deputy Lyalka remained in their chairs, which in 2000 caused a sharp negative reaction from some members of the UNKMO, who staged pickets demanding a change in leadershipHowever, the scandal was not only financial but also political. Medvedchuk used the UNKMO to campaign for Kuchma during the 1999 elections, and then began to leverage its support in the escalating confrontation with Viktor Yushchenko and the national patriots. Specifically, youth protest pickets against Prime Minister Yushchenko and Deputy Prime Minister Tymoshenko were organized through Lyalka. And this led to a split: in 2000, some UNKMO members, led by one of Ryabika's deputies, Vladimir Berezovsky, attempted to stage a coup by separately electing him as the new chairman. During that split, Lyalka loyally supported Ryabika and, by extension, Medvedchuk—something he's unlikely to want to remember now. Well, since all the administrative resources, the support of the Bankova and the Verkhovna Rada, and control over finances were on the side of the Medvedchuk-Ryabika-Lyalka trio, the “rebellion” in the ranks of the UNKMO was quickly suppressed.
Against the backdrop of this scandal, a juicy, cynical slap in the face of the Ukrainian public was Lyalka's creation in 2000 of the all-Ukrainian youth organization "Youth Against Corruption," which he headed for several years (and received funding for).
Interestingly, the then "democratic" opposition subsequently sought to deprive the UNKMO of its monopoly on budget funding through the courts. It was this monopoly, controlled by Medvedchuk's men, that led to the creation of "backdoor" routes for large-scale funding of youth organizations opposed to the government by Western foundations. In turn, Medvedchuk's men waged a veritable war in 2001-2002 against the banks and organizations that channeled Western grants.
Alexander Gorgan-Lyalka: Medvedchuk's puppet in the Kyiv governor's chair. Part 1
But, despite the fact that all of Medvedchuk's teams were already taking an anti-Western stance, in 2001, Alexander Lalka again arranged for himself a major tour abroad, funded by the UNKMO: this time, he visited America as part of the cultural and political exchange program "International Visitor Leadership Program" – listing it in his portfolio as "studying in the USA."
During the 2002 parliamentary elections, the UNKMO was mobilized by Medvedchuk to support the SDPU (o), on whose party list Ryabika received fourth place. However, since the committee did not allow direct support for any political force, and the UNKMO leadership lied about its political impartiality, the Bloc of Ukrainian Youth (BUM) was created within its framework specifically for the elections. openly declaring his alliance with the Social DemocratsOleksandr Lyalka was directly involved in this, although he never secured a spot on the SDPU(o) list, and after the elections, he had to settle for the role of assistant to MP Ryabika, meaning he was once again close to his boss. Their successful and fruitful collaboration continued right up until the first Maidan.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
CONTINUED: Alexander Gorgan-Lyalka: Medvedchuk's puppet in the Kyiv governor's chair. Part 2
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