Last week, MP Volodymyr Parasyuk once again made his presence felt with a public brawl, this time with his parliamentary colleague Oleksandr Vilkul. "Strana" decided to examine the connections and past of the famous MP, which are much less known to the public than his turbulent present.
From Maidan to Maidan
Volodymyr Parasyuk rose to prominence on February 21, 2014, after delivering a speech on the Maidan calling for an armed assault if President Yanukovych refused to resign. At the time, Parasyuk was a centurion in one of the Maidan Self-Defense units.
The Verkhovna Rada website reports that MP Volodymyr Zinoviyovych Parasyuk lives in the village of Papirnya in the Zhovkva district of the Lviv region:
The future MP was born in a small village next to Papirnia, symbolically named Maidan. Both villages are located nearby, in dense forests on the border of the Yavoriv and Zhovkva districts northwest of Lviv.
V. Parasyuk spent his childhood and youth in the city of Novoyavorivsk in the Yavoriv district, where he graduated from School No. 1. He then studied for several years at the Lviv Polytechnic Institute, but did not complete it and took an academic leave.
At this time, Vladimir Parasyuk was participating in performances with the Lviv KVN team "Etalon." A photo of one of Parasyuk's performances is now the subject of many jokes:
Before the Maidan protests, Parasyuk earned his living as a videographer at weddings and other celebrations. Here's an ad we found on the website of an organization that organizes weddings in western Ukraine:
This fact is also confirmed on Vladimir Parasyuk's page on the social network VKontakte:
Before the Maidan, Parasyuk planned to continue working as a cameraman in October-November 2013:
But in the wake of the Maidan, Vladimir apparently abandoned his camera work. As a result, already in the spring of 2014, an aggrieved client began accusing him of financial misconduct – according to her, Parasyuk refused to complete the work he'd paid for and return the money:
This is explained by the fact that after the Maidan, Volodymyr Parasyuk, along with his father, began participating in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) as a fighter in the Dnipro-1 volunteer battalion of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. At the same time, they were raising funds to provide volunteer assistance to ATO fighters.
After this, V. Parasyuk served in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) as part of the Dnipro-1 volunteer battalion, where he narrowly escaped the Ilovaisk Cauldron. Then, in October 2014, V. Parasyuk was elected to the Verkhovna Rada from a single-member constituency located in his hometown of Yavoriv and Zhovkva districts in the Lviv region.
In parliament, the young MP proved himself to be an inveterate brawler. But outside the Verkhovna Rada, he maintains his style. For example, a local publication reported that Volodymyr Parasyuk personally beat and threatened to shoot (!) an SBU officer who had come to investigate reports of widespread illegal logging in the Zhovkva forestry enterprise, Parasyuk's hometown.
Relatives' business
Officially, Volodymyr Parasyuk owns neither real estate nor vehicles. However, in his 2015 asset declaration, he indicated that he lived with his parents, one of whom earned almost a million hryvnias as an entrepreneur:
Similarly, in his 2014 declaration, V. Parasyuk reported that his family members received income from entrepreneurial activities in the amount of UAH 912:
Since the MP listed his father, Parasyuk Z.O., and his mother, Parasyuk O.G., as family members, we wanted to find out who in his family earns almost a million a year. As it turns out, the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Entrepreneurs doesn't list an entrepreneur like Parasyuk Z.O. at all. However, only one female entrepreneur with the last name "Parasyuk" and the initials O.G. is registered there: Oksana Grigoryevna Parasyuk, who lives in the same village of Papirnya in the Zhovkva district. Apparently, this is the MP's mother:
As we can see, its primary business is selling used goods in stores—in other words, second-hand goods.
She was registered as an entrepreneur recently, since September 2013:
Her registration data includes the same phone number as the one listed on PrivatBank's stock list for the Odyagayko store, located in Lviv at 4 Zheleznodorozhnaya Street, not far from the train station:
Volodymyr Parasyuk also declared that his family members owned a 100-square-meter house. Here, the MP was mistaken – the house is slightly smaller, and his mother also owns it:
Besides his mother, Alexander Golub, the husband of Vladimir Parasyuk's older sister, Irina, is also involved in the family business. According to the Unified Register of Legal Entities and Entrepreneurs, he is registered as an entrepreneur at the address of the house owned by Vladimir Parasyuk's mother. His main business is wholesale clothing sales:
The contact phone number listed in the registration data is the same as that listed in several 2010 job postings (sales representative, warehouse manager, accountant, etc.) for the Lviv branch of the textile company "Bona Plus." This company is based in Kramatorsk, where Alexander Holub came from.
Alexander married Irina in 2012. Prior to this, he lived in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast, where he had a registered address as an entrepreneur until 2013.
In his interviews, Vladimir Parasyuk has repeatedly stated that he owns a car, which, however, is not listed in his declaration because it is registered to his sister's husband, Alexander Golub. In an interview with Glavkom, Parasyuk clarified that the car is a Skoda Superb. It was this car that Strana journalists spotted Parasyuk driving.
Alexander Golub posted a selfie of himself with his wife and her brother on his Facebook page:
Sister is a social activist
As for Volodymyr Parasyuk's older sister, Iryna, she has been involved in social and political work in nationalist organizations since a young age. Her resume on one job site states that from 2006 to 2010, she worked as an editor for the local newspapers of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists and as a secretary for general affairs. She also volunteered as a content editor for the website bandera.lviv.ua. Iryna cited "extensive experience in the political environment of Lviv and the region" as one of her positive qualities.
Currently, Iryna Holub is a lecturer at the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Lviv University.
Oleksandr and Iryna Holub served as Volodymyr Parasyuk's trusted representatives during the Verkhovna Rada elections:
After V. Parasyuk was elected as a people's deputy, Oleksandr and Irina became his assistants on a voluntary basis.
And recently, by order of the head of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Lviv Oblast dated September 5, 2016, No. 2071, the MP’s sister was appointed to the composition of the Certification Commission No. 8 as a representative of the public organization “Legislative Bureau of Volodymyr Parasyuk”.
Volunteer income – to a personal bank account
In early 2015, Vladimir Parasyuk, along with Irina and a friend from Dnipropetrovsk, Alexander Gostishchev (with whom Parasyuk served in Dnipro-1), founded the public organization "Center for Assistance and Support of Military Personnel." They began raising funds under this organization to assist ATO participants.
The funds were collected onto Parasyuk's personal bank card. As a reminder, he was already a member of parliament at this time:
But the public organization in whose name the funds were collected is not included in the Unified Register
volunteer organizations. Reports on funds raised were not published.
"Brother" Sasha is a police officer and entrepreneur
Parasyuk's sister's interest in police certification is no coincidence. In fact, Alexander Gostishchev, co-founder of the Military Assistance and Support Center and Parasyuk's "brother," was appointed head of the police department in the same Zhovkva district in May 2015.
The Zhovkva district's commercial value lies in its location of the famous Rava-Russky border crossing. The district also boasts numerous forests where widespread illegal logging has been recorded.
As Radio Liberty reported, Interior Minister A. Avakov ( read more about him in the article " Arsen Avakov: The Criminal Past of the Interior Minister ") appointed A. Gostishchev to the position of head of the Zhovkva District Police Department based on Parasyuk's recommendation. This appointment sparked protests among the local population, as the new chief had neither specialized training nor experience.
But this method of appointment overlooked an important detail. A year and a half after his appointment, Alexander Gostishchev is still registered as an entrepreneur at his former place of residence—Dnepropetrovsk. This is confirmed by an official extract from the register of legal entities and entrepreneurs we obtained:
In addition, Alexander Gostishchev is still the director and liquidator of the Dnepropetrovsk-based KGM-TRANS LLC, whose liquidation he has been involved in since 2009.
Sponsor – assistant, "KVN player" and "tenderer"
Another interesting figure in MP Parasyuk's inner circle is his assistant, Roman Lobay. He is the vice-rector for administrative and economic work at the Lviv University of Physical Education. He is also a former KVN player and played with Volodymyr Parasyuk on the Etalon team.
Together with his boss and Lviv resident Yulian Demyanovsky, he is a co-founder of another public organization, the Legislative Bureau of Volodymyr Parasyuk.
By Roman Lobay's own admission, he rents Parasyuk's reception office space in the center of Lviv, at 7 Shota Rustaveli Street, at his own expense:
As a reminder, Volodymyr Parasiuk was elected as a member of parliament in a constituency spanning the Yavoriv and Zhovkva districts. Consequently, Parasiuk's constituents do not reside in Lviv. Therefore, it is unclear why the deputy needs a parliamentary reception office outside his constituency.
As reported by Nashi Groshi. Lviv, Roman Lobay is a co-founder of Etalon LLC, along with Irina Prendkevich and Alexander Gorbunov. The latter is also a co-founder of Zubr CJSC, a company known for tender fraud.
In the summer of 2015, Etalon-Kom, a private enterprise headed by Roman Lobay, won a tender for the overhaul of a kindergarten in Lviv worth 14,29 million. In September 2016, the same company signed two more contracts for the equipment of the same kindergarten's grounds worth 2,8 million UAH.
Thus, at just one project, Parasyuk's assistant earned more than 17 million hryvnias in tenders using budget funds.
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