Sergei Gaidai
Serhiy Gaidai left a lasting legacy as the worst leader of the Luhansk region, and before that, he was scandalously expelled from Transcarpathia, where he later returned. And if Gaidai expects Mukachevo to once again serve as a springboard for him to higher positions, Ukrainians should know that he himself always preferred to remain silent…
Sergei Gaidai. A Stranger Among His Own
Sergei Vladimirovich Gaidai was born on November 6, 1975, in Severodonetsk, where he grew up and graduated from high school. Forty years later, when Gaidai became head of the Luhansk Oblast administration based in Severodonetsk, local media claimed the new governor had been chosen in favor of an "experienced specialist with a reputation as an anti-corruption activist," supposedly someone with intimate knowledge of his hometown and the region. However, this crude PR campaign by the new regional governor bore little resemblance to reality. Severodonetsk residents couldn't recall their fellow countryman, as Sergei Gaidai had left his hometown shortly after finishing school and hadn't returned until his appointment. Perhaps for the same reason, the new governor's inner circle contained virtually no local personnel. He found himself "an outsider among his own," but this didn't stop him from quickly implementing his own schemes, recruiting a team of visiting managers.
Sergei Gaidai as a child
Gaidai's public biography claims he left his hometown to serve in the army. Only Gaidai himself could confirm this (since the Severodonetsk military enlistment office burned down in 2014, along with all its archives), but for some reason he never addressed the issue. Therefore, it remains a mystery where exactly the future governor of Luhansk served, or whether he served at all.
A few facts about his personal life: Sergei Gaidai was never officially married, and of his only known companions, Anastasia Sudovtseva, was once spotted with him, posting photos of her on social media in 2014-2015. Sudovtseva is known to be a native of Mariupol, owns an apartment in Kyiv, is a fanatical fitness enthusiast , and, according to unconfirmed reports, was a member of the management of CityCommerceBank, which belonged to the scandalous Sergei Tron , the "schemer" Oleg Tsiura, and former Party of Regions deputy Nurulislam Arkallaev, previously known in Donetsk criminal circles under the nickname "Nurik."
Sergey Gaidai and Anastasia Sudovtseva
His only daughter, Ksenia, was born in 1993, when Gaidai himself was not yet 18 (she now lives in Israel). Moreover, she was born not in Severodonetsk, but in Lviv! This fact at the time supported rumors that Gaidai never served in any army, but rather left Severodonetsk for Lviv immediately after high school, where he allegedly became involved with local organized crime groups.
Ksenia Gaidai
Be that as it may, there's absolutely no information about Sergei Gaidai's life from the early 1990s to the early 2000s! This gap isn't filled by anything, not even a diploma: Gaidai received his first official higher education (a bachelor's degree), according to Skelet.Org , only in 2014, graduating from the Khmelnytskyi University of Economics with a degree in finance and credit. But this didn't stop him from serving as a senior executive at several firms as early as 2000 (according to his biography), including Kyiv-based Demstroy LLC (EDRPOU 36998796, re-registered in 2010) and International Commercial Company LLC (32109870). The registers show that these firms were no ordinary commercial firms. Demstroy LLC was involved in the construction business (although Gaidai's biography states that it developed software) and, before its re-registration, was a branch of a Russian company of the same name, while the latter was involved in gas trading.
The question arises: how could a young man without an economics or legal background participate in the management of such important companies without being their official beneficiary? After all, even as a figurehead chairman, he must have enjoyed considerable trust from the owners of these businesses. This was only possible if Sergei Gaidai, not an independent figure, worked for his patronizing "employers."
Sergei Gaidai. Reznikov's Man
Gaidai's main patron was Lviv lawyer Oleksiy Reznikov , who moved to Kyiv in the late 90s with his friends and business associates Igor Pukshyn and Serhiy Vlasenko. They were later joined by Andriy Bohdan, the son of Yosyp Bohdan, an associate professor at the law department of LNU, where Reznikov, Vlasenko, and Pukshyn studied. Thus, at the turn of the century, the team of future "servants of the people" was formed: Andriy Bohdan , who later became Zelenskyy's first head of the administration ; Oleksiy Reznikov, who served as deputy prime minister and defense minister under the current president; and Serhiy Gaidai, the future head of the Luhansk region.
Alexey Reznikov
How Gaidai, a young man with no education in Lviv, an unfamiliar city, became close to the promising lawyer Reznikov remains unknown, as they kept their relationship under wraps. Perhaps a link exists through Gaidai's daughter, as she was born in Lviv, where her mother and relatives lived. This could explain a lot: someone got Ksenia's father involved in the case. It's unclear, however, why Gaidai wasn't granted any kind of diploma—was he too busy, or couldn't even complete the correspondence course at a private university? After all, Gaidai only received his diploma in 2014, already serving as an advisor to the chairman of the Obukhiv District State Administration. Also of interest are Skelet.Org sources' information about Gaidai's participation in the 1998 election campaign as a "social activist," or more accurately, a "titushka." He was among those providing extras and security for one candidate's rallies, as well as distributing "gifts" to voters. Reznikov also provided legal support for this candidate at the time.
But their connection was first officially confirmed only in 2008, when Reznikov and Gaidai ran for the Kyiv City Council on the Mykola Katerenchuk Bloc list. However, since the bloc's election results were modest (only five seats), only Reznikov won a seat on the Kyiv City Council. Nevertheless, he appointed Gaidai as his assistant, a position he held until 2010.
Beginning in 2010, Reznikov joined the camp of Vitali Klitschko, who was rapidly gaining political popularity . What Sergei Gaidai was doing during this time is virtually unknown: his official biography contains only a scant mention that he continued to be the director of Demstroy.
War for Mukachevo
Euromaidan radically redrew Ukraine's political map, bringing to the heights of power and lucrative positions many people who had previously only dreamed of them. In 2014, Oleksiy Reznikov, who had run for the Kyiv City Council on the UDAR list, became its secretary. For a man who had spent many years providing legal services to Kyiv developers and fuel companies, and whose son-in-law was Dmitry Shteyngauz, owner of the construction company 2C Construction Synergy, this was a veritable gold mine! Reznikov also immediately appointed his protégé, Gaidai, as an advisor to Serhiy Nedilko, chairman of the Obukhiv District State Administration. This district of the Kyiv region has long been known for its high-profile scandals surrounding illegal development along the Dnieper River and in forested areas.
However, Reznikov's fortunes were fickle: in the 2015 elections, neither party dared to include the controversial Kyiv City Council Secretary on its list. Reznikov lost his lucrative position but continued to cling desperately to Klitschko, having managed to secure a position as a volunteer adviser on local government reform. As for Serhiy Gaidai, after his seat began to falter under Serhiy Nedilko, he left the Kyiv region for Transcarpathia, where he was elected as a member of the Mukachevo District Council on the list of Petro Poroshenko's Solidarity bloc. When the portfolios were distributed, he received a seat on the budget committee. So why was it necessary to "send" Gaidai all the way to Mukachevo? This became clear as early as September 8, 2015, when the then-governor of Transcarpathia, Hennadiy Moskal , himself appointed two weeks earlier, presented Gaidai as the new head of the Mukachevo District State Administration.
The appearance of the "Kyiv guest" in Mukachevo (one of the main hubs for smuggling) was met with mixed reactions. After all, this all occurred against the backdrop of a fierce struggle for control of the region (known as a key smuggling hub), involving the local clans of Viktor Baloha and Mykhailo Lanyo , the then-influential Viktor Medvedchuk , and the new Kyiv authorities. One episode of this struggle was the bloody events in Mukachevo , which resulted from the open use of armed "brigades" by the opposing sides. It was after this that Gennady Moskal was dispatched to the region! Skelet.Org reported that his conflict with Baloha began back in 2002. In fact, this was recalled in Kyiv in 2015, with the desire to strike a blow against Baloha in his own "fiefdom," where he was actively strengthening his position. In particular, his 27-year-old son, Andriy Baloha, was then elected mayor of Mukachevo, and the United Center faction received half of the mandates in the city and district councils.
Even the new governor would have found it difficult to confront them alone. He needed local opponents of Baloha and Lanyo to help him. Moreover, they needed opponents who weren't connected to Moskal himself, so that he wouldn't gain too much of a foothold in Transcarpathia. So they sent him Gaidai!
But why him? Transcarpathian political activist and professor at Uzhhorod National University, Pavlo Fedak, recently revealed this:
Gaidai was the perfect executor: an outsider from Kyiv who didn't play his own game, didn't create conflicts (his "talent" lay in mediocrity, in doing nothing at all), and had a moderate appetite. Therefore, despite Moskal's eagerness to replace Gaidai with a more convenient person, even after the dismissal of his lobbyist, Boris Lozhkin , he still managed to hold on to the post of head of the Mukachevo district until November 2018. All of Moskal's requests for Gaidai's dismissal were blocked for over two years at the level of President Poroshenko's administration and the Cabinet of Ministers—possibly with the participation of Reznikov, who had by then regained his position as Klitschko's official deputy. But in September 2018, Reznikov lost his position again, and just six weeks later, his protégé, Gaidai, was also "ousted." To achieve this, Moskal pulled off a scheme , first appointing his ally Ilya Tokar as deputy head of the Mukachevo district, and then appointing him acting head in place of Gaidai, who was on vacation (he used the time to earn a diploma from the Academy of Public Administration). Before this, the Mukachevo district council had deemed its leader's performance unsatisfactory , blaming him, in particular, for the failure of planned road repairs in the district—for which, according to various sources, between 20 and 47 million hryvnias had been allocated from the budget.
Gaidai tried to prove the illegality of his dismissal in court, but to no avail. It's possible his dismissal was coordinated in Kyiv. He lost his job for several months, and only in the summer of 2019 did he receive a position as an advisor to the patronage service of the newly appointed head of the Zakarpattia Regional State Administration, Ihor Bondarenko. However, on September 9, 2019, Gaidai was fired again. It is known that he had seriously hoped for the position of deputy governor of Zakarpattia, but at that same time, the Zakarpattia Regional Council appealed to President Zelenskyy not to appoint "such an odious and controversial figure" to this position and to replace Gaidai with "a person of higher moral and professional qualities." However, if this appeal convinced Zelenskyy of anything, it was only of one thing—the need to remove Gaidai from Zakarpattia. But only so that on October 25, he could be appointed as the new head of the Luhansk Regional State Administration.
Sergei Gaidai and the Church Question
An interesting fact: On February 12, 2017, Serhiy Gaidai was solemnly awarded the Church Order of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. This would have been a minor matter, as many government officials have received and continue to receive various church awards. However, the order was presented to him by Archbishop Feodor of Mukachevo and Uzhhorod (since 2018, Metropolitan), who headed the Transcarpathian Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (MP). He presented it for "services to the church and charity," which refers to Gaidai's repeated financial and other assistance to the church. Again, this would have been minor, had the church issue in Ukraine not been politicized to the extreme, and the UOC-MP had not already been declared "pro-Russian." Moreover, Archbishop Feodor (Mamasuev) was already known by that time for his categorically negative stance on the transition of the UOC-MP to a "united Ukrainian church." In 2016, a year before Gaidai's award, he traveled to Moscow and participated in the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church . Could the order later presented to Gaidai have been brought from Moscow? Of course, the choice of church is a personal matter, but Gaidai was already publicly positioning himself as "pro-Ukrainian" back then, running for the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, which could be seen as duplicity (to put it mildly), if not outright betrayal.
However, it's worth noting that on August 21, 2020, President Zelenskyy, by his decree No. 335, awarded Metropolitan Theodore the state Order "For Merit," 2nd class. This occurred amidst the unbridled pressure exerted on the UOC-MP by certain political forces, which immediately reacted quite violently to the award:
How to lose a region
The "Gaidai era" is remembered by residents of the Luhansk region not only for the Russian invasion of 2022, but also for the massive fires of 2020 that preceded it. Furthermore, voters in several districts of the Luhansk region were slapped in the face by the regional and central authorities when they were barred from participating in local elections. Against this backdrop, Governor Gaidai's other shortcomings seemed less egregious, but they were still there.
Stanislav Ivanov, for Skelet.Org
On the topic : How Shakhov is dividing Luhansk region
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