She makes $3-4K a month, wears a $50K watch, and lives in a $500-850K home.
She belongs to a caste of Ukrainian politicians whose well-being defies the laws of finance, but not the laws of Ukraine. Ironically, she makes the laws.
The secrets of her well-being made Mustafa Nayem and Serhiy Leshchenko of Ukrayinska Pravda beat a path to her door.
They took pictures of her home in Horenychi, five minutes’ drive west of Kyiv.
Hanna Herman — who once had worked as an RFE/RL host and, later, as a spokeswoman for Yanukovych until becoming a Party of Regions MP — didn't enjoy this kind of investigative reporting.
She charged the reporters with spying and running a smear campaign.
In fact, it doesn't take a covert operation to learn that comparable homes in the area sell in the $500-850K range.
That didn’t prevent MP Herman from issuing a statement in which she referred to her home as none other than "silska khata," or "village hut." (Well, if she thinks she lives in a “silska khata,” then putting that hefty price tag on it certainly smacked of a smear campaign to her.)
Interestingly, she welcomed the reporters to check her earnings statements filed with the Verkhovna Rada. Everything is accounted for, Herman said. The $50K watch? A birthday gift! (Yeah, what a modest gift compared to the $500K watches worn by other Party of Regions lawmakers.)
To buy the home in question, Herman claims to have taken out a mortgage on her Kyiv apartment, currently worth $500K.
Bad call! She could have bought herself a "village watch" instead of the "village hut."
Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/11/26/85135.htm
http://gazeta.ua/index.php?&id=126448&eid=191
