Ukrainian Gay Scam:
Andriy Maymulakhin, "Nash Mir" (Our World)

Ukrainian Gay Messiah

Although every gay person inside Ukraine knows very well and for sure A. Maymulakhin's dirty acts and his exploitation of gay movement, there still are enough foreign citizens and gay organizations all over the world continuing to trust this so called Ukrainian Regional Gay Center "Nash Mir"!

The worst thing is that these people and groups are continuing to sponsor the scammer by financial means. Even according official information placed on Maymulakhin's site - foreign sponsors donate over US$ 30.000 to him every year! But official statistic covers less than 10 per cent of real donations coming to 'Nash Mir'.

Actually thanks his wide intensive and successful activity on the Internet pointed at exhausting money from Westerners, A. Maymulakhin unofficially belongs to the most rich people in our country. But for any ordinary gay citizen it is really impossible to meet him in person. Andriy Maymulakhin has nothing to do with Ukrainian gay people - he uses them to extract money. For other purposes Ukrainian gay people aren't necessary - and Andriy Maymulakhin was never interested to listen to their opinion. The only opinion he is addicted to is Western world, because he collects thousands of dollars from there - how stupid the gay community could be in case if it goes about gay organizations in former Soviet Republics!!!

There is one hard truth that all people have to realize supporting so called 'gay activists' in Ukraine. This truth is the current political situation and the way of state polity excludes the possibility of any legal movement that really fights for the rights of sexual minorities. However it allows to create multiply 'public organizations' loyal to the dictatorship. The aim of such 'state clubs' is to simulate Free Speech and to bring financial profit to current officials.

Playing Gay Casino

The big money received by A. Maymulakhin from Western funds and private donors are divided between him personally and the officials he has to pay for the 'roof' of the scam activity he runs.

No one cent from the resourses of Nash Mir was ever spent for the needs of gay movement, but hundreds of thousands dollars were transferred directly to personal bank accounts of Mr. Maymulakhin and his accomplices in off-shore bank institutions. For critical articles and scandalous disclosures in Ukrainian mass-media Mr. Maymulakhin traditionally react with long speeches about strong homophobic traditions and crackdown of gay movement!

Well, there is strong pressure against gay people in Ukraine. There is openly homophobic state and social structure in this postcommunist dictatorship. But the paradox of current Ukrainian reality consists that fact that the so called sexual majority (straight citizens) is in the same bad situation with their human rights as the gay people.

The private life of every Ukrainian citizen is or can easily become under the total state control and investigation. Every person who plans to begin any kind of social/politic activity is target for multiply state security services. And if even this person reaches at least minimal level of public recognition, the state authorities show the files to black-mail him. Especially in case if this person is trying to fight for human rights really.

This well-known situation was realized by Andriy Maymulakhin from the every beginning of his so called 'gay activism' - he knew always and for sure that real struggle for the rights of GLBT citizens will bring him troubles and will lead to direct confrontation with dictatorship. It was not his aim - his aim was to make money using 'GLBT' shield.

From Hustler To Prophet

How to make money Andriy knew from the years of his youth. During time-period of Gorbachov's 'Perestroika" Andriy worked in Moscow as gay hustler - he served foreign gay tourists who visited the Soviet Union in search of new exotic adventures. So this was the point for Andriy in his understanding of making money.

However after he became older he was less popular among foreign sponsors as call-boy and he had to come back from Russian capital to his home town Lugansk. By the way, Lugansk is quite small provincial town in Eastern Ukraine, very near to Russian border. This town doesn't play any important role in political and economic life of the Ukraine. But from the words of Maymulakhin, Lugansk is real gay capital of the country.

Of course after he came back to his small by God forgotten town, he was not able to find any sponsor who pays real bucks for his old and dry body. So he decided to invent the other way to exhaust dollars from Western gay community. His activity began in the first years of Ukrainian independence, before our actual dictator came to power. That time-period was relatively free and many different social and political groups, movements and organizations were formed. There were at least five real gay organizations that time - they operate using money of their members and never tried to exist from foreign sources.

But Andriy didn't have any interest to such groups. He needed money, as much money as he can take from Westerners. And his organization began its existence from... excellent Internet site in Enlish! The plan was - the longer Ukrainians don't know about the phantom organization the better. This was A. Maymulakhin's Golden Era. Together with his lover Andriy was invited to several Western countries for important gay events like Gay Games and ILGA conferences, sometimes as the only representative of the whole Post-Soviet territory! Of course his multi-trips were paid by organizers of those events and he traveled a lot for free, taking donations from many countries.

Later on his scheme was exposed and he's got dozens of competitors. Such people are called in Ukraine 'children of Lieutenant Schmidt' after the famous sarcastic novel about genial scammer from Odessa Ostap Bender, written in 20-s of last century.

And Andriy took the most important step in his 'gay activity'. He created so called informative center with purpose to inform Western GLBT community, that all the rest of Lieutenant Schmidt's children are impersonators and easy riders, and only he is the real gay rights fighter in this country.

Triumph Of Villain

The dramatic changes in political life in Ukraine in the middle of 90-s leaded to the situation when all social activities among people were frozen. New regime destroyed young freedom, and only the most slippery and complaisant renegades survived on the political scene. Of course, real gay movement was destroyed - and this fact brought new horizons to the fake-organization 'Nash Mir'. Andriy has understood quickly that his time has came. Real gay leaders were isolated or even arrested and killed, but fake leaders thanks their loyalty to new regime were deeply welcome. Dictatorship needed its formal representatives in all social groups. And Maymulakhin with his wish to serve regime was good enough to let him act. Especially because he was ready to share his income with officials.

This was only short introduction to the subject: Who is Andriy Maymulakhin? More information follows. But even this short notice shows how deep the crisis in Ukrainian gay movement is and how easy it is for talented scammer to take big money from gay communities of democratic countries just simply by playing the game. And the circus organized by Andriy goes on and on - about his new phantom projects you may read on the site of Nas Mir on regular basis. The last hit of this nasty musical is 'development of civil society' in Ukraine. It is necessary to be a total cynic to speak about any possibility of civil society in Ukraine till the actual political regime is on power. But cynicism of Mr.Maymulakhin's is approved boundless. The sleep of brain begets the monsters - well-known phrase from the past, isn't it?

Reprinted from:

geocities.com/maymulahin

•  Otto Jung

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