Andriy Yushchenko now reminds me of Philip Boit, a trailblazer cross-country skier from a totally unlikely place - Kenya...

In a country notorious for intellectual property rights violations, the Ukrainian president's son seems to be making quite a living as the copyright owner of all the political brands used during the Orange Revolution - including the Tak! logo and the horseshoe.

Mykola Katerynchuk, formerly head of Yushchenko's campaign's legal department and now deputy head of the Ukrainian tax administration (with plans to resign, however), revealed Andriy Yushchenko's potential source of income during an online chat (in Russian) at Korrespondent.net; he then elaborated on the issue in an interview (in Russian) with Kommersant's Ukrainian edition.

Katerynchuk said he had transferred the copyrights to Andriy Yushchenko after the victory in the third round of the 2004 election. The brands aren't cheap, he admitted:

"At the time, many people looked at me with suspicion, saying that, you know, Katerynchuk is a rich man already. [...] Interest in these brands had been expressed in Western Europe, Canada and America. Many European-level designers were interested in them, as well as manufacturers of various goods in Ukraine."

Experts say the brands may cost up to a hundred million dollars, according to Kommersant.

So far, there's only been one case, however, when someone tried to use them as a trademark:

[...] during the last election campaign, a company named Artemida began producing vodka "Tak!" - but it didn't last. "Remember when vodka "Tak!" appeared?" says Mykola Katerynchuk. "No one had given them permission for that." The former general director of [...] Artemida, a [Ukrainian] parliamentarian Anna Antonyeva, refused to recall this story yesterday.