Victor Andreevich Yuschenko was born in 1954 into a family of teachers. He is married, has five kids, and two grandkids. In 1975 he graduated from the Ternopol University of Economy and Finance as a candidate of economic science.

He rose from the position of a general accountant assistant in the collective farm “40 years of October” to the post of the president of the National Bank of Ukraine. He directed the currency reform in Ukraine, the creation of the State Treasury, and the construction of the State Mint. In 1997 the rating given by the financial magazine, Global Finance, announced V. Yuschenko as one of the world’s 6 best bankers.

In 1999-2001, being the Prime Minister of Ukraine, he managed to stop inflation and take a part of the power industry profit “out of the shade”. However, the former “owners” of this profit were so angry that they advised the President of Ukraine of that time, L. D. Kuchma, to get rid of the unfavorable Prime Minister.

Kuchma announced the name of his successor at the president elections in the fall of 2004 – it was the governor of Donetsk, Victor Yanukovich.

The winner of the elections wasn’t announced after the first round, and in the morning after the second round that claimed the victory of Yanukovich, hundreds of thousands people from Kiev and other cities dressed in orange and went out onto Independence Square – the main square of the country.

Having numerous documentary proofs of ballot-box stuffing, Yuschenko and his advisors chose a double strategy: half-revolutionary, half-constitutional, based on legal norms. Within the limits of revolutionary strategy, Yuschenko announced himself the President of Ukraine and adjured the oath on November 22nd.

Despite the fact that the supporters of rough measures were calling for the forced dispersal of the demonstrations, Kuchma wasn’t brave enough to do it because of the split in the military forces and security service. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators spent almost 2 weeks at the main squares of Kiev and other cities. Even those who opposed and couldn’t make it to Independence Square sent money, warm clothes, and hot food to the demonstrators. After some hesitation, the Supreme Court of Ukraine declared the proof of mass falsification provided by Yuschenko’s team valid and nullified the results of the second round of the elections.

On December 26th, the Ukrainians went to the polling stations for the third time. According to the results of this round, Victor Yuschenko claimed his victory with 52% of the votes. That was how he became the President of Ukraine.

Time went on and the Revolutionary euphoria gave way to painful soberness. Yes, life in Ukraine was liberalized; the government and the economy made a short step out of the shade but, practically, nothing had changed – simply because it was impossible to change the whole bribable government system so fast. As a result, V. Yuschenko had to give the post of Prime Minister to his former opponent Victor Yanukovich.

The results of Yuschenko’s work include: during the years of independence, the biggest rise in the foreign investment into the country’s business registered in 2005, the retrieval of Ukrainian military forces from Iraq, the first democratic parliamentary elections carried out in Ukraine in 2006, reduced corruption of the national economy.

Another evident achievement of V. Yuschenko was that radical turn in the people’s mind that had taken place during the Orange revolution. The crowd that didn’t want to go to the elections because “everything has already been decided without us” grew up into the Ukrainian nation ready to defend its interests – the nation that had felt its power and magnitude.