Museum Director Alexei Sazhin told reporters during a preview Thursday that the life-size wax figures of President Viktor Yushchenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko had each cost more than $3,000 and taken about a year to make.
Sazhin said the wax figure of Yushchenko was dressed in clothes bought in Kiev stores whereas the figure of Tymoshenko was adorned in clothes from the ex-premier's wardrobe. Tymoshenko had worn some of the items during the "Orange Revolution" protests in central Kiev in November 2004.
"All the figures in our museum are created based on the principle that their prototypes are publicly known and recognizable," Sazhin said. "There's no political commission involved here."
He said the Kiev wax museum hoped to become as famous as Madame Tussaud's, but that it lacked the exhibition space to display its entire collection, with only 20 of its 60 figures currently on display.
Established in 2000, the museum boasts wax sculptures of Russian Czar Nicholas II, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, and former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, among others.
