Behind every great fortune there is a crime, the French writer Honore de Balzac is supposed to have said, and in the case of the toppled Ukrainian president you don't have to look far.
Since late February, Viktor Yanukovych's hastily abandoned villa on the outskirts of Kiev has become an unlikely tourist attraction for people curious to know where their taxes went.
It is reckoned that roughly $75 million (around £45m) was blown on this monument to excess awash with Italian marble, gold bidets and crystal chandeliers, while the 340-acre grounds housed a private zoo, an 18-hole golf course and the obligatory helipad. It has already been dubbed Ukrainian Disneyland and makes Donald Trump's proposed Aberdeenshire golf resort appear almost tasteful. But what of the presidential drinks cupboard?
The ridiculous Spanish galleon bobbing on a small pond, which apparently doubled as a private restaurant, might suggest Yanukovych has a taste for rum. But instead of Captain Morgan, he clearly prefers cognac, along with the odd bottle of Jack Daniel's and Beluga vodka. From the grainy footage on the internet, the most expensive bottle I spotted was Remy Martin's Louis XIII, which sells here for around £1800. You wonder what Louis' son - the Sun King - would have made of it all. The decor is definitely more Vegas than Versailles.
There are cognacs with the president's face on the label and bottles of Hennessy XO, though nothing to match Kim Jong-il's collection. Before his death in 2011, the North Korean dictator was spending more than half a million pounds a year on his favourite tipple - a scary amount for someone with nuclear weapons. He was allegedly one of Hennessy's largest private customers.
Back in the presidential cellar there is plenty of fizz, but obviously not prosecco, cava or that fake shampinska they sell in Russia. No, we're talking Cristal, which vies with Krug and Dom Perignon as the swankiest champagne of all. It comes wrapped in Cellophane like those old Lucozade bottles and costs around £140 for the latest vintage. Cristal was created for Alexander II of Russia and came in a clear bottle so he could see any bombs intended for him.
Most tyrants leave behind a good stash of Chivas Regal or Johnnie Walker Black Label - Gaddafi's favourite whisky - but in this case there is not a drop of Scotch to be seen. That may be just as well, since the villa and its contents are set to become a museum of corruption.
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