At the start of the mayoral campaign, the Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU) forecasted the total expenses of all the participants in the Kyiv mayoral election would be about $100 million. However, the total price of the elections has already exceeded the aforementioned amount by double, according to Oleksandr Chernenko, a CVU speeker. This is five times more than what was spent during the last mayoral election in Kyiv in 2006.

This year's candidates are not frightened to appear on national television channels, only two years ago not a single candidate for the mayor's seat dared to do so.

According to the Ukrainian law, each candidate can spend no more than $100,000 on advertising, campaign fliers and salaries for campaign headquarters staff.

"But this sum can be doubled," noted Chernenko. Since a candidate is closely connected with his or her party, the total election fund of a particular political force amounts to $200,000: half of the sum goes for the candidate and the other half for the party itself.

"Even though the law forbids using a party's money on advertising its candidate and vice versa, it is almost impossible to trace such things," Chernenko said.

Leonid Chernovetskiy, Vitali Klitschko and Oleksandr Turchynov are the biggest spending persons, according to the CVU. However, Viktor Pylypyshyn and Mykola Katerynchuk are not lagging far away.

Since the end of previous month, more than 20 expensive flat screens are blaring every day at the campaign tents of Internal Affairs Minister Yuriy Lutsenko and his People's SelfDefense party.
Thousands of newspapers with election promises and interviews with campaign candidates are also big expanses.

For instance, a newspaper called Kyivskiy Maidan, whose last four issues have been campaigning for Turchynov, has a circulation of 50,000. Printing costs for one issue amount to at least $1,500.

In order to somehow squeeze into the expense limits allowed by the Ukrainian law, candidates are advertised on the background of newspaper logos loyal to them - as if this wasn't a mayoral candidate's advertising, but rather of the printed publication itself.