Yanukovych is not known as a great speaker. His native language is Russian, similar to a majority of the population of his power-base and native Eastern Ukraine. He however, made efforts to speak Ukrainian better. He admitted in March 2012 that it was a problem for him in 2002 to speak Ukrainian. He has made some blunders, however, in Ukrainian since then. For the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, Yanukovych wrote an autobiography for the Central Election Commission, in which he misspelled his academic degree. Thereafter, he came to be widely referred to under this nickname in opposition media and opponents' speeches. His autobiographic resume of 90 words contains 12 major spelling and grammatical errors. Opponents of Yanukovych made fun of this misspelling and his criminal convictions during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election campaign and the incident during the campaign (September 2004) in Ivano-Frankivsk when Yanukovych was rushed to hospital after being hit by an egg (while government officials claimed he was hit by a brick) was a source of ridicule.