“Hydrants can become a calling card of Uzhhorod”

The Prague firefight hydrants emerged in Uzhhorod streets back in 1930 – after the plumbing system was built. The project of the local plumbing system was designed by the company of engineer Yaroslav Matichka, with its main office located in the capital of the Czech Republic. This company installed the firefight hydrants too.

An initiative group of city residents and civil organizations of Uzhhorod has taken up the preservation of history. Their goal is to fully restore the network of historical hydrants which has been ruined under the impact of the time and the city residents’ indifference. Recently the activists have met with the representatives of the local authorities and the Municipal Water Supply Company.

“It seems to us that the representatives of the Municipal Water Supply Company and the department of the city property are very much eager to purchase new ‘nice-looking’ hydrants, which cost 1,500-2,000 euros each. Of course, they do not like our initiative on restoring the old ones, because it will be cheaper and we will be controlling the process. But at least they have promised to sign a decree on establishment of a commission, which will include our initiative group, representatives of the Municipal Water Supply Company, and the City Council, and holding of a complete inventory of the Prague hydrants that are present in the city. We know that the Municipal Water Supply Company does not even keep accounts of the Czech hydrants. Therefore we insist on a separate accounting of these items. We have found 69 hydrants and on our project’s page in Facebook we even have an interactive map,” the representative of the initiative group Marianna SOBRAN told The Day.

The activists are planning to do damage reports on every hydrant to study the full picture on restoring them. “We have talked to the head of the PJSC ‘Uzhhorod Turbohaz’ Mykhailo Kachur and we have agreed that I will bring to him a non-damaged fully equipped hydrant and he will disassemble it into details, make imprints of every detail, and calculate the approximate cost of every single detail and the hydrant on the whole. The most complicated thing will follow further – to persuade the authorities not to buy new expensive hydrants which do not have and will never have any historical value, but to restore all the old ones. The main purpose is restoration of the existing Prague hydrants and replacement, if possible, of several details of the hydrant construction. But if the hydrant cannot be restored, we offer to install an exact copy of it,” Marianna Sobran noted.

As for the funding, the activists will try to ask private patrons for assistance (private citizens from the Czech Republic are already taking interest in the idea), also ask local residents for donations, and probably look for grants. Of course, they will encourage the authorities to take a financial part in the project.

Incidentally, the topic of preservation of hydrants has been raised before. So, in 2013, on the initiative of the Uzhhorod resident Vitalii Hlahola, the town residents went out to the streets with red paint and brushes to repaint the hydrants. “It took us five hours we renewed 37 hydrants. Regrettably, two-thirds of them are already buried under asphalt and ground, because the level of the road became higher. The hydrants of 1930 can become a calling card of Uzhhorod, like hydrants of New York. Therefore they cannot be left neglected, we must preserve them,” Vitalii Hlahola emphasizes.

To popularize the project, it is planned to launch T-shirts with the logotypes featuring hydrants, to design a post stamp and a postcard, as well as to organize tours to the interesting places with hydrants.