A living community
It took the residents of Levky only half a year to bring their plans to life: they have repaired the club, founded a landscape park, and revived the village
Six months ago The Day published an incredible letter from the village Levky, Pryluky raion, Chernihiv oblast. The residents, tired of ruins in their village, asked Ukraine for help: they decided to found a landscape park in the center of the village with 41 permanent residents. Though the newspaper heartily supported the living initiative of Levky residents, I will honestly admit that both our employees and some readers of Den/The Day had doubts whether the retired villagers’ enthusiasm would be enough to accomplish their plans.
Half a year has passed. The Day received a third invitation to Levky: this time for planting the park. It should be admitted that we have developed very warm relationships. Once in a couple of weeks Mykola Valko, an authorized representative of the Levky community, calls our editor’s office and “reports” on the work on reviving the village done by the Levky residents (many of whom are now Den subscribers). Incidentally, one of the first copies of the new book in the The Day’s
Library series, The Power of the Soft Sign, went to Levky. And the Photo Exhibit Den-2011, which opened in the Ukrainian Home on October 21, shows the series of works A Holiday. The Opening of Levky’s Village Club by our photojournalist Mykola Tymchenko.
Moreover, this time we met in Levky our reader from Kyiv’s Obolon District, Anatolii Koval, who was the first sponsor of the Levky Park: having read Levky residents’ letter in Den, he sent 200 hryvnias to them from his modest incomes. On October 22 Anatolii came to plant the park. He also persuaded his fellow Pavlo Sliusarenko, Ph.D. in History, who works at the Scientific Research Center of Humanitarian Problems of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, to join him in this far journey. Sliusarenko immediately met the proposal and enthusiastically helped to plant the trees.
Overall, many people came to Levky to help, including the children and grandchildren of the villagers, students of the Pryluky Humanitarian Pedagogical College, those who supported the villagers’ initiative and assisted by all means. Joyfully, they planted 100 trees to a music accompaniment. “If all the seedlings take root, it will be a real arboretum. We can bring here schoolchildren for excursions,” natural science teacher at the Pryluky College, who heads the works in the future park, Yurii Skyba believes. “We plan to plant green corners all over the Pryluky raion. Unfortunately, not all the communities are as strong as in Levky.” After the students and teachers of the Pryluky Agro-Technical College developed a geodesic plan of the locality, Skyba, together with his students, calculated in which order the trees would be planted.
The members of the raion council with the chairman at the helm also came to plant the trees. However, nobody came from the Raion State Administration. “I’m grateful that they did not come. At least they have not spoiled the holiday,” Valko said with emotion. The villagers have a grudge against the administration officials. When the question arose that the park’s territory should be sown with grass, Valko talked to the head of the Pryluky Raion State Administration. The latter promised to help and told to call him at any time. For several weeks the Levky residents tried to get in contact with the official, but he did not answer their calls. After all they themselves found the grass seeds. A woman, who had bought a house in Levky not long before that, sent a whole package of seeds. The residents don’t even know her yet. But they drew a conclusion, once and for all, not to rely on state officials.
On the contrary, the cooperation between the villagers and local businessmen is quite efficient. “The reason is that we, too, are living on this land,” representative of the Khlibodar Company, local leaseholder, Serhii Kozyny explained. “The problems of these people are not alien to us. What can I say? My heart rests near them. They have become our family.” Now the businessmen have a new task: to electrify the club the villagers repaired in summer, which has become the place of the community’s gatherings, and buy lawn mo-wers, in order to maintain order in the park in spring.
Levky has revived. Maybe the changes are so slight that even the villagers scarcely see them now, but even compared with our first meeting in April, people have grown more confident, determined, and more satisfied with their lives. Unfortunately and luckily at the same time, they have become so not only owing to the mass media highlight, joint work and rest, but also a number of hardships, faced by all people in our country who want to implement their initiatives. Levky’s residents have done a lot to prevent their village and themselves from total ruination. But now they know what efforts it takes not to give up halfway, lose faith in their fellows and themselves. Lots of work awaits them, but one can only envy the strength and courage of these people, and learn from them how to fight the Ruin.
Yurii Skyba told The Day that there is one more doomed village in Pryluky raion, which stands all chances to be revived. It is called Smosh and last year the school was closed there. But the village has three mineral springs, where the quality of water, according to scientists, is not lower than Myrhorodska’s. Skyba believes, “If they only find investors to develop at least the pump rooms, it would make sense to open village houses there and develop green tourism.” What a nice idea! We can give Levky as an example to the residents of Smosh and thousands of other Ukrainian villages, because there can be no living village without a living community.
