Another construction adventure planned in Kyiv
The mayor of Kyiv declared 2003 the Year of Parks and the construction boom entered a somewhat different phase. One is reminded of the renovation project at the Maryinsky and Shevchenko Parks. On the one hand, the territory was definitely modernized, made more comfortable for visitors, but on the other the age-old verdant parks turned into their own caricatures, loosing rare tree species (uprooted under the pretext of being in a state of critical neglect). We also have the miserable experience of renovation on Independence Square and the story of St. Sophia’s Cathedral. These lessons have obvionsly fallen on deaf ears. The capital’s land and housing market rush is too much of a temptation for the bureaucracy, meaning that history and views of the intelligentsia continue to be ignored.
People living in the city district on Klovsky Hill are picketing City Hall [known as the City State Administration], stirred into action by another innovative decision of the city fathers. Oleksandra Bohomolets, granddaughter of the former President of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, his great granddaughter Olha, and architect Larysa Skoryk visited The Day prior to the action of protest to explain it. They came together because the renovation project would affect the memorial Oleksandr Bohomolets Park in Lypky.
The guests said there are practically no green zones left in Pechersk. Also, it is common knowledge that the park was named for the great scientist because Oleksandr Bohomolets had conceived the idea. Together with renowned physicians such as Strazhesko, Filatov, and Komisarenko, he had decided to create an oasis of floral eclecticism near his home by planting species that are not ordinarily seen together. Thus, the park once had a peach and beech alley, there are still a weeping chestnut, Judaic tree, and an Amur cork. Of course, the academician’s grave is still there along with the famed Bohomolets Oak, a true historical and dendrological memorial. The scientist planted it himself when founding the park. In 1992, the government, quite logically, entered the park in the Register of Monuments to the History of Monumental Art and Archaeology, banning all construction on the grounds.
Yet even a document issued at this level did not prevent the appearance of a project envisaging the construction of three fifteen-story apartment buildings. True, Olha Bohomolets says the project is still to be approved, but that Petro Kostiuk, manager of the park of the National Medical Academy’s Institute of Physiology, also on the Bohomolets Park grounds, has agreed in writing to allocate 0.06 ha. for the construction of an apartment building. The project, however, requires at least 0.16 ha. and the institute manager is prepared to provide some of the territory on condition that no motor vehicles will be admitted and that the vegetation is preserved. This is, of course, unrealistic, as a parking lot is also planned.
A park protection committee was set up, and they sent a letter to the Ukrainian National Academy President Borys Paton, asking for help. Prof. Olha Bohomolets of the Anatomical Pathology Chair of the National Medical University (named for her celebrated grandfather), says they received a reply from the National Academy’s business manager V. Arseniuk, stating the academy has received no messages concerning the park. Olha and Oleksandra insist that, precisely a week before the letter, the academy’s business manager visited the park to check if the territory was fit for construction. Another noteworthy fact is that when the Bohomolets women asked who had paid for laying a power cable across the park (it was done even though the construction project is still to be officially approved), the local housing authority and the city energy company denied having made any such payments.
The case was referred to the Prosecutor General’s Office, and it transpired that the officials appending their approving signatures to the project had never seen it. The manager of the Institute of Physiology actually denied having signed the document. This at a time when the campaign to rescue the park is joined by people other than scientists and residents of Klovsky Hill. Natalia Kravetska-Mazepa (a descendant of the hetman) wrote a letter to the president of the National Academy, requesting that it be read at the presidium. Referring to facts, she stressed that the park is an important symbol of Ukrainian science. Still, her letter was ignored. Olha Bohomolets, M.D., Chief Physician of the Clinic of Laser Medicine, says she was stunned by what the city authorities offered as arguments in support of the construction project. This park is open for all visitors from seven a.m. to ten p.m. The City State Administration insists that it is an off-limits area, and that what the Bohomolets women are making is a tempest in a teapot, that everything is their personal emotions. Moreover, the apartment building occupied by ranking physicians is inexplicably referred to in the official records as a dormitory built in 1931 and, allegedly, subject to demolition.
The guests to The Day said the situation is rather well illustrated by the financial aspect. The Central City Hospital, adjacent to the park, is known to soon experience major changes. An investor was found who will spend UAH 30 million and rebuild the hospital beyond recognition, so that medical facilities will occupy only one-third of the territory and the rest will be offices. Meanwhile, according to the ministerial periodical Kyivmiskbud, one sotka [100 sq. meters] of land in the vicinity of Shovkovychna, Baseina, and Mechnykov streets costs a million hryvnias. In other words, by investing 30 million in the renovation of the hospital — and, accordingly, of the park — that person will receive a parcel of land worth UAH 950 million.
However, the park protection committee appears to stand a real chance of winning the campaign. Several days ago the City Hall received a letter signed by Deputy Prosecutor General Prysiazhniuk, to the effect that the resolution of the Kyiv City Council “On the Allocation and Withdrawal of Parcels of Land and Termination of the Right to Land Tenure” is thereby repealed, since the clause whereby the parcel of land, accommodating Oleksandr Bohomolets Park, is to be included in the housing construction reserve, contradicts the current legislation, namely the Land Code and the Law of Ukraine “On the Protection of the Cultural Heritage.”
