by Giusi Fasano
Seven out of ten houses destroyed. Today it is an anthill city, and there are also those who organize tourist tours
FROM OUR SEND
IRPIN – We learned his name in the tragic days of March. The crowd of civilians fleeing under the collapsed bridge: Irpin. The dead woman with her children and the dog, the bodies lie on the street next to the tram: Irpin. The House of Eviscerated Culture: Irpin. The Ruined Mall: Irpin. And then the walls of buildings, miles of streets without even a glass – not one – still intact. It was Irpin, still Irpin.
During these five and a half months of war, it has always been the city most visited by leaders and stars from all over the world, the city of press conferences in the streets, in front of the skeletons of buildings that no longer exist. And that of promises: we will help you, we will do it, we will support you…
“Then when the cameras are off everyone says yes, of course they will. But when the war is over. And in the meantime, what do we do?” asks Artem Hurin, one of the deputies (as they’re called here) of the city council. “Winter is coming,” he says. “Houses don’t have roofs. The windows are without glass . 70% of the buildings in the city are damaged and in at least 20% of the cases we have to demolish everything. And I want to be clear: I’m only talking about the buildings. Next to them there are detached houses. How will all these people live when the frost comes ? ».
As far as it may seem after those 30-degree days, the biggest concern is the coming cold. From all. It will not be enough for the gas that is feared. And for the damage from the bombs, obviously. Because of this, Irpin is now an anthill town. In the sense that its inhabitants, like busy ants, move frantically to organize doors and windows, clear stairs and corridors of debris, repair open roofs such as boxes, walls pierced by mortars, radiators, pipes, doors …
There is no money, the big companies in this area are closed or destroyed and at the moment they don’t pay taxes for the citizens, public funds are used for the soldiers on the front lines, so when the help arrives, it comes with a drip. And then we rely on mutual neighborhood help or voluntary associations with names that say it all, such as “Construction Volunteer Battalion” or “Courage to Reconstruct”.
The only work fast moving towards rebirth is the new bridge that will connect Irpin to the far western edge of Kyiv. The Romanivsky Bridge – the historical one – is being broken. Along its patches of asphalt, trampled by thousands of refugees fleeing in search of safety amid snow and ice, there are now a number of wooden crosses, there are hanging boots and dolls that belonged to who knows who, and there they are still a white one Van overturned and got stuck between the rubble and the river. None of this will be touched: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced that the Romanivsky Bridge will become a memorial. And so the new bridge – funded by Presidential funds and built by Turkish companies – is being built next door so that whoever passes by can see and remember those horrific days in March.
Olena, 51, certainly doesn’t need to cross the bridge to remember. “It’s all here, in my head. Like it’s happening now,” he says. Her husband is in the army, fighting somewhere. She is sitting at the foot of the block in front of the bombed-out Kulturhaus. Parts of the wall are missing, no traces of glass, the roof needs repairs, but about forty families have returned to live there. It looks even worse in the back building, which is already classified as “to be demolished”. Matvi, 7, tries to stand on roller skates in front of the smoke-blackened entrance. Playing with his friend Gordji, he says he knows, yes, they would tear everything down, “but mom says we’re staying here anyway.”
How much money will it cost to rebuild Irpin? “It depends on how we want to do it again,” Artem Hurin replies. “Some estimates put it at around $1 billion. We organized an online summit with 120 architects from all over the world (Stefano Boeri was also there, ed.) to design the urban architecture of the future. When the time comes, we will select the projects and put them up for voting on our website ».
There are tourism entrepreneurs who propose a “Bucha-Irpin package”. “Outrageous,” says Councilor Hurin. “An insult to the memory of our dead. We lost 330 civilians, plus 40 territorial guards and 30 soldiers. And then there are the many missing people, other abductees. What do we do? Do we take people to the ruins in shorts and flip flops? This is not the time for tourism. We must face the winter. And the enemy ».
August 9, 2022 (change August 9, 2022 | 23:34)
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