A few sentences from Liudmila, 68, are enough to sneak into her marriage to Gregori, 73. When asked about her job, she replies that she actually makes his life difficult. Gregori laughs behind him, on the path – very snowy – from his small stable to the module where the couple lives. Liudmila also says sarcastically that the construction of her new house is progressing slowly; that he has aches and pains, arthritis, that he gets dizzy, but that, and here's the catch, his father was better off than he was at 80 years old. Gregori resigns, but doesn't lose his smile. On March 29, 2022, a projectile – whether friend or foe, unknown – blew up the house of the Vovk couple in the Ukrainian village of Zagaltsi, about 70 kilometers northwest of Kiev. They had already fled. They had cows, ducks, chickens; Cultivation of tomatoes, barley, oats, potatoes. The Russians raged and ate everything. Two years will soon be over and Liudmila and Gregori still won't sleep in a decent home. Reconstruction in Ukraine is progressing, but slowly for thousands of those affected.
The fall of this marriage is in many ways a good example of how war can bring down someone who lives perfectly with what they have. Zagaltsi is a small town just a few kilometers from Borodianka, one of the symbols of Russian barbarism. In this community, the aircraft attacked heavily to completely raise the gable roofs of dozens of houses. Liudmila and Gregori had their farm and lands from which they lived. They spent what little savings they had on a trip to Slovakia, where one of their four children lives. He left them some money so they could return to Ukraine at the end of April this year. The Russians were gone, but neither were their animals. They found the bull's severed head, which they had with them, and pieces of meat stored in a refrigerator. “I was in a lot of pain when I saw him,” says Liudmila, “I tried to go into the garden without seeing how the house had turned out.”
Reconstruction in Ukraine is not monolithic – a study by the Kyiv School of Economics estimates that at least 167,200 houses have been damaged since the full-scale invasion began. Once the Russians had fled, minor repairs were carried out; Shortly thereafter, significant damage occurred between volunteers, humanitarian organizations, local governments and the state. The difficult part was and is the third category, that of destroyed and therefore uninhabitable houses. This is where Vovk marriage comes into play. Although there are cases in which destroyed houses are rebuilt from the foundations, this requires one's own resources or outside help. The latter, for example through private companies, must comply with the protocols of the State or the United Nations that coordinate the work. In addition to finally finding someone to do the work.
Gregori and Liudmila Vovk, this Monday in their stable in Zagaltsi (Ukraine).Óscar Gutiérrez
Yurii Glava, 47, from Novosilki, is an engineer specializing in reconstruction. He worked for the company Miyamoto International on the restoration of the Zagaltsi kindergarten (27,500 euros). They wanted to show that something destroyed can be restored in a reasonable amount of time without spending a lot of money. “Rebuilding a school according to government standards or UN protocols,” says Glava, “complicates the process, and the subcontractors, those who have to do it, end up rejecting these orders.”
Restoration or new house
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The government is currently working with the eVidnovlennya (eRecovery) program, a digital platform launched in May 2023, with which it coordinates the reconstruction work. According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, 35,100 repair requests had been processed by January 16, with a total cost of 78 million euros. Now comes the next phase, the certificate program: Owners of war-damaged houses can access new houses after an assessment by the administration – always via the Internet. The first case carried out serves as an example: a house in Bucha was given to a woman from Hostomel, one of the points attacked by Russia in the Kiev region. According to Infrastructure, there are already around 8,000 applications for certificates, 76 of which have been approved so far.
However, this does not apply to Liudmila and Gregori, who after almost half a century on this piece of land have no plans to go anywhere. “Our dream,” he says, “is to remodel the kitchen so we can live there.” In many houses in rural Ukraine, the kitchen is in a separate house next to the main house, which houses the living room and bedrooms condition. Reconstruction began here with demolition. Liudmila says that the first thing they did when they returned was to tear down what was left of their house down to the pillars. “I begged the neighbor to let me use the excavator,” she says as she cuts a piece of cake and serves tea. “and we demolished the house.” “-. They also buried the corpses of the dead cows as best they could, but in this way because the dogs ended up eating them.
While they were turning their land upside down, Liudmila and Gregori lived in their son's house, which was damaged but still standing. Volunteers and humanitarian organizations began bringing food and materials. A Polish religious organization gave them the small module where they sleep next to a stove, and some donations enabled them to buy the cows, milking machine and other animals to rebuild their farm and start over.
Help pay bills
The Vovk couple rely on the help of their son and volunteers to progress the work. “I want us to be done with this by summer,” says Liudmila, “let’s see if the war is over.” The two do what they can by milking their two cattle several times a day; while they look after their little ducks; while feeding the chickens to give them good eggs, or saving something from their two greenhouses in sub-zero temperatures. The interior of his future home still shows the bare beams and bricks. A handful of huge rolls of insulation wait at the entrance. There are no windows, but the roof is already there. An American donor gave them 1,700 euros, which financed the work. In addition, they receive 50 euros every month from the state as they are considered internally displaced – 3.7 million across the country – even though the module is just a stone's throw from their former home. “It leaves us with bills,” says Gregori.
Construction work on Gregori and Liudmila's new home in Zagaltsi (Ukraine), this Monday.Óscar Gutiérrez
The mayor of Zagaltsi, Sergui Nedashkivski, 50, likes the issue of state certificates. “I would accept it,” he says from his office. When asked why some reconstruction work is progressing so slowly, he suggests that it is what it is. “You have to understand,” says Nedashkivski, “that the state does not have that much money and buildings” – the cost of the apartments damaged by the war alone is estimated at around 51 billion euros. The holes are covered by others. In the case of Zagaltsi, for example, the school is not operating almost two years after the Russian offensive. The restoration is being carried out by the Hungarian state and the reopening is planned for the next academic year. The city council also points out another small problem: older people like the Wowks do not have the property documents they need to access government programs.
There is no more than 50 centimeters between Liudmila's and Gregori's beds. At the feet there is a small table with a television, refrigerator, kitchen cabinet, wardrobe and stove. As she continues to pull out jars of cottage cheese, jams, and empanadas, he walks back and forth to see the cows and chickens.
“Liudmila, would you leave here to have a new house?”
“We don't want to go anywhere, have you seen the land we have here?” Even though many of our neighbors have died, we all still know each other.
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