Just before 10 p.m. on Oct. 29, Kyiv's oldest cinema Zhovten located in the historic Podil district caught fire. Massive flames and black smoke engulfed the roof of the building, located on 26 Konstyantynivska St.
The fire started inside the cinema
while people watched a movie screening as part of the Molodist
Festival, which is taking place in Kyiv now.
“We heard a hissing sound. First we
didn’t understand anything. Then, everyone turned around. People
began to leave the hall,” Yulia, a young witness, said. She did not
provide her last name because she feared she would be questioned by
the police as a witness.
Yulia was inside the theater watching
Mario Fanfani’s Summers Nights, a movie about lesbian-gay-transgender-bisexual communities.
Zhovten specialized on off-beat movies and festivals, in contrast to
Holywood and popular Russian movies most of the cinemas in Kyiv
screen.
The witness said that everyone seemed
to make it out of the building when it caught fire.“Two small fire
department vehicles came pretty quickly and started to put down the
fire. Then they understood that the fire is too strong and after 40 minutes more help came over.”
Kyiv city Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who
came to check out the incident at 12:30 a.m. said he was planning to
have a meeting with heads of city departments to make sure the cult
cinema is speedily returned to the community.
“I want to say one thing: we are not
going to allow to take away the Zhovten cinema that has become the
symbol of intellectual cinema among the capital’s viewers,” Klitschko
was quoted by the city government site as saying.
Residents
of the capital plan to assemble for a picket in front of the mayor’s
office at 11 a.m. on Oct. 31 in support of restoration of the
historic cinema. Many Kyivans expressed their indignation through
social networks about the fire, and suggested the cinema was set on
fire purposefully by someone who wanted to take over the land it
stands on. Attempts to privatize the communal cinema and take over it
in other ways have taken place regularly in the past few years.
Mariana Yakunenko, who was in the lobby
buying tickets with her friends when the incident occurred, said she
was convinced the cinema was set on fire deliberately.
“Someone threw a smoke grenade,” she
says. Eyewitnesses told her that the smoke grenade was coming from
the fifth row from the back.
“A man said that first there was
smoke and then there was fire, Yakunenko said.
“The fire could not have gotten there
by itself – that is 100 percent.” A worker from the cinema
said she saw three men running out of the building right after the
incident.
There were
attempts to burn the Zhovten cinema in the past before. Currently,
the building is a matter of dispute where starting from 2013 city
authorities attempted to close down the movie theater. Zhovten was
built in 1931 and is highly valued by the Kyivans.
