An inventive mayor resurrects an economically depressed former coal mining town.
After Ukrainsk’s two coal mines fell onto hard times, with one closing and the other cutting back production, residents abandoned the town in droves. But an inventive mayor started a campaign to lure people back.
He gave away 1,000 vacant and rundown apartments, attracting settlers from all over Ukraine who invested 1.5 million hryvnias into renovations, city officials say. Soon, new businesses started to open and kindergartens filled up with the arrival of up to 2,000 people – pushing the city’s population to an estimated 12,000 residents again.
A small revival is happening in Donetsk Oblast. Only five years ago, Ukrainsk was an economically depressed coal mining town with empty, dilapidated and almost worthless apartments. Young people were fleeing for jobs elsewhere. The population dwindled to 10,000 residents and an estimated 1,000 apartments became vacant.
Ex-Ukrainsk Mayor Vitaly Neshin talks to one of the town’s residents (novynar.com.ua/Alexandr Kuzmin)
But now the population is back on the upswing – possibly up to 12,000 residents again. Vacant apartments are hard to find. Former residents are returning and even kindergartens are overcrowded. Four taxi services are in business and stores that sell construction materials are competing for clients.
This happy reversal of fortunes started in 2006, several years after the town’s coal mines fell on hard times. One of them closed, leaving 4,000 people unemployed. In 2002, an explosion at the other coal mine in town killed 35 people. The mine never returned to full production.
Our kid thought that there was a war in Ukrainsk just recently.– Olga Shlifish, Ukrainsk resident, recalls the ghost-town atmosphere
For many towns, setbacks to the two largest employers might have spelled doom. But not for Ukrainsk, which is only 40 kilometers west of Donetsk.
Many trace the town’s revival to its former mayor, Vitaly Neshin, a boxer and sports coach who headed the mine’s security service. He was elected as mayor in 2002 and, despite his surprising success, dumped by voters when he stood for reelection in 2010.
Only four years ago, the coal-mining town of Ukrainsk in Donetsk Oblast looked like a ghost town (Novynar/Alexandr Kuzmin)
In 2006, four years after taking office, Neshin came up with a plan that could be a recipe for success to Ukraine’s many other down-and-out small towns that cannot count on government help and that are starved for private investment. Neshin actively started offering the city’s stock of vacant and boarded-up apartments for free if people would make them habitable with required investment.
The Ukrainsk experience is such a rare feat that Valentyna Poltavets, executive director of the Ukrainian Small Towns Association, hadn’t even heard of it. The group represents 100 cities with populations under 40,000 people.
“I have not heard anybody do that before,” Poltavets said. “Small-town mayors in Ukraine are indeed crisis managers. His practice is worth adopting in the ghost towns across the region.”
Neshin traveled the area, promoting his repopulation project to journalists and on national TV, convincing disbelievers and skeptics.
“People were laughing at me when I first came up with the idea and was told only Chinese migrants would come,” Neshin said. “First 20 people came, then 30. Finally, we gave away 1,000 apartments.”
The city lured new residents by giving away 1,000 vacant and publicly owned apartments. (Alex Furman)
Young families with children came from as far away as western Ukraine. The settlers were willing to start a new life.
Igor and Olga Shlifish lived in southern Ukraine’s Kakhovka, when they saw a TV newscast about free apartments in Donetsk Oblast. They quickly decided to take a road trip to Ukrainsk and see for themselves. Although the couple was in their 40s and had two kids, they had no money to buy property but were light on their feet.
Igor Shlifish, a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, had grown tired of waiting for the government to fulfill its promise to provide the family with housing.
I have not heard anybody do that before. Small-town mayors in Ukraine are indeed crisis managers. His practice is worth adopting in the ghost towns across the region.
– Valentyna Poltavets, executive director of the Ukrainian Small Towns Association
They got a three-bedroom apartment in Ukrainsk right away, just as the town mayor promised. Still, it was tough at first. “Our kid thought that there was a war in Ukrainsk just recently,” Olga Shlifish recalls of the dilapidated buildings, poor roads and ghost-town atmosphere.
But they had no regrets. “We had nothing to lose,” Igor Shlifish said. “And we were entrepreneurs, could start up anywhere.”
Things soon got better – for the Shlifishes and Ukrainsk. The family and others like them installed doors, windows, water and electric meters – all conditions for acquiring ownership of the flats. Altogether, the city estimates that the new settlers invested 1.5 million hryvnias into their dwellings.
Not all in town, however, are sure how many of the 1,000 apartments given away are inhabited now.
But, within a year after relocating, the Shlifish family bought a cottage on the outskirts of town for $2,000. They learned how to grow fruit and vegetables because of high food prices.
Igor Shlifish is now a taxi driver. His wife runs two small shops, one selling knickknacks and the other gravestones, in town. Their children attend a free art school.
However many people arrived, the new blood has transformed the town, picking up moods, commerce and energy levels.
Nikolai Novikov, born and raised in Ukrainsk, returned to the town in 2008 after spending 10 years in Donetsk, the capital of Ukraine’s most populous oblast. “I came here and civilized this place,” Novikov joked.
He did not take one of the free apartments. Instead, he bought several apartments cheaply and resold them, then opened a real estate agency. Now he sells apartments for at least $2,000. He also expanded his businesses by opening a drinking water delivery service and an outdoor advertisement agency.
Thanks to the enterprising settlers like the 29-year-old Novikov and the Shlifish family, the town is enjoying a mini-boom. A window production plant, a prepared food plant and a concrete/asphalt plant are among the businesses that opened recently.
Novikov claims to live in “the most expensive real estate in town” – a two-floor apartment he bought for Hr 50,000. He also brought from Donetsk his greatest pride – his bride, “a model and a beauty,” he said.
Thanks to the enterprising settlers like the 29-year-old Novikov and the Shlifish family, the town is enjoying a mini-boom. A window production plant, a prepared food plant and a concrete/asphalt plant are among the businesses that opened recently.
With such a track record, one might have expected Neshin to win reelection as mayor easily. But it didn’t happen. Instead, during last year’s local elections, the pro-presidential Party of Regions fielded a candidate, Viktor Komar, who beat the incumbent by less than 200 votes. Less than a third of voters came to the polls.
“The bosses told me that I have worked enough,” Neshin said.
Townspeople say he went into a depression after his election loss, and so did some of them.
“That is a pity,” Olga Shlifish said. “He is a boxer with a big heart who wanted to do everything for the people. But people are often ungrateful.”
Kyiv Post staff writers Kateryna Panova can be reached at [email protected].
