Ukraine’s government has allocated Hr 2 billion ($72 million) to the so-called Big Restoration program to restore the country’s cultural heritage, Kirill Tymoshenko, deputy head of the President’s Office said during a forum held in Kyiv on March 10.
President Volodymyr Zelensky had already announced the allocation of Hr 300 million ($11 million) to the program launched in February within the framework of the Big Construction program, a pharaonic infrastructure project aimed at fixing the infrastructure in the country.
The Big Restoration program will go along with it, focusing on rebuilding Ukraine’s heritage, including theaters, castles, museums and fortresses for Ukrainians to know more about their history while they can’t travel abroad, Tymoshenko said.
“We won’t restore such facilities for them to stay empty — we are building roads to them, we are establishing new management there, so that people come, see and learn more about their own country,” he said.
According to him, work has already begun at some sites, but neither Zelensky nor Tymoshenko specified what exactly is being rebuilt and what’s the deadline for the works.
“We have a lot of historical monuments — it is simply impossible to restore all of them in three, five, or 10 years,” Zelensky said back in February.
Zelensky also said the state was still considering different sources of fundings, including concessions and public-private partnerships with private companies to focus on the most attractive assets for tourists.
The Big Construction program, meanwhile, which was launched in March 2020, aims at rebuilding or repairing at least 6,500 kilometers of roads nationwide. In addition, hundreds of kindergartens, schools, stadiums, bridges and new hospitals will also be repaired or built.
As of June 2020, state road agency Ukravtodor had already begun repairing over 3,000 kilometers of roads. The state plans to fulfill the $2.8-billion program by the end of 2020.
