Numerous city authorities opted to ignore the so-called “weekend lockdown” of businesses, imposed by the Ukrainian government to stop record-shattering increases in coronavirus infections. Rather than close down, businesses such as restaurants and stores stayed open, serving customers with adherence to the usual COVID-19 safety measures such as mask-wearing.
In particular, mayors of Lviv, Cherkasy, Ternopil, Zhytomyr, and Ivano-Frankivsk, as well as authorities in Dnipro, Chernihiv, and Lutsk, called on the government to revoke the decision, which is in effect set to the end of November.
The locals questioned the effectiveness of a shutdown while citing its destructive impact on the economy and employment.
The controversial decision to introduce a new partial shutdown was approved on Nov. 11 in a bid to contain the drastic rise of coronavirus contractions in the country, which has stressed the nation’s health-care system to the brink of collapse.
According to Health Minister Maksym Stepanov, Ukraine may run out of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients in need of intensive care as soon as mid-December if the rate of spread is not slowed. In November, Ukraine has been reporting more than 10,000 new cases daily.
So as an alternative to introducing a full national lockdown, with its damaging consequences for the country’s economy, the cabinet of Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal introduced the “weekend quarantine” under which businesses and institutions deemed non-essential, such as restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, museums, gyms, must stay closed on Saturdays and Sundays.
No new restrictions were imposed on public transport, gas stations, pharmacies, and also stores, and supermarkets that sell food products in at least 60% of their interior square. Restaurants can continue offering takeout service to customers and delivery.
An ambulance moves through traffic in Kyiv on Nov. 13, 2020. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
The measure triggered a storm of criticism and protests, with many calling it an absurd stopgap solution that would only lead to mass unemployment without easing the pandemic. Rallies were held in downtown Kyiv in front of the Cabinet of Ministers office, with small businesses protesting against the lockdown.
A number of city mayors in the country’s regions immediately announced their refusal to comply.
“Weekend quarantine” is just another step that only imitates anti-coronavirus spread in Ukraine,” as Andriy Baloga, mayor of the city of Mukacheve in western Zakarpattia Oblast asserted on Nov. 12.
“There will be very little effect and a lot of harm to the services and entertainment sectors. Small and medium businesses, which barely survive in the pandemiс, are now allowed to stop paying wages and taxes on weekends.”
The official also accused the government of having failed to prepare the country’s healthcare system for a surge of cases, and of wasting the country’s special COVID-19 assistance fund on inappropriate projects like road construction.
Cherkasy Mayor Anatoliy Bondarenko, who clashed with the central government over harsh lockdown orders from Kyiv in May, also supported the boycott. “Why is it the “weekend quarantine?” he asserted on Nov. 12. “Why not a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday quarantine? Our city is not huge, and it is almost empty on weekends.”
Bondarenko added on Nov. 13 that during the springtime lockdown the city had to allocate Hr 104 million ($3 million) despite severe budget shortfalls, while the central government ended up rendering no assistance to the city of 280,000 people located nearly 200 kilometers southeast of Kyiv.
The boycott was also joined by western Ukraine’s Ternopil, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, as well other regional cities. All mayors, however, noted that all necessary personal safety measures, such as the wearing of face masks, would be followed.
In Lviv, Mayor Andriy Sadoviy, who is seeking re-election in an upcoming second ballot, ended up with an exotic solution and issued an act stating that the city of Lviv formally has no days off through Nov. 30.
Therefore, as the official explained, “since we have no weekends, it is impossible to introduce a weekend lockdown.” He also added that anyone facing a ban on working in Lviv should refer to the act or seek legal assistance from the city head’s lawyers.
Nonetheless, it became known on Nov. 14, the day the lockdown entered force, that the police blocked at least four food markets working in Lviv.
In Chernivtsi, nearly 300 small-scale entrepreneurs working at an outdoor food market blocked the streets demanding that the city authorities let them work with all regular COVID-19 safety measures observed on other days of the week.
A woman crosses an underground walkway in Kyiv on Nov. 13, 2020. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
Some businesspeople decided to try and circumvent restrictions in farcical ways.
In the city of Ternopil, a restaurant owner Taras Kovalchuk registered a religious organization “Brotherhood of the bald” under which his two restaurants in the city would have a legal status of a monastery canteen and a temple. Under the new rules, any religious organizations are not subject to the “weekend lockdown.”
Epicentr, a giant chain of housewares and building materials supermarkets, which gained notoriety over its complete disregard of lockdown measures in spring, jokingly asserted on social media that in the wake of the “weekend lockdown” act, its supermarket would have “72-hour-long Fridays.”
The post triggered an uproar on social media. Later, Epicentr said they would start selling more food, medicine, and personal care products, which effectively allows them to get around the law. Nonetheless, the chain changed its mind and was open only for online delivery.
However, not all big businesses followed the suit.
On Nov. 14, Ukraine’s National Police said it had enforced the closure of the 5th Element, a huge Kyiv-based sports club owned by former President Petro Poroshenko.
The elite fitness center was ignoring the quarantine restrictions and working at its usual pace.
Meanwhile, the government and the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called upon all regional officials to stop ignoring the “weekend quarantine,” obligatory for the whole of Ukraine. He said it was a chance to avoid a complete 24/7 lockdown, which happened in the early weeks of the pandemic.
The mayors “are not thinking of quantities of the sick in their cities, but about of quantities of votes in local election’s second ballot,” Zelensky asserted on Nov. 14.
“If we keep playing ‘a good cop’ in regions, keep ignoring the government’s order, and celebrate it with a massive live music show in the city square, or keep denying coronavirus, then I am sure that all of us will lose. Not a certain mayor, not a minister, not a president, but the whole nation. Let’s not make this happen.”
