Shattered dreams: Mariupol mayor on decentralization, pre-war development of the city, revival plans

The Mariupol Reborn program for the restoration and revival of Mariupol was presented in Brussels. The city must be completely rebuilt after being destroyed by the Russian military in 2022.

However, the revival of Mariupol has already taken place once, albeit on a smaller scale. The example of Mariupol in terms of decentralization is often overlooked by the Ukrainian media. Cities in the central region or the West were considered examples of changes in the decentralization reform process. It was believed that the processes in the frontline zone were slower.

However, this is not the case. Mariupol, despite the dominance of the Soviet heritage, large centralized businesses, and old infrastructure, demonstrated a significant pace of modernization. This was evident both in the repair and development of infrastructure and in the level of foreign investment.

Unfortunately, the city, which was developing rapidly and demonstrating by its example that Donbas communities, as well as communities in any other part of Ukraine, can be independent, proactive, and show effective development, was destroyed at the height of its initiatives and successes.

In an interview with LIGA.net, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko discusses the decentralization process in the city, the changes that occurred before its occupation, and the plans for its revival.

LIGA.net: What has decentralization brought to the city?

Vadym Boychenko: My attitude to decentralization is as follows. It is the most successful reform. If we take the example of Mariupol, when I was elected mayor in 2015, the development budget of Mariupol was about 20 million hryvnias ($916,561). Two years later, it was 200 million ($7.52 million). And if the tragedy of 2022 had not happened, we would have had a development budget of 2 billion ($70.84 million).

But the main thing is not money. Decentralization gave us the opportunity to become the most accountable and transparent city in Ukraine. Although in 2015, we ranked last in these indicators.

It gave us the opportunity to attract investments, manage the budget effectively, hold an investment forum, form a strategic vision of the city and attract 200 million euros in investments in transport, water treatment, etc.

This has never happened before in the city's history. Affordable healthcare, the newest administrative services center in Ukraine was opened in 2019.

How did this manifest itself in practice?

In 2015, we had a rating of 30% in terms of satisfaction with the living environment, which is an unimpressiveindicator. But before the full-scale war, the level of love for the city reached 89%. In 2015 70% of young people wanted to leave Mariupol, but in 2021 70% of young people wanted to stay in Mariupol.

The city was changing rapidly. It is important that qualified personnel from the occupied territories – doctors, teachers, and law enforcement officers – were moving to Mariupol. In 2021, we developed a development strategy for Mariupol until 2030 with American experts. But alas.

What problems did you solve with decentralization, and how?

It is important to first clearly identify the problems in the city. That is, to approach people and ask them. We conducted the following surveys twice a year: the top 5 problems that the authorities should solve.

The first one was, by general definition, the problem of public transportation. Or rather, the lack of it. Half a million people, and no transportation. Old vehicles broke down, the schedule was not met. When the new transport appeared, the schedule was such that you could check your watches.

We created modern, municipal transport. There was a lot of it, it really moved people around the city, and solved the problem of transportation. It finally became warm in winter and cool in summer. We purchased 150 new pieces of equipment. The trolleybuses and buses were new. Among other things, they were made in Ukraine. And the trams were converted Tatras (made by the Czech Tatra – ed.).

We re-designed the routes and calculated passenger flows. How many people actually move and where they go, where more equipment really needs to be put. And it worked. We were not afraid that this transportation would be unprofitable because it would not pay off. I proposed a new idea and we raised the fare. At first, there were even rallies. But then, when people saw the level and quality, they were willing to pay for a decent service.

We introduced a 50/50 subsidy for transportation. Transport should earn half of its revenue, and we subsidized half of the ticket price.

How did you develop human capital? For a long time, Mariupol was a rather Soviet city...

This is question number two. We launched a project to promote the creation of apartment building co-owner associations. It was difficult to create the first four ABCAs. In the 30 years of independence, there were 70 ABCAs in the city. And in the five years before the war, we created 1,700 ABCAs.

We came to every yard. We came and said we were ready to do five elements or projects with you for your building. A roof or a basement – and we are ready to finance it. But we will give the money to the head of the ABCA. The head of the ABCA announces a tender. He or she needs to understand what ProZorro [state procurement portal] is, how to fill out all the documents, and be responsible for quality and finances. And you, the residents of the building, will ask him questions. And so it went, everything changed.

Next, the second level is co-financing. The ABCAs had to raise a certain amount of money, and we joined in. People began to participate, to go out into their yards, to communicate, to solidarize, to do something together. This forms a living space. There were ABCAs that quickly joined energy efficiency programs and saved up to 30,000 hryvnias ($1,063) a year. For this money, they changed windows in the entrances, for example, and so on. It worked.

The main achievement is that the communities and residents of the building started counting money, saving, and reinvesting. When the Energy Efficiency Fund started working, every second hryvnia for insulation went to Mariupol. And this brought an additional benefit: the cost of housing and rent in insulated and modernized buildings increased, while the cost of utilities decreased.

As for utilities. You also subsidized them for some time, but then stopped.

The transformation of utilities is a difficult task, but it is extremely important. In 2015, the Vodokanal water utility received more than 300 million ($13.75 million) in subsidies. It was bankrolled. We set a goal to make it unsubsidized. In 2021, the water supply company no longer received subsidies, it had zero. But it had its own investments – 30 million ($1.1 million) a year. And this was an achievement.

We offered the water utility to keep 50% of the earnings. And they reinvested it. In 2021, they bought a bunch of modern equipment for 150 million ($5.5 million). And if we used to have 70 emergencies a day, in 2021, we had seven. Pure math.

Mariupol in 2022 and after 2022. Do you have any information about what is happening there? Do you have accurate estimates of the amount of damage, and the number of people killed?

We see everything, we monitor everything. And now we have both ears and eyes there. We know how much and what has been destroyed. Out of almost 2,000 high-rise buildings, 934 no longer exist. Almost 50%. They were destroyed by Russian aviation. And they have already demolished almost 600 buildings, concealing the crimes. Detached housing – 6,000 houses have been destroyed. Also, 70% of hospitals, 50% of schools, and kindergartens have been destroyed.

Generally speaking, 50% of the city does not exist, the other 50% is damaged in one way or another. The death toll is a very sensitive topic. We used very thorough reports. The first one has already been presented in the European Parliament. The first figure, a very cautious one, is 8,200 dead Mariupol residents. But even this report counts 10,500 graves. And many of them contain more than one dead. And not all graves were recorded.

The UN is currently preparing a report. And we have provided all the data we have. There is evidence that we have from the clearing operations, when 20 to 150 people were pulled out of the rubble. And if you multiply even the smallest figure by the number of buildings, add the detached housing, add what we recorded in Mariupol, it adds up to our cautious figure of 22,000 dead Mariupol residents.

But the final numbers will be studied. We have created an electronic map called Mariupol Justice. There we record all the destruction and all the dead. We will present it in June and July. We have also already identified more than 1,500 collaborators.

The Russians claim that they are allegedly building some kind of housing there. They even film these new buildings, allegedly several dozen of them. Is it a lot?

52,000 families from Mariupol are now homeless. This is 150,000-200,000 people, half of the city. And the Russians have now built housing for 3,000 people. This is not much. When they show a building in a field, they are afraid to turn the camera left or right.

And it is also important to understand who they are building it for. They will build it for their own people. Not for Mariupol residents. Today they are moving people from depressed regions to Mariupol. Now there are more than 200,000 people in Mariupol, but every second person is not a Mariupol resident. These are people who came from Buryatia, Kalmykia, etc. Mariupol is being used as a military base, which is critically important for the logistics of the south.

What to do with thousands of these people after the city is liberated?

Deportation.

Let's discuss the revival of the city. How will this happen and what will this city look like?

We have a plan called Mariupol Reborn. It consists of two parts that we are developing together with our partners. The first component is an "immediate response plan". This is a short-term plan with 154 projects in 12 areas. We understand how much equipment and what kind of equipment should come to Mariupol, how many specialists – 14,700. This is a two-year plan. We are going to restore water, heating, electricity, education, etc.

The other plan is more complicated, it is a long-term story. It is the revival of Mariupol. It is about building a new Mariupol while preserving the city's history. We spent a year developing it with the city's residents. For example, is it possible to revive the Drama Theater on the site of the destroyed Drama Theater? The answer was clear – no. This is a place of memory. With the names of the victims engraved and other things. We hired four of the most powerful architectural firms, and now we are combining four concepts into one.

I'm going to be more specific. I mean that the main industrial facilities that defined the city have been destroyed. It will be a new city. What will it look like?

We are also working on the future philosophy of the city, and its economic model, which will be different from what it was before 2022. There is an agreement with big businesses that they will restore a number of metallurgical businesses. But it will be in a different scope and form.

This can be done on the basis of Illich (Illich Iron and Steel Works of Mariupol, part of Rinat Akhmetov's Metinvest). And the territory of Azovstal could be an exhibition area, a Museum of Mariupol Defense, a Museum of Resistance, a Museum of Tragedy. The territory there is very large, and part of it may be used for construction later.