After watching the video shot in Gorky Park, Kharkiv, on Arsen Avakov’s blog, one is left breathless with indignation. What kind of country are we living in? Does a site for a store or shopping center cost more than the health of dozens of people, who are now in hospital? Why is the lawlessness of a handful of individuals is really limitless? Yet let us rise above the emotions and try to find out what is actually going on.
In the presidential runoff, Kharkiv oblast gave Yanukovych more than 70 percent of votes. It looks as if this is the price paid by the local lords and masters in order to keep the oblast out of Kyiv’s reach, at their own absolute disposal. How else can one interpret the total ignorance of events in Kharkiv by the president and the Cabinet?
Even the omnipresent Hanna Herman, who will typically have a finger in every pie, has not made a single comment so far. The letter to Viktor Yanukovych of May 31, in which the protesters asked him to interfere in the situation, has yet to be answered.
The Day turned to the Ministry for Environmental Protection to hear their official standpoint. However, unfortunately the profile deputy minister, who would be in a position to give a proper comment, was away at a Cabinet meeting. We were sent to the State Department for Environmental Protection in Kharkiv oblast and thence, to the Department of Environmental Control over Biological Resources and Ecological Network at the State Ecological Inspection.
We only came there to hear that they were having an inspection and had no time for The Day. However, we found notices on the Inspection’s site informing that relevant inquiries had been made concerning the official permission to cut down trees in Gorky Park. Yet with all the red tape, more and more trees are being felled in the park, and more and more people injured every day. The world is watching, and Ukraine appears as a country where both environmental protection and human rights, as well basic European values, are nothing more than mere words.
Instead, our leaders tirelessly emphasize Ukraine’s European integration vector. Gentlemen, could you just start with a short phone call to Kernes [the mayor of Kharkiv. – Ed.] and ask him to please leave the park in peace? Isn’t it the very pattern of communication envisaged by the centralization and the rigid administrative vertical, whose inveterate champions you are? In which case, you could even ignore the letter from the protesters.
TO THE POINT
Borys Kolesnikov, Minister for Euro 2012, had an opportunity to evaluate the quality of Kharkiv roads. According to him, the ring line around Kharkiv could qualify as “a test-area for tanks.” Why city authorities decided to build a new road destroying the park, rather than reconstruct old ones, which are hardly usable because of potholes, is still a mystery for most citizens.
Mykhailo Dobkin, a newly appointed governor, labeled the park defenders as a “handful of opposition hirelings,” and the provisional mayor Hennadii Kernes said: “no losers will prevent us from building the road.” The violent clashes have accompanied the destruction of the park for two weeks already.
A lot of people have been hospitalized because of injuries inflicted by the so-called municipal guards. Journalists, too, have got their share. Oleksii Vedmidsky, ecologist and human rights activist, spent several nights in a tent in the park.
Eight of his supporters chained themselves to the oldest trees. However, this could not stop the lumberjacks and municipal guards, nicknamed “gangsters” for their picturesque looks.
“From ecological violations and crimes, it has switched to human rights abuse: peaceful rallies of the defenders of the park were dispersed by the police or unidentified strangers. The police detained people for eight hours without as much as drawing up a report. People are beaten with blackjacks and threatened with chainsaws. Those who were hospitalized were refused medical certificates testifying to their injuries,” said Vedmidsky.
This April, Kharkiv residents already made an attempt to save 27 hectares of the park belt around Kharkiv, which were destroyed due to the expansion of a golf course belonging to the businessman Yurii Sapronov. The trees were eventually cut down, and replaced with putting greens. This sport is not easily affordable, so those who once used to enjoy walks in the park cannot play it now. While Kharkivites are worried about their favorite holiday spot, ecologists raise an alarm: the destruction of the park involved the disappearance of endangered plants and insects. “This cruel and thoughtless destruction is taking place in the middle of nesting season. We have seen smashed nests,” comments Oleh Perehon, an ecologis. “Lots of birds and their young have perished. The site of the barbaric destruction of plants is the habitat of Europe’s largest stag beetle, an endangered species both in Ukraine and Russia. This deforestation project was not subjected to a single ecological expertise.”
Kharkiv municipal authorities made it clear to the park champions that the motorway would be built no matter what. Meanwhile, civil rights organizations try all channels imaginable to get help. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe will also look into the situation, as it monitors how Ukraine fulfills its commitments to Europe. The Committee members were surprised to learn that the municipal authorities had not asked the citizens what they thought of the road construction plan.
