Neither the House with Chimeras, the Independence Monument, nor Ukraine Palace is destined to experience the lot of a privatized historical site. These monuments, as well as 200 other historic buildings in Kyiv placed on a special list drawn up by Kyiv City Hall’s Department for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Heritage, are not subject to privatization. This list does not allow privatizing such structures as the Verkhovna Rada, Cabinet of Ministers, the Presidential Secretariat, Mariinsky Palace, the former October Revolution Palace, the “Stalinist-style” architectural ensemble on Khreshchatyk St., etc. Now the list must be approved by parliament.
Two hundred is not that small a figure. In terms of the number of non- privatized monuments, Kyiv ranks second after Lviv, a city renowned for its cultural heritage. Yet, legislative approval of the proposed list will immediately lift the moratorium on privatizing those historic buildings that are not on the list. In other words, thousands of such structures may be taken over by new owners. Will this benefit our monuments or harm them?
“In each concrete case there may be both pluses and minuses,” says Mykola Parkhomenko, first deputy chairman of the All-Ukrainian Society for the Protection of Monuments. “In the case of castles, they not only can be privatized, they should be.” Castles is too noble a name for structures that have been used over the past hundred years for a wide range of purposes, for instance, as mineral fertilizer storehouses or vocational school buildings. These structures could be turned into extremely interesting and profitable tourist facilities if they were restored according to a well thought-out concept and provided with the proper infrastructure. But all this requires money, while the state is not exactly bursting to chip in for monuments. This year the state promised 40-50 thousand hryvnias for the good cause of renovations and restoration, but there are more than 130,000 monuments in Ukraine. This means that a mere 300 hryvnias is available for each of them. What is more, this money is unevenly distributed. For example, to reconstruct just the Church of the Tithes (by all accounts, this project has been given the green light), the state has designated UAH 100,000. Meanwhile, castles and estates have not yet attracted the attention of top-ranking officials, so all hopes should be pinned on enterprising people with money, who may hit upon the idea of privatizing historical sites. These kinds of structures could be privatized but also leased out on a long-term basis, if only somebody would want to do this, Mr. Parkhomenko says.
As to the negative aspects of privatization, unfortunately they seem to be far more realistic than the possible pluses. “People are not always prepared for this,” Mr. Parkhomenko says. “We do not have a civilized understanding of the role of cultural heritage.” A recent example is Kyiv’s popular downtown Hay Market, which has been privatized. The owners decided to deal with it very simply — to tear it down. It is rumored that the Hay Market will give way to a multi-level parking lot. In a frantic last-ditch attempt, the defenders of the monument managed to have the Hay Market put on the list of protected facilities. Still, the privatization decision was never canceled, and the new owners have closed the market for reconstruction. By all accounts, this will not be the end of it: the compound is now encircled by a three-meter-high fence behind which the market is being torn down, as far as the members of the Society for the Protection of Monuments know. “The law is flawed; there will always be those who support this. Besides, some of the new owners are people who are very well known in Kyiv,” Mr. Parkhomenko says.
Even the routine privatization of an apartment in a “historic” building may pose a problem. The new owners refurbish not only the interior of such buildings but also the exterior, i.e., the facade, which is a crude distortion of the architect’s concept.
The main goal of privatization is to preserve a facility until better times come. And the point is not just the state’s inability to restore and protect its cultural heritage. Today, historical structures may be demolished even without privatization. According to Mr. Parkhomenko, the usual pattern is simply to remove the historical monument, thus clearing the way for building a new structure. It is then announced that the building is under reconstruction. They surround it with a green protective screen, break it down, and leave it as is. When the building is beyond all repair, local authorities roll their eyes and exclaim, “What an eyesore is standing in the city center! First of all, it looks ugly; second, a fragment may fall and injure someone!” And the structure is razed to the ground. It is much easier to do this than to strike an item off the list of state-protected sites in a legal way.
Experts claim that the number of monuments in Ukraine is steadily declining. Whereas a few years ago there were 150,000, today there are only 130,000. In the course of privatization, many monuments were deliberately struck off the list. For example, Odesa recently introduced a proposal to decommission over 100 monuments.
In view of the promised transparency in decision-making, it would be a good idea to present the list of non-privatizable facilities to the general public and hear its opinion. “Clearly, the narrower the circle of decision- makers, the easier it is to work,” says Mr. Parkhomenko, “but still it would be much better to hold consultations with the public. We have never laid eyes on this list.” Meanwhile, the capital of Ukraine is lucky, as far as the public is concerned. While Muscovites, for example, always favor demolition of their “old” historic structures, Kyivans would rather take to the streets to protect these kinds of buildings. So only they should be the ones to decide whether to privatize the “stele” on Independence Square.
