«This was our life»: rebuilding of the Mykolaiv Lyceum №51 destroyed by the Russians

More than 60% of schools in Mykolaiv need restoration today: all of them were damaged or destroyed by Russian shelling. One of these institutions is the Mykolaiv Lyceum №51, whose building was hit by an enemy rocket in July 2022. Despite the destroyed walls, the lyceum continues to educate children, albeit online. Everyone there is waiting for the institution to be rebuilt.

How the lyceum lives today and what awaits the Mykolaiv institution in the future — read in the article NikVesti.

The library and gymnasium were destroyed. How the lyceum looks after the impact

Mykolaiv Lyceum №51 is located in the Solyani microdistrict. Before the war, it was the second largest school in Mykolaiv by the number of students — 1,157 children studied there. The lyceum has not accepted children for two years.

An enemy rocket hit the building of the institution and destroyed the library, dining hall, sports and assembly halls. Now, only a few fragments remind us of what kind of room it was: the remains of bookshelves and a mutilated basketball ring. «Our life was here,» says Lyceum director Yevhen Masiuta.

«I wouldn't want anyone to ever feel what I felt (at the moment when I learned about the shelling of the institution, note). They don't work at school — they live at school. Generations of teachers, principals — everyone contributed to the development of the institution little by little. The school had a good base, its achievements. It was impossible to imagine that a children's institution could be used in this aggressive war. I don't even know what to call those who did this. It is a pain for all of us,» the director of the lyceum shared his thoughts.

Now students study remotely. «The security situation does not yet allow face-to-face training,» says Yevhen Masyuta. Although teachers and children have already adapted to this format, online learning will not replace live communication, the director of 51 lyceum is confident.

«My opinion is that it is good that we have the opportunity to use the educational process in this way. We have our Armed Forces to thank for this today. Professionalism of teachers, of course, allows to reduce risks. But still, in my opinion, face-to-face communication will always be in the first place,» says Yevhen Masiuta.

The director is sure that after the rebuilding of the lyceum, more than one generation will be taught: «I imagine that the children will have all the opportunities to get the proper knowledge, abilities and skills that are necessary for life.»

Build back better. As they promise to rebuild the lyceum

The local authorities considered two options for the future of the lyceum: to reconstruct the institution or to demolish it and build a new one on this site.

For this, the Department of Education of the Mykolaiv City Council ordered a technical report on the state of the lyceum. «It is formed by licensed specialists. In fact, it is the designers who are creating a report on the damage,» Deputy Mayor Serhii Koreniev explained.

The contractor company «NDC Building Expertise and Design» undertook to assess the condition of the building. The results of the report are as follows: part of the facility is not subject to further operation, part is in an emergency condition. Some structures, the report says, are in satisfactory condition, but their defects and damage can reduce their service life.

After that, the technical report was handed over to the Department of Capital Construction of the City Council, which made the final decision on the fate of 51 lyceums. In May of last year, UCS announced that the school would be demolished and a new one would be built in its place.

This decision, as explained by the Deputy Mayor of Mykolaiv, Anatoliy Petrov, is primarily due to the fact that it is much cheaper to build a new school than to restore a damaged one. Besides, he says, even before the Great War, the school had to be reconstructed.

«Even before the war, the institution was of the IIIrd category of emergency, and there are all of them IV. Plus there was an arrival, there is destruction of the institution. After the technical report, a decision was made to build a new school,» said the vice mayor.

The local authorities promise to rebuild Lyceum №51 according to the principle of «build back better», said Oleksii Savchuk, director of the Lyceum: «Our task is not just to rebuild it as it was. This is a simple way, but it is not modern. We will follow the path of «build back better». That is, to rebuild better than it was. This will be a modern project that involves the construction of a complex of buildings».

In 2023, the city authorities also developed a sketch of the reconstruction of the lyceum. Currently, a tender is underway for the development of design and estimate documentation for the construction of a new facility. For this, 7.7 million hryvnias were allocated from the city budget. The customer of the works is the Department of Capital Construction. And the already ready estimate is expected to be received by June 30, 2024. «What we want to get as a result is a rather ambitious project,» says Deputy Mayor Serhiy Koreniev.

After development, the project will be handed over to the Service for Reconstruction and Development of Infrastructure in Mykolaiv Oblast, which will be engaged in the construction of a new lyceum. In the future, these works should be financed by the state.

How much it will cost to rebuild Lyceum №51 is currently unknown. This will become clear only after the development of the project, where the list and cost of works will be indicated. But previously, in the capital expenditures of the Mykolaiv budget for 2023, the cost of rebuilding the lyceum was 300 million hryvnias, and the term of the institution's reconstruction was until 2028. However, these numbers are very indicative, says Deputy Mayor Serhii Koreniev.

«Last year we agreed on the financing of this facility with the restoration agency (State Agency for Restoration and Development of Infrastructure of Ukraine, note). It is too early to talk about amounts, as there are no working documents yet. In addition, given the constant price changes in the market of building materials and wages, I think it is wrong to talk about any amounts. But taking into account the amount of construction, the amount will be substantial,» said the deputy mayor.

This is confirmed by the interlocutors of NikVesti in the Mykolaiv City Council. According to them, the cost of implementing such a project reaches 600 million hryvnias. At the same time, there are doubts as to how realistic it is to start such large-scale construction in the conditions of the front-line region, which is still Mykolaiv Oblast and the regional center.

Three links of education. How the new lyceum looks according to the sketch

In total, it is planned to build three main buildings: for elementary, middle and senior classes, said Oleksii Savchuk, director of the UCS: «These are four-story, two-story and one-story buildings, which will be formed by age groups.»

It is assumed that the total area of the new lyceum will be approximately 18,000 square meters and will be able to accommodate 1,500 students. Dual purpose buildings are planned to be built under each building. They want to place a library, a training shooting range and a dressing room in the basements, and if necessary, these rooms can be used as a bomb shelter.

In addition to the three main buildings, an administrative building, a sports complex, recreational areas, a stadium and two sports grounds are also planned to be built on the territory of the new lyceum. «This will be an infrastructure that will allow us to fully provide high-quality educational services,» added Mykolaiv Deputy Mayor Anatolii Petrov.

The sketch of the new Lyceum №51 shows how modern the institution can be in the future. But to what extent it is possible to implement this picture into life is difficult to say. Currently, the city government is spending 7.7 million hryvnias on the project to rebuild the lyceum. But whether the state will provide funds for its implementation and whether it makes sense to implement such a large-scale idea in the front-line region are still open questions, the answers to which will take time.

Yuliia Boichenko, NikVesti