How did the municipal enterprise Parks green Mykolaiv during the war?

The municipal enterprise Mykolaiv Parks has been operating in the city for 20 years, but its active work began only 2.5 years ago, when Dmytro Chuchmai took over the position of director. Until now, the main work of the enterprise consisted in taking care of two parks: Peremohy and Lisky, he says. And today Mykolaiv Parks take care of all green areas in the city.

In recent years, the company's staff and vehicle fleet have increased, and funding from the city budget has also increased. On the streets of the city, it is increasingly possible to meet employees of «Mykolaiv Parks» at work: mowing grass, planting new trees and pruning old ones, cleaning the streets of the city from fallen leaves.

NikVesti decided to analyze how the life of the municipal enterprise Mykolaiv Parks has changed in recent years and how they manage to green the city in the conditions of a full-scale war.

The number of employees increased 6 times

Over the past three years, the number of employees at the enterprise has increased from 39 people in 2021 to 180 people in 2023, according to data from the Opendatabot monitoring service for registration data of Ukrainian companies. And as of 2024, the company will have 262 employees, Dmytro Chuchmai, director of the utility company Mykolaiv Parks, told NikVesti.

For comparison, the number of employees of the utility company Mykolaivvodokanal has slightly decreased compared to the pre-war period: from 1,342 employees in 2021 to 1,288 in 2023, according to Opendatabot, a service for monitoring registration data of Ukrainian companies. At the same time, the number of employees of the Mykolaiv Electrotrans utility company decreased from 728 employees in 2021 to 573 in 2023. However, the number of employees of the utility company Mykolaivcomuntrans increased slightly: from 134 employees in 2022 to 155 in 2023, according to the data of the monitoring service.

As of now, the company has 262 full-time employees, Dmytro Chuchmai, director of the utility company Mykolaiv Parks, told NikVesti. These are gardeners, drivers and other specialists of various fields, he added. He explained the increase in the number of employees compared to other municipal enterprises of the city by the fact that it is easier for «Mykolaiv Parks» to find the necessary employees, because the positions do not necessarily require workers for hard work, and therefore more women can work at the enterprise.

«You know, this is probably a big plus in our work, that we don't need, let's say, drivers, road workers. Women can work for us, and their number is greater at the enterprise — about 70%. Therefore, our dear women fill a need at our company. Men are mainly used in our special transport. These are car towers, these are saws for tree trimmings. That is, where male strength is needed,» explained Dmytro Chuchmai.

In order to cover the entire territory of the city, the company needs about 400 full-time employees, Dmytro Chuchmai added. This is necessary in order for the enterprise to be able to serve the Korabelnyi district, the Inhulskyi district and part of the Tsentralnyi district on its own.

At the same time, the director of the enterprise assured, he has no goal to recruit a large number of employees. After all, says Dmytro Chuchmai, the work of Mykolaiv Parks must first be mechanized.

«I don't want to recruit a large number of personnel at all. This is very inefficient. Work must be mechanized and work must be mechanized. Today, nowhere in Europe do they mow with some obscure and old scythes. Now work is being mechanized. That's why I'm talking about the fact that, for example, in the Ship District, you need to clean up bins, artificial garbage, clean paths, sidewalks, parks, squares. This requires staff. This does not mean, in any case, that you need to send 150 or 200 people there and let them do something there. No. This, you know, is such an optimization of work. That's why the number I'm talking about — 400 — will be quite enough to cover those areas, those areas that we haven't covered yet,» he said.

The work of Parks costs the city UAH 144 million per year

The company's financing has increased more than 19 times over the past five years: from 8.6 million hryvnias in 2020 to 167.2 million hryvnias in 2023, according to data from the Opendatabot monitoring service for registration data of Ukrainian companies.

This year, the budget of Mykolaiv Parks is slightly smaller than the previous one and amounts to 144 million hryvnias, says the director of the utility company Dmytro Chuchmai. Among the main costs, he names fuel and lubricants, services, the purchase of tools and equipment, as well as wages to employees.

«Every year we increase the volume of work, so the funding increases. The mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych is very supportive of our enterprise and wants to develop us very much. That's why we have the funding we need, let's say. And this is probably enough for us,» said Dmytro Chuchmai.

For example, Mykolaivvodokanal has a larger budget — in 2023 it amounted to 388 million hryvnias. However, Mykolaivelectrotrans and Mykolaivkomuntrans utility companies have slightly smaller budgets than Mykolaiv Parks for 2023: 35.9 million hryvnias and 131.9 million hryvnias, respectively.

With these funds, Mykolaiv Parks, in particular, announces tenders for the provision of services in various directions: care for the green areas of the city, uprooting of tree stumps, purchase of equipment. For example, in order to maintain green zones in the Tsentralnyi, Korabelnyi and Inhulskyi districts of the city in 2024, the company held eight tenders for a total announced cost of about 84.8 million hryvnias. However, after the selection of contractors, the total amount decreased somewhat — to 76 million hryvnias.

In particular, the utility company plans to spend 47 million hryvnias on the care of the city's green areas in the second half of the year. Mykolaiv Parks awarded these contracts to two companies and two other sole proprietorships without any competition.

Who receives landscaping contracts in Mykolaiv?

KP Mykolaiv Parks orders these services from private entrepreneurs Ivan Negura (101.7 million hryvnias of contracts), who is the company's most frequent contractor, and Dmytro Dmytryshyn (21.5 million hryvnias of contracts), as well as from the companies Budservice-NK (65.3 million hryvnias of contracts) and Eurocomunservice (42.2 million hryvnias of contracts).

Maintenance of green areas in the Central district is handled by Budservice-NK LLC and Dmytro Dmytryshyn. Entrepreneur Dmytro Dmytryshyn is to be paid 11.2 million hryvnias by the end of 2024 for maintaining the green areas in the Central District of Mykolaiv in good condition — 100 thousand hryvnias less than the announced expected cost of the purchase. In particular, the contractor will provide services for the maintenance of parks and squares, as well as green spaces along Soborna Street.

This summer, sole proprietorship Dmytro Dmytryshyn got into a scandal because of services for mowing the grass in the square near the destroyed building of the regional state administration. His employees, while carrying out work, removed the flags with the names of the fallen servicemen. The wife of the fallen defender, whose name was on a flag in the park, found them dirty and damaged nearby. After the appeal of journalists and the resonance in social networks, all the flags were returned to their places.

Budservice-NK LLC will receive another 7.9 million hryvnias from the budget for the maintenance of other green zones in the Central district of the city. The price of services offered by the company is 650 thousand hryvnias lower than the expected cost. Among other things, the contractor will maintain green areas along Tsentralny Avenue.

Since 2018, Budservice-NK LLC has received state procurement worth more than 120 million hryvnias, the most — more than 40 million hryvnias — in 2022, according to data from the YouControl analytical system.

12.5 million hryvnias will be paid for the maintenance of green zones in Korabelnyi district. The contract was awarded to the capital's Eurocomunservice LLC, which, according to YouControl, is part of the notorious Mykolaiv «City for the People» group. The contractor reduced the expected purchase price announced by Mykolaiv Parks by only 32,000 hryvnias.

Maintenance of green areas in the Ingul district of Mykolaiv for 15.2 million hryvnias until the end of the year will be carried out by the Ivan Negura Public Enterprise. The contractor lowered his price offer by 159 thousand hryvnias.

Starting from 2022, FOP Ivan Nehura receives numerous contracts from KP Mykolaiv Parks every year. In total, since 2019, the entrepreneur has won budget purchases worth 37.8 million hryvnias.

In general, these costs include maintenance of territories, lawns, care of flower beds, urns and trees, as well as pruning of existing trees.

What does the territory near the stadium in Peremogy Park look like, which the company takes care of for a year?

The stadium at Peremohy was transferred to the municipal property of the city only in the summer of 2023. At that time, the mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych showed off the documents confirming the transfer of the object to the ownership of the community.

«I have a treasure in my hands. This is an extract from the State Register of Real Property Rights, which says that the work of 8 years of my life has ended positively,» said the mayor.

Just a few days after this news, the employees of the Parks utility company began to put the territory of the park and the stadium in order, because before that they were in a neglected state: everything around was overgrown with grass and bushes. Communal workers trimmed trees, mowed the grass, repaired the children's playground near the stadium, laid tiles on the stadium's territory and painted parapets.

However, the Alley of Sports Fame near the stadium, on which three name plates of Olympic champions - Illia Kvashi, Yurii Nikitin and Olha Kharlan — are still in need of repair.

Directly on the territory of the park, you can see the remains of branches and stumps after the pruning and sawing of trees carried out by communal workers, and the sawn parts of the trees are located in the fenced area near the modular building of the enterprise. In it, employees can rest in between work.

In October 2023, 100 young pine saplings were also planted on the territory of the park. At the request of the deputies of the city and regional councils, the seedlings were handed over to the city by the state enterprise «Forests of Ukraine».

At that time, Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych said that a large number of green areas in Mykolaiv needed updating, so this kind of action was not the last.

«Even before the full-scale invasion, we planned to reconstruct Victory Park. The war put this project on hold, but this does not mean that the number of trees and green spaces in the city should not be increased,» said the mayor.

But in five months, the people of Mykolaiv noticed that some of the trees turned yellow and died. The townspeople assumed that the problem was the salinity of the soil in the area where the seedlings were planted. However, the Mykolaiv Parks company assured that it did not affect the plants.

«Regarding the salinity of the soil mentioned earlier, in this particular case it was all about the planting material. After all, conifers grow well both in Kobleve and Ochakiv,» they added there.

The company's specialists explained that the problem was in the pines, which were planted with bare roots, and therefore did not take root.

«When the trees were planted, it was discovered that they had a bare root system. Note that for conifers, a closed root system is very important when transplanting, i.e. with a clod of earth. The company's specialists took care of the plants all the time: they watered, fed and stimulated the root system. A certain part of the trees will still take root, because the company's specialists closely monitor the condition of each green area,» the message reads.

At the same time, Inna Tymchenko, a well-known environmentalist in the Mykolaiv region, previously told NikVesti that it is very difficult to grow pine trees in urban conditions.

«We took the soil in Lisky park and it should be unsaturated with elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, because we have sand there. But in reality, pine is very difficult to grow in urban conditions, and we planted a lot of pines. Experts say that when a pine grows to a certain height, its roots reach the salted water that we have, and this water has a bad effect on the pine,» Inna Tymchenko said.

The fleet increased from 1 to 52 vehicles

Even before the full-scale invasion, as of January 2022, the company had only one specialized machine, says director Dmytro Chuchmai. As of today, the number of special equipment has increased to 52 units, he added.

«You know, I signed a contract with the mayor on January 17, 2022. When I came to the enterprise to see what was going on here in general, there was only one machine at the enterprise that was eighty years old. And that's all, there was nothing more. Today, the enterprise has 52 units of special road machinery, more than 200 units of small mechanization equipment, i.e. scythes, saws, crushers, and more. That is, it is a difference of two and a half years. Fifty-two units today — one two and a half years ago,» said Dmytro Chuchmai.

In general, all the available equipment of the enterprise today costs about 30-35 million hryvnias, said the director of Mykolaiv Parks. Most of this money is from the city budget, he added.

«We also cooperated with our international partners. These are France, Germany, Denmark. They provided us with humanitarian aid. We received special equipment from them: truck towers, crushers and so on,» Dmytro Chuchmai added.

The company also plans to purchase specialized equipment for cleaning, says the director. Its total cost is €1 million, of which €400,000 is planned to be provided by partners from Denmark, and €600,000 from the city budget.

«Today we are negotiating with a Danish fund, which is ready to partially finance the purchase of new Danish cleaning equipment in the amount of 40% of its total cost. About one million euros will cost five units of these machines. That is, the Danish fund is ready to help us with 400 thousand euros. And the remaining funds, 600,000 euros, we are still working on this issue. But I think that the deputies of the city council support us and will approve the loan funds for the purchase of this equipment,» said Dmytro Chuchmai.

The mayor positively evaluates the work of Mykolaiv Parks

Mykolaiv City Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych explained that the increase in staff, equipment and budget of the enterprise is connected with the increase in the amount of load on KP.

«The company is expanding, because more areas of responsibility are being added: parks, squares, green areas. Also, the territories that the company serves on its own are increasing. That is why the number of staff and equipment is also increasing. I would like to add that earlier districts were serviced by subcontractors, we are gradually moving away from this and handing these areas over to the Mykolaiv Parks KP,» said Oleksandr Sienkevych.

In 2025, there are plans to increase the company's staff by 150 employees, who will work in the Ship district of Mykolaiv, the mayor said.

«For 2024, the company's budget is 144 million. This amount is less compared to 2023. Currently, the number of employees is 277. In fact, 242 employees work. In 2025, we plan to increase the staff by 150 employees to carry out maintenance of green areas by our own efforts in the Ship district of the city,» said the mayor.

In general, Oleksandr Sienkevych positively evaluates the work of Mykolaiv Parks, because, he added, the company «does the work that is set before them.»

«I assess the company's work positively. Currently, in addition to their main work, the company's employees are also helping to eliminate the consequences of Russian flights to Mykolaiv. Employees are doing the work that is set before them,» said the mayor.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the area of operation of the enterprise Mykolaiv Parks has grown significantly — today it is engaged in the maintenance of all green areas on the territory of the city. However, it is still not possible to do it on our own, as they say at the company. Therefore, the Korabelnyi and Inhulskyi districts are served by the contractor. But the situation is planned to change somewhat next year, increasing the number of employees by another 150 people.

In general, over the past few years, the utility company has significantly increased its capacity: the number of employees and utility equipment has increased, as well as the amount of funding from the city budget has increased. At the same time, in some other municipal enterprises of the city, the amount of funding and the number of employees decreased.

Yuliia Boichenko, NikVesti

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