The Housing and Communal Department will renovate 36 shelters in Mykolaiv this year: they will accommodate up to 600 people

Shelter in Mykolaiv, photo NikVesti

In 2024, the Department of Housing and Communal Services of the Mykolaiv City Council plans to equip 36 shelters in residential buildings, educational institutions and hospitals.

Artem Sapozhnyk, Deputy Director of the Department of Housing and Communal Services of the Mykolayiv City Council, reported this in a comment to NikVesti.

«Last year, we made 6 shelters in the basements of residential buildings. This year we are making 8 shelters, some of which have already been made. And we are planning 28 shelters this year. This is without those 8 that are in the process. That is, we have a total of 36 shelters this year,» he said.

Of these, 8 shelters will accommodate 100-200 people, one shelter will accommodate more than 600 people, and another 20 shelters will accommodate up to 50 people. The remaining 7 shelters will be arranged in educational institutions and hospitals.

«This one shelter will be executed according to the design and estimate documentation. It is located at Admiral Makarov 7. We will, accordingly, prepare and announce the purchase. This object is quite interesting because the number of people who can hide there is very large. More than 600 people,» added Artem Sapozhnyk.

The situation with shelters in Mykolaiv

In April 2024, Mykolaiv residents could not get into the shelter on the territory of the «Kazka» children's town during the air raid because it was closed. An internal investigation has already been conducted into this.

This was not the first situation with shelters closed during an air raid in Mykolaiv. Shelters in the Matviivka neighborhood, in the Central district of the city, and in the Yunist park were also closed during the strikes on Mykolaiv on March 17. After these cases, the mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, urged residents to call the police if the shelter or storage room is locked during an air raid.

In general, Mykolaiv was on the list of regions with the worst shelter conditions. After inspecting the condition of the shelters throughout Ukraine, the NSDC recognized the unsatisfactory performance of the shelters for use in a number of regions and cities, in particular — Mykolaiv. After that, the mayor dismissed Oleksandr Herasymenia, the head of the department for emergency situations and civil protection of the population. And the first deputy mayor Vitali Lukov was reprimanded.

Vitalii Kim, the head of Mykolaiv RMA, clarified that 69% of abandoned shelters in the region are located in Mykolaiv. At the same time, almost half of the city's residents (47%) rated the condition of bomb shelters in the city as terrible or bad.

Back in May 2023 , more than 70 million hryvnias were allocated from the budget of Mykolaiv for the repair and equipping of shelters. However, it turned out that the city budget will not receive funds from the 102 million hryvnias allocated by the state for the repair of shelters in schools and kindergartens of the region. And at the end of August 2023, the head of RMA Vitalii Kim said that he was dissatisfied with shelters in schools in the region.

Anna Lychko, head of the education department of the Mykolaiv city council, reported that shelters are being repaired in 21 schools in the city, and another 9 are at the planning stage. At the same time, the city council announced that by the end of 2023, the housing and communal services department plans to repair 18 of the simplest shelters.

In October 2023, NikVesti reported that the department of architecture of the Mykolaiv OVA concluded 27 direct contracts for the development of design and estimate documentation and the carrying out of major repairs of public sector institutions with the company «Architectural bureau — Khvylia 89» LLC, which has been in existence for less than six months, within a month and belongs to a member of the public council of the region on restoration issues. Later, Mykolaiv RMA explained that direct contracts for the design of shelters with this firm made it possible to save the budget.

Read the article NikVesti «Renovation at the end of the year: who got contracts for the shelter in Mykolaiv without a competition.»