We continue the cycle of interviews with heads of communities of the Odesa region. After all, the life of each community and each family has become completely different. Now everyone needs to learn to live in new realities and deal with new challenges. Every Ukrainian faces a choice, and sometimes it is not the easiest: to go or stay, to go to defend their land or to run away wherever they look. Of course, it is also difficult for local self-government, because no one in the 21st century could have thought that they would face a war. Natalia Krupytsia, head of the VTG, shared with us how the life of the Fontana community has changed, how they help their residents and displaced people.
— For more than two months, our country has been fighting off Russia's military aggression, tell us how the state of war affected the further work of the community?
The war affected the life of the community, every person. She broke the life possibilities of each of us. She broke her heart. It destroyed all our plans in the community, completely stopped the development of the community. We have many problems, many villages. A large population. And what we, as they say, planned - everything went to waste. But I think that let it be as it will be in our community. There is no war in our community today. The most important thing is that we are not fighting. And now we are trying to direct the resources that we have to help the districts, to help the territorial defense and to help the displaced people.
How many immigrants do you have?
About 760 people registered with us through TsNAP and about 400 through Diya. And all of them are in our OTG. We have TsNAP working very fruitfully. Fills out the questionnaire. Immigrants indicate in the questionnaire what they need first of all. In social department, they receive a certificate as a resettled person, and we immediately give them a grocery set. If we have baby food, some personal protective equipment, medicine. We immediately pass it on to them. We will have about 135 schoolchildren and about 26 people with disabilities. Most came from Donbas, followed by Mariupol, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Kherson recently.
- Tell me where you get resources for help from? Maybe the area helps?
I want to say that we are quite a wealthy community. And what we were going to invest in community development: we really don't have enough schools and kindergartens, we have infrastructure today that needs infusion. But, unfortunately, we cannot dispose of these means now and direct them to those needs that are necessary for victory. We are in very close contact with the district and region. This is not 2014, when the region did not know what to do, and the administration of the building was taken over. Here, everyone found themselves in their place, starting with the lowest level of power and ending not only with the region, but also with Kyiv. At first there were difficulties, because we had never worked in military conditions, no one knew where to start. At first, there was no systematic work, but now both the district and the region work very systematically. The other day, we received a humanitarian gift from our district - these are sweets, which we distributed to displaced children and large families.
Are your employees working or have they evacuated?
You know, there are those who left. This is my personal opinion. I believe that we should have an article in the law on local self-government: if you are an employee of the government today, an official, then in the event of some emergency situations in the country (or some environmental disaster, or a state of emergency, or military actions) - a statement on the table, if you don't want to work at that time. Or stay where you are. Because I'm having a hard time today. People left the social. department, and they have a very heavy load right now. There are those who left and after only 2 months, they were allowed to write a statement that they were resigning. At first, I was counting on the team with which I came to work, and they did not let me down. The workload is very heavy now, especially at the National Center for Social and Cultural Affairs and the Social Department. Today, the all-Ukrainian registry for immigrants is overloaded, and the girls bring all immigrants to the registry after 8 p.m. Our girls-mothers go to work with their children, because kindergartens and schools are closed. We have an office in Kryzhanivka, and mostly young people work there. There are many children running. I am very grateful to the girls who could have gone, but didn't. Even our chief accountant did not go, although she could. Has a small child. She understood that when she left, everything would stop. People get to work from different villages: from Krasnoselka, from Dobroslav, and from Odesa. And when rockets fell in Krasnasilka, people still came to work. Therefore, I am very grateful to those employees who stayed with me. After all, we not only have to preserve livelihoods, we not only have to take care of the people who are left, we first of all have to preserve the spirit of patriotism so that people believe that everything will be fine with us. We do everything for this.
Please tell me how things are going with business in your community?
I can say that business is back to work. And here we have, in a little more than 2 months, the only month where there is non-fulfillment of the budget. I think it's because a lot of people left. The non-fulfillment of the budget is also connected with the fact that the excise tax was removed from the PMM, which is why we have a large inflow of money to the budget. Also alcohol and property tax. Because many, really rich people went. But nothing, we work with businesses, try to meet them on social networks and ask them to pay taxes. Because this is both help to the army and maintenance of our poor people, it is help to displaced persons. But we have never turned to business for help, we try to do everything with our own strength and resources, and thank business for paying taxes. And if someone needs help even urgently, the girls and I collect 20, 30 hryvnias each and go to the store, make a grocery set and take it to a person who really finds himself in such a situation.
That is, mostly your residents cope? If you need help, why do you collect UAH 20-30 each time?
You know, I can say that we lived as we did before the war, so we are still living. We have no destruction today. Today, our people receive pensions and social benefits. Already in 2 months, we gathered the executive committee 3 times and gave material assistance to the needy. They even increased it a little. Here are those who need it and it can be 1000 and 3000 and 5000 - depending on what the situation is. There is also a set amount: cancer patients in our country receive 10 thousand. We are also continuing birthday payments to children of war under the current conditions. We left it all behind. We are also planning payments to those with many children on Children's Day.
Do you allocate funds to help residents from the budget? Maybe ask for help in the area?
You know, I am ashamed to ask in the region and district. We have money in the budget. We even brought water to Mykolaiv several times on our own initiative. My position is this: we have areas where there is nothing to eat and no water. Therefore, I believe that it is necessary to help where it is needed. And at the meeting of the executive committee, we decided to allocate UAH 2 million from the community budget for the region for measures for the defense of the Odesa region. We also allocated UAH 500 for the needs of the military and UAH 4 million for a strategic stock of products and medical preparations. Of course, part of the money went to the formation of food packages for displaced people and residents of our community who need it. To date, we have registered more than 1300 immigrants. A total of 637 packages were distributed. At their request, 345 packages were issued to the displaced persons, and the rest were issued to those with many children, cancer patients and people with disabilities living in our OTG. Of course, we will continue to issue food packages.
How are things with food and fuel in the community?
There was nothing with the fuel until our infrastructure was hit. This is now the number one problem. Very difficult. Our utility company is suffering, because until this week we have never disrupted the schedule of people's garbage collection. In addition, the cost of garbage removal is not the same, because the tariff was calculated based on the same price of solar power. It was 2 years ago. Currently, the utility company takes diesel fuel at UAH 45 per liter. But we do not raise prices, we ask people to pay as they paid. This week, we had the only outage with garbage collection in 70 days. We have coupons, we bought them, but there is no diesel or gasoline at the gas station. We inform people about this, ask them to enter the situation. Most people understand - understand that war. Utility companies continue to work. Now spring is starting to plant flowers. I told everyone, let's plant flowers. Everything should please the human eye and lift the mood.
There are no problems in grocery stores. Everything is there. Products are monitored by the district. Prices do not increase. And we really have everything at ATB. There is currently no critical situation for our residents. We accumulate a reserve of products in warehouses just in case. If nothing happens, we will distribute everything we have accumulated to our people.
Do you interact with volunteer organizations, or is there help from them?
We are still managing our own funds. Yes, someone brings a humanitarian from among entrepreneurs. What we cannot buy, we certainly ask for. Here, BF "Southern Capital" brought us insulin to our primary health care center. We are even ready to buy, just where. There are medicines that are simply not available now. The humanitarian headquarters of the region somehow did not ask for medicine. I think we will manage on our own. We also have a volunteer movement to which we provided our House of Culture. They weave nets there, collect aid. They deliver to the military and the needy, but we don't contact them either.
What tasks do you have now and what do you want in the future?
All that is needed is victory, all that is needed is peace. But again, I express my opinion. When there will be victory and peace will come, then it will be even more difficult. It will be very difficult. And not because we have to rebuild what was destroyed, but we will have to build our state in a new way. It was God who gave us a hard test, a third chance. I think this is the last chance for Ukraine. 2004 was the first chance when the people rose up against the system we had. In 2014, there was a second chance, and we didn't use it either. Although we already had a heavenly hundred and it seemed that this was it, but we did not take advantage. Now we really have a people's war for the survival of Ukraine. They just want to destroy us as a state and a nation. And our future will depend on how we come out of this war. I believe that everything should change in our country. At least I really want it. There are no such people in any country. In the first days of the war, I was very confused. Since almost all of them are Russian-speaking, it is, so to speak, the patrimony of the OPZZH. I was afraid, and for me the primary task was how to hold it and not fall apart, so that everything would work, that it would help. Thank God, we survived it. People rallied, became one whole. But it is necessary to change a lot from politics to the economy. It will also create a professional army. We should have the richest country in Europe.
But, unfortunately, now the aggressor country continues to destroy civil infrastructure, and this is our reality. In this interview, the head of the Fontansk OTG believed that her community would not be affected by the destruction. She hoped that the settlements would be spared the fate of rocket attacks, but, unfortunately, already after our conversation, the territory of the Fontana community was hit by the first rocket attack by Russian troops. Residents of the community were left without electricity and gas supply, but communal services quickly eliminated the problems. A 17-year-old girl was injured in this explosion.
During the day, powerful explosions rang out again. They destroyed one of the largest shopping and entertainment centers in the Odesa region. In addition to the "Riviera" shopping center, nearby houses and a warehouse with ready-made products were also damaged. The windows of local residents were shattered, and some had completely cracked walls.
As a result of two rocket strikes, five people were injured and taken to the hospital.
The heads of the communities hope that nothing will fly to their OTG, but the situation in Fontanka shows that you have to be ready for anything. Therefore, during martial law, the issue of allocation of funds for territorial defense and food supplies remains relevant.
