Kiev suburb Bucha: rebuild – or wait?

Butscha not only has to deal with the aftermath of the massacre, the residents of the once dignified Kiev suburb are also faced with the question: start with the reconstruction now – or will help come from the state?

The hotel “Villa San Marino” can still be found on the internet. With glossy pictures of the dining room, pool and pool table. “Temporarily closed” says Google. That sounds almost cynical, because not much is left of the hotel. Burnt-out rooms, bullet holes in the wall, heaps of rubble: The site not only looks like a battlefield, it actually was one.

Hotel owner Sergiy Laskin tells what was reported to him, because he wasn’t there that day. Ukrainian soldiers have entrenched themselves on the hotel grounds to fight against the Russian attackers. They fought heavy battles for several hours. In the end, seven Russian and five Ukrainian soldiers were dead. “At least the Ukrainians were able to fend off the attackers,” says Laskin. Small consolation.

Insurance won’t pay

“We wrote to the insurance company. They replied that this goes beyond ‘force majeure’. We could sue Russia before an international court…” he complains. “Perhaps there will be financial support from the government, but they have other worries now that the war is on.”

Laskin has applied for a government development loan. He starts with the roof first, then the windows come later. Step by step what the account gives. Of course he hopes to be compensated by the state at some point. The Ukrainian government has promised to help homeowners who have been harmed. So far, however, there is no corresponding law, but there are many open questions.

“People don’t have much money”

Vadim Naumov is responsible for construction in the Butscha municipality. The city that became world famous because of a cruel massacre. Naumov is currently getting a lot of calls: “Many people ask us: ‘Should I invest my savings in the renovation?’ At the moment it’s not even clear how the value of the property will be determined, how the process will go exactly,” he says. “We can only advise people to document everything if possible.”

Means: to commission official construction companies in order to be able to submit any documents later. Reconstruction is progressing slowly, he says. After all, aid organizations made sure that those in particular need get help quickly.

Immediately after the Russians withdrew from the region, he examined the damage and kept records. He recorded over 4000 glass damages alone.

The window installer Juri should have full order books. But that’s not the case, he says. “People don’t have a lot of money. Look around you and see how many broken windows there are here,” he says, carrying a cracked window from an apartment complex to his car. “There are still reasonably well-off people living here, but in the remote places where the pensioners live… Where are they supposed to get the money from?”

Neighborhood help unbroken

Many people have still not returned to their destroyed houses. There is not only a lack of windows, but often also of functioning gas pipes. So they continue to find shelter with family or friends.

Oleg is back home. The elderly gentleman from the neighboring town of Horenka is standing on the sidewalk and is quite sweaty. He helps his neighbor to get the house back in shape.

Oleg experienced terrible moments here, he says. Things he couldn’t describe in words. But: “Before the war I hardly knew the neighbors, now we’ve become a family,” he says.

Even if the war destroyed houses here, it welded many people together.