Life between bullets: Rescue and charity in Bobrovytsia-style

Unexpected trouble came upon us in late February 2022. In a matter of days, the Russian occupiers, in fact, encircled Bobrovytsia district in Chernihiv region, destroyed roads and bridges. But the residents of the community did not despair.

Leaders, the majority of town councilor members, main experts and community’s public activists did not escape either. And they were leading the government structures not online or remotely, but directly, avoiding any contact with the occupiers in a smart way, who dropped in on APCs and tanks in the town of Bobrovytsia a couple of times.

Under the leadership of the town council and with the direct participation of its staff, from the first days of the war, they rushed to build roadblocks against enemy invasion. In the vanguard of those works, there were members of the Youth Council under the leadership of Maksym Polietavkin, an active volunteer and organizer of good deeds, as well as fighters of territorial defense. In general,volunteer and defense activists were formed of one and a half hundred volunteers from various fields of activity.

With no instructions from "above", guided only by the proposal of the town council, Svitlana and Mykola Ushakov organized sewing of bulletproof vests. The bulletproof gear was welded from special machine springs by Tymofii Ovchynko, Valerii Dan`ko, Vasyl Pasternak, Taras Kolos, Roman Nestor, Mykola Konoval.

Female activists rushed to fellow villagers in search of special denim fabric. Entrepreneur, member of the Bobrovytsia Town Council Vitalii Khotin provided materials for electric welding and other tasks. More than fifty bulletproof vests were produced in total.

After several days of bombardment of roads and bridges by the occupiers, a problem arose in Bobrovytsia with the supply of the most crucial product - bread. They decided to restore the operation of the former bakery, but only the walls remained, all the equipment was dismantled and taken to an unknown destination – these are the consequences of the privatization of the enterprise by a capital-based owner.

The issue of bread began to be solved in the fastest way: the experts of the agricultural association "Zemlya i Volya" repaired a mill near the railway station in two days, and farmer Serhii Trynos provided wheat for flour. Baked homemade bread for the most vulnerable, defenders of the community and for other needs.

Private entrepreneurs Oleksandr Mrynskyi, Mykola Onoshko, and Nina Shuliak were actively fixing that important issue. They delivered bread from Nizhyn, Kyiv and other cities along "paths" known only to them. Owner of "Intergaz-5000" Anatolii Husak provided fuel for vehicles. Huge queues for bread vanished in a matter of days. Vadym Karpen, a Bobrovytsia resident, provided his own medium duty truck "GAZon" for the supply of firewood to home bakers, vulnerable people and for the needs of critical infrastructure.LLC "Zemlya i Volya", LLC "Kozats`ke", LLC "Svitanok", an agricultural enterprise from Voronkiv provided milk for families with toddlers.

Regular deliveries of products and industrial goods revived after members of the Youth Council and other volunteers from Bobrovytsia repaired a temporary crossing over the Trubizh River in the village of Mostyshche (Petrovske) of the Kozelets` community. Permission for this had to be obtained from Kozelets`, because the former head of the territorial recruitment office forbade it to be done.

Entrepreneurs Oksana and Vasyl Kharchenko opened a mini-shop for weaving camouflage nets in their hairdressing salon, and the town council undertook the supply of necessary materials.

People brought binoculars and other appropriate gear for the needs of territorial defenders and other defenders, entrepreneur Victoriia Maliukh bought a professional thermal imager for them for three and a half thousand dollars. And a list of such voluntary aid to our defenders from the residents of the community can be continued.

Among volunteers, who were delivering humanitarian aid to Bobrovytsia, it is worth mentioning, first of all, Oleksandr and Dmytro Korol`. The already named members of the Youth Council did a good job in this voluntary work too. Practically the entire staff of the town council were involved in packaging and distribution of humanitarian aid to families with children and the disabled.

Since Bobrovytsia was not officially under occupation, the amount of humanitarian aid in the line of state supply to us is somewhat smaller. But the town council still has an adequate inventory of critical humanitarian aid for the most vulnerable families, and they continue to turn to us. Some aid is provided by the Red Cross and other benefactors. This is coordinated by the territorial center ofsocial services, which is located in the premises of the former district police department.

Before the war, the Bobrovytsia Town Council, I believe, changed the leadership of public utilities in a timely manner, and the association "Zemlya I volya" provided large financial assistance and special transport in a timely manner too. Public utilities employees managed to "retake"; their "garbage truck" from the invader "benefactors", and now it, already on the chassis of not "charitable" old GAZon, is running properly for the needs of the community residents.

So, during the three months of the war, there were no complaints about the work of Bobrovytsia public utilities employees: water supply works, garbage is collected and taken to a special landfill, sewage treatment plants are maintained operational, and the streets of the town are cleaned. By the way, the community's activists, including members of the Youth Council, are also involved in bringing order. Among voluntary activists, the town council singles out four dozen of the most active, each of them will be officially awarded.

Recently, Bobrovytsia held a festival of Vyshyvanka. A charity fundraiser was also organized there – 16,000 hryvnias were collected. For that money, an electric generator for the needs of critical infrastructure, as well as some furniture for the first department of territorial recruitment office (former military commissariat) were purchased. As local press has already reported, after Oleshka was dismissed from the post of head of this department, the furniture that had once been transferred by Member of Parliament Borys Prykhod`ko as charitable assistance disappeared somewhere.

The community had to collect funds in order to no longer count on such "charity" from Member of Parliament. By the way, the "charity" color printer also disappeared with the furniture. A new printer has also already been purchased...

Such are our people's elected officials and their assistants. Even in times of war, they are guided only by their own conscience. Fortunately, the majority of community residents do not have their morals eroded by imperious and material greed. That is why we are uniting to overcome common grief and problems, not waiting for manna from heaven, handouts from those who consider "their" people a "disposable electorate", or simply cattle. Apparently, Vladimir Putin had this opinion about the Ukrainian people at the beginning of the aggression. And what has he seen?..

By Hennadii Ivaniuk,

Acting Chairman of Bobrovytsia Town Council