First Person: Ukrainian ‘city of heroes’ plans post
The mayor of a city in southern Ukraine has described its inhabitants as “heroes” and has pledged the city will emerge from the full-scale invasion of his country as a model for other urban areas devastated by the war, even as residents cope with an overnight attack on Thursday.
Our task is to not just rebuild what was destroyed, but to rethink everything, to find a new meaning for life in Mykolaiv, its economic potential, and the role of the city in the new Ukraine.
Mykolaiv as gateway to Ukraine
Together with the UN, we are working on every detail planning the future of the city. This is being done not just as a project for Mykolaiv, but as a global plan – a model that can be applied to other destroyed cities of Ukraine.
We want to see a clean, beautiful Mykolaiv with comfortable places for recreation, convenient urban infrastructure, and modern schools. The people of Mykolaiv also see their city as an industrial and commercial center. In order for everything to be beautiful and well-maintained, the city needs to create businesses and jobs.
We don’t want to just live on the money of tourists, although we would like to create some kind of an amusement park in our south, like Legoland or Disneyland, where not only Ukrainians but also foreigners could come.
Ports are our main investment opportunity after the war. Before the war, we handled up to 40 per cent of the goods that were shipped in and out of Ukraine. We see Mykolaiv as the gateway to Ukraine. I say at negotiations with investors that Mykolaiv should not only be considered as a market for goods or services, but as a door to the market of the whole country.
‘City of heroes’
I would really like that our city is not forgotten after the end of the war. Locals described it as the last southern outpost of free Europe; we defended it well. I am very grateful for the interest of the UN in Mykolaiv. Mykolaiv received the title of the 'hero city', but we call it the 'city of heroes' because this applies to all its inhabitants."
