Even in wartime, not many Kyiv residents have given a second thought to the location of their nearest air raid shelter. And most haven’t given a second glance to the small, red stenciled signs reading “ukryttya” (“shelter” in Ukrainian) that have appeared on the walls of buildings.
The small signs – roughly spraypainted and with an arrow indicating the
direction of the nearest shelter – are the only obvious result of civil defense
preparations the Kyiv authorities have been carrying out since early this year.
According to Roman Tkachuk, head of the emergency department in Kyiv
City State Administration, early this year Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
declared an increased emergency preparedness regime in response to Russia’s
aggression against Ukraine in the Donbas.
“This imposed specific requirements on every city in Ukraine: Bridges
were placed under guard, and security at important infrastructure objects was
stepped up, including at transport infrastructure, the capital’s energy company
Kyivenergo, and the city’s water plants,” Tkachuk told the Kyiv Post.
“Protective structures have been also tidied up, and all basements checked in
every city.”
Kyiv has 2,249 basements, 95 underground parking lots, 186 underpasses
and 47 metro stations that can be used as public air raid and bomb shelters.
The shelter network is designed to be able to protect the majority of the
capital’s residents from bomb shrapnel and shock waves for periods of up to
several hours, Tkachuk said. The shelter network can accommodate 2.5 million
people at one time, he added. According to the latest official statistics as of
July 17, about 2.9 million of people are living in Kyiv.
“’Bomb shelter’ is an outdated term – there is no such thing now in
Kyiv,” Tkachuk said. “There used to be fifth-class shelters, designed in the
form of bomb shelters, but in 1996 they were transferred to the local
building-utilities offices, and have been used as basements ever since.”
He said that a shelter’s class is determined by the strength of the
shock wave the structure can withstand. However, even a fifth-class basement
shelter wouldn’t qualify to be termed a proper bomb shelter.
“But those shelters that were of the fifth class were built with
toilets, running water, ventilation, and special sections for people to stay
in,” Tckachuk added, noting that it was hard to say now how many of these
fifth-class shelters now remain among the city’s 2,249 basements.
According to Tkachuk, as soon as the high security regime was announced,
local housing offices in every district in Kyiv were ordered to check every
basement that was registered by the city administration as “shelter,” clean it,
and supply it with the standard fittings – benches and tanks for drinking
water, and tanks that could be used for toilets.
They also had to put up the red stenciled signs that direct people to
their nearest shelter, as well as make sure enough responsible employees or
residents have keys to the basements, so that they can be opened within 15
minutes in the case of an emergency.
Yuriy Savelyev, head of the veteran council of the Kyiv machine-tool
factory, keeps the keys to one of the shelters in Svyatoshynsky district. The
local authorities allowed him to hold veteren council meetings there, in
exchange for keeping it clean.
The shelter, one of those previously considered as a fifth-class one,
has two back doors, five rooms, a water closet with running hot water, and even
a heating system, which, however, Savelyev can’t turn on, as it is “too loud”
and he doesn’t want to “irritate the residents.”
“But hey, we’re here only couple of hours every week, we’ll make it
through the winter somehow,” he laughs.
Following a sign does not necessarily mean you will find a shelter
though – the front door of the apartment building can be locked, or you can get
lost in a yard looking for the next red arrow to follow, without ever finding
it. You might even wind up in in a restaurant, art gallery or shop: Many
basements listed as shelters on the official website of the Kyiv city
administration have long since been sold into private property.
Andriy Kolesnichenko, the administrator of a nail care products store in
Podil district in Kyiv, had no idea their basement was officially registered as
shelter. He told the Kyiv Post they rent the place.
“No one warned us. But of course we’re ready to let people in if
something goes wrong. We have running water, a first aid kit, a kettle, and
what else … cookies,” he smiles as he rummages through the cupboards in the
back of the shop.
Tkachuk from the Kyiv city administration shrugs: “Owners are a human
factor, yes. Not only must the owner be informed, but also every entrepreneur
who works in the place. We will order to the local authorities to inform
everyone once again.”
In the case of an emergency, he adds, the city’s warning system will be
triggered – the air raid sirens will be turned on for up to five minutes, and
emergency workers will inform the public of what to do via all means of
communication.
“We will hope the war isn’t going to come here, but we have to be
ready,” Tkachuk says. “We have a saying: A rescuer should be like a spinster –
always ready, but needed by no one.”
Kyiv Post staff writer
Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected]
