Residents of Kyiv’s Darnytsia district have been demonstrating outside Kyiv city hall for nearly three weeks. They are protesting the building of a gas station by Guel Park next to a residential area.
Residents of the district are taking turns to keep up their vigil with at least six persons.
Vira Chenchik, 54, one of the residents, told the Kyiv Post on July 24 that the gas station, under construction on Revutskiy Street, doesn’t belong so close to a residential neighborhood.
“A gas station is like a bomb, because, officials are breaking all the construction norms. There are heating pipes under the ground where construction works are going on,” Chenchik said.
Recently, Chenchik noted that a heating pipe in the Holosiivskyi District exploded. Residents fear the same could happen with the gas station under construction in an area with old pipelines constructed in the 1980s.
They say they have appealed to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko and the Kyiv City Council for help, but haven’t received any yet.
Klitschko’s press secretary, Oksana Zinovieva, told the Kyiv Post that the mayor met with residents and will take up the issue when he returns from vacation on July 26.
“The next session of the Kyiv City hall should take place. But, I don’t have any information about agenda of the meeting.”
Chenchik said residents don’t necessarily want to stop the construction, but are merely seeking reassurance that the builders are “following all the norms.”
Valentyn Cherkasov, 52, another area resident, said Kyiv city officials ignore their protests as they go to work.
“They hope that we will get tired and go home. However, we will not do it. We are thinking about our children, relatives. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko promised us in front of cameras, but then he changed his mind. The session was cancelled and he went to somewhere to celebrate his (July 19) birthday.”
Residents of the district say they will remain until someone decides to solve their problem.
“In a democratic country – not like ours, which shows a picture to the West that they are democratic – if a politician promised a word to citizens and then ignored it, he would be simply political dead. For that kind of person, nobody would vote anymore,” Cherkasov said.
