When Shapkin says “we hope to buy”, he’s referring to a local cooperative, set up by the village, which is developing some pretty exotic projects. There isn’t much land available – the whole area is mined. In May 2016, a tractor blew up during field work, killing one person and injuring another. Shapkin tells me that the family of the dead man continued ploughing the same field the next year.
Last year, sappers gave the locals 90 hectares of cleared land, which is mostly used for wheat – it’s weed-resistant and over five years the steppe has left its mark on the former arable land. All the projects are as compact as possible – people here grow whatever provides the largest return from the smallest area.
International help
“The International Red Cross was one of our first supporters,” says Shapkin. “I’m not talking about things like Rinat Akhmetov’s office, who gives people food. I’m talking about project support. The Red Cross does provide aid, but it also provides support for locals’ micro-businesses. The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) has given us a lot of help, and the Norwegian Refugee Council has also been generous to us – we’ve just received $5,000 from them and bought a seeding machine for the cooperative.
Pavlopil’s secret for working with international NGOs is simple and complex at the same time. It’s not just a question of strong applications and accurate reports: the donors are impressed by the lack of conflict over the distribution of assistance here.
“We were given twenty good turkeys per household, but there weren’t enough to go round,” Shapkin tells me. “I decided that there should be enough for everyone, so we fulfilled all the requests that were received and then distributed the birds. Families got ten turkeys each and single people, fewer. The NGO guys were amazed – there were fist fights in Chermalyk, in Orlovskoye people were fighting for aid and they were so surprised here: ‘We distribute the stuff, and our village head sits in his office calmly drinking tea, and everything’s fine. It was important to organise everything properly.’
Business, Pavlopil-style
Everyone who is prepared to build a business under rocket fire is valued and respected in Pavlopil. Shapkin also has plans with another businessman, Alexander Zhukov, as long as the latter re-registers his legal address from Mariupol to Pavlopil.
“I have three men working on my farm, and we take milk, cream cheese and meat to market in Mariupol. Everything’s close by there, we’ll find clients for the breezeblocks as well,” says Zhukov, who is from the neighbouring village of Chernenko. “There’ll be no shortage of customers. We just need an investor: we have a construction gang and a building site in Mariupol – we can build a house for free, then sell it and split the profit with the investor.”
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Dmitry Durnev | Radio Free (2020-02-25T23:00:00+00:00) As Ukraine’s frontline villages fight for economic survival, some even succeed. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/02/25/as-ukraines-frontline-villages-fight-for-economic-survival-some-even-succeed/
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