Last November, I shared about the first six months of the restoration of the war-torn Irpin by Russian occupants. I explained how we, together with the municipal management team, assessed the situation during the first visit to the city after de-occupation, calculated the losses, and created a clear reconstruction strategy.

At that time, we identified five main areas of work: international negotiations, preparation of presentation materials with visualizations of destruction and cost estimates, launch of the Irpin Reconstruction Fund, work on the architectural and design direction of the Irpin Reconstruction Summit, and attracting real partners.

Today, a year after the de-occupation of Kyiv region, I can confidently say that we have chosen the right path. Irpin is moving step by step towards recovery. As of the beginning of May 2023, 412 apartment buildings and 322 private houses in the Irpin community have received some kind of assistance for reconstruction, including window and door replacement, roof repairs, and provision of building materials.

30% of Irpen has been completely destroyed, according to the National Police.

Yes, not everything happens as quickly as we would like. But we are following a clearly defined plan for the global development of the city for the next 20-30 years, and we have powerful international partners to help us in this.

The world-renowned American architectural company Gensler, with whom we started working in November 2022, is currently leading the team developing the master plan for the development of the Irpin community. In particular, Gensler experts have conducted a large-scale survey of Irpin residents regarding their vision for the city's development. According to the results, Irpin residents consider a well-designed security system, economic viability, and the development of the medical sector as priority areas for the reconstruction of Irpin.

In the Gensler company office, Washington

Based on this survey, Gensler has already presented its understanding and vision for the development of Irpin as a "smart-heart city with a garden-like environment." This plan prioritizes the environment, economy, and technology to create a city with the potential for rapid recovery and economic growth.

Along with the development of a fundamental long-term development strategy, significant work is already underway to rebuild Irpin's destroyed infrastructure. This spring, the reconstruction of three educational institutions in Irpin - Irpin Lyceum No. 3, the "Radist" kindergarten, and the "Vinichok" kindergarten - has begun.

UNICEF is financing the reconstruction of Lyceum No. 3 with €4.8 million allocated for this purpose. The work is progressing rapidly, and almost all the capital reconstruction processes have been completed in just one month.

The "Radist" kindergarten on Myru Street is being restored with funding from the Lithuanian government. The Portuguese sister city of Kashkaysh provided funds for the repair and construction of a new building for the "Vinichok" kindergarten on Kyivska Street.

Reconstruction of "Radist" kindergarten in Irpіn

And if anyone thinks that everything is happening like this: we called UNICEF, said we needed almost 5 million euros to rebuild the school, and they gave it to us the next day - then you are very, very mistaken. Behind every such story are dozens of letters, meetings, negotiations, approvals, and many days, and sometimes weeks, of painstaking work by many people.

The same situation applies to engaging philanthropists and sponsors to restore the housing of Irpin residents.

For example, in January of this year, the reconstruction of four multi-storey buildings - the housing cooperatives "Mineral", "Everest", "Zatishok" and "Aristocrat" was completed. This became possible thanks to the cooperation of the Irpin Reconstruction Summit project and the Italian fund Terre des Hommes Italy. These four buildings are home to 450 families who were able to return to their cozy apartments and believe in tomorrow again.

Restoration of Irpin is ongoing every day.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM Ukraine) has agreed to finance the reconstruction of the multi-apartment building on Hostomel'ske Road 12-14-16, which was the first to suffer from enemy air raids in Irpin in early March 2022. It will also assist us in repairing partially damaged multi-storey buildings on Severinivska Street 160/2, 162, and 154-B.

Immediately, seven multi-apartment buildings in Irpin will be restored thanks to the initiative of the President of Ukraine and the UNITED24 platform. This includes Building No. 4 in the Irpin Lypky residential complex on 11th Line Street, buildings on Kyivska Street 53, Mechnikova Street 104-A, Mechnikova Street 106, Davidchuk Street 42, Myru Street 3-B, Lysenko Street 14G. The total cost of restoring these buildings is over 285 million hryvnias. Thanks to the funds raised through the UNITED24 platform, 698 Irpin families will be able to receive their own homes. And I sincerely thank all the donors who donate money within UNITED24.

By the way, two tenders out of seven have already been announced for reconstruction under UNITED24. So work will start very soon.

Thanks to the UNITED24 platform, the Irpin city stadium "Champion" will also be reconstructed. The funds for its restoration were raised by the legend of Ukrainian football, project ambassador Andriy Shevchenko. Football clubs "Milan" and "Shakhtar" responded to the footballer's call and allocated 150,000 and 100,000 euros respectively. Another 150,000 euros were raised at a charity evening in Milan, which was held under the patronage of Shevchenko. And the company Parimatch Ukraine provided another 200,000 euros for the reconstruction of "Champion". Thus, the necessary 600,000 euros were raised, and project and estimate documentation is already being developed using city budget funds.

We also have strong support from the Dutch public organization Open Door Ukraine (ODU). It has already financed the restoration of damaged apartment buildings of OSBB "ZhK "Pushkinsky quarter" (Pushkinska Street, 62L) and ZhK "Novooskolsky 2020" (Novooskolska Street, 2C). And in the near future, it will help with the repair of two more damaged buildings - ZhK "Sparta" (Kyivska Street, 22 Z) and ZhK "Zatyshnyi Dim" (10 Linia Street, 4E).

Four more apartment buildings in Irpin - two in OSBB "Zatyshnyi" and two in OSBB "ZhK "Novo-Oskolsky" - have been restored under the "Restore Your Home" program from the Energy Efficiency Fund, which is financed by the European Union. In total, 30 OSBBs in Irpin applied to participate in this program. And we sincerely hope that thanks to EU funding, they will all be restored.

Renovated house under the "Renovate Your Home" program.

This year, a partnership memorandum was signed with the NGO "ELEOS-UKRAINE". Under this partnership, in collaboration with IOCC (International Orthodox Christian Charities), "ELEOS UKRAINE" will help with minor and medium repairs in hundreds of apartments and houses in the Irpin community that have suffered minor damages. An agreement has also been reached with ADRA Ukraine to provide residents of the Irpin community with certificates for purchasing building materials.

The Irpin Restoration Fund is doing a lot of work to obtain and provide building materials to people. The fund is negotiating with dozens of private companies that agree to provide building materials for the reconstruction of social facilities in the city and private homes.

By the way, the issue of demolishing destroyed buildings is extremely important in the city's reconstruction. We are being seriously assisted in this by the UNDP, the government of Japan, and the Lithuanian Association of Demolition. This is also a fairly expensive process, not only involving the demolition itself, but also the proper ecological processing of building waste and its further use in construction. Soon, a mobile platform for the processing and sorting of building waste will appear in Irpin.

If we talk about the demolition of private houses, it is currently most active in the area of ​​Bagirova and Hostomelske Highway. This micro-district suffered the most during the hostilities, with over 80 private houses damaged or completely destroyed. About half of them are not subject to restoration.

The demolition of multi-storey buildings on Severinivska Street in Irpin.

This area, in conjunction with the Kiev Regional Military Administration, is planned to be rebuilt through a single comprehensive project by my management team. For this purpose, 60 million hryvnias have been allocated from the regional budget. The lion's share of these funds will go towards design. To rebuild, we will attract funds from philanthropists and patrons. Detailed visualization of this microdistrict is already being developed, and active preparations for the project are underway, including topographic surveys and the collection of documents for each building.

We are also beginning to design the reconstruction of the Central House of Culture and the Irpin Children and Youth Sports School. The design of the Children's Creativity Center, which will be built on 74th Streltsov Division Street, and an exhibition center that will appear on Slovianska Street, is also underway.

Separate work is being carried out on the design of objects created by architects and designers at the Irpin Reconstruction Summit. In particular, this is Freedom Square, modernization of premises of the city museum and library, the House of Culture in Romanivka, and other projects.

We are also working on the renewal of damaged heating, water supply, and sewage networks. The International Committee of the Red Cross is helping us greatly in this matter. Also, the Irpin City Council has won a grant of 7.7 million euros from the Northern Environmental Financial Corporation (NEFCO). These funds will go towards the reconstruction of municipal networks.

Another 140 million hryvnias from the regional budget will be attracted to the capital repair of the road on Hostomel Road and the bridge. The project and expertise have already been carried out at the expense of the local budget.

And summing up, I want to say that many are now trying to compare the pace and volume of the restoration of Irpin with the restoration of other settlements in the Kiev region. However, only those who have not been to our city and those cities being compared can do so. After all, the scale of Irpin's destruction is not limited to a single street. Imagine that only the cost of new windows installed last year in the dilapidated multi-storey buildings is several times higher than the cost of restoring one of the city's streets.

Note: The original text seems to be a speech or a statement. There were a few minor spelling mistakes, which were corrected in the translation.