The Askania-Nova and Prysybaska AHs installed hundreds of street lanterns, maintained by the residents themselves. Decentralization.gov.ua tried to find out the pros and cons of this know-how.

By Dmytro Synyak

“I came up with this idea when I was working as the Khlibodarivka village head,” says Vitaliy Svintsitskyi, head of the Askania-Nova hromada. “Earlier, street lanterns in settlements and villages were put up by collective farms, and they were responsible for them. I thought of buying a lantern, relay and wiring at the expense of the budget, and transfer the payment of electricity costs to the residents. The amount came out to be small: about UAH 5-6 per month, since only energy-saving lamps we used.”

“Four years ago, we started to apply this practice in Hryhorivka, and Khlibodarivka just borrowed this practive from us,” disagrees Serhii Klishchevskyi, head of the Prysyvaska AH. “Actually, we bought lanterns not even for the money of the village council, but for the money of various violators. Those who left garbage in the forest planting had to buy wires and lights...”

Whoever owned the "lantern" idea, it turned out to be good. In Khlibodarivka, as an experiment, the lanterns were installed only for the village council employees – twenty-five lanterns in total. But later other peasants began to ask to have the same lanterns nearby. Thus, the number of street lanterns increased over time to 120.

Serhii Klishchevskyi, head of the Prysyvaska AH, and Vitaliy Svintsitskyi, head of the Askania-Nova hromada, consider an unusual know-how as their personal invention

However, Serhii Klishchevskyi notes that he began to gradually abandon this practice.

“Everyone takes lanterns for free, and then the problems pop up: someone did not turn it on because he or she forgot; or the light bulb burnt out; someone decided to save UAH 5 …”

One of the first street lanterns in Hryhorivka to be maintained by the villagers themselves =>

In the end, Serhii Klishchevskyi decided to go the other way: to buy LED lights with magnifying glass, which would be owned entirely by the village council. The energy-saving 30-watt bulb does not consume a lot of electricity, so the cost of maintaining such lanterns is low.

Serhii Klishchevskyi admits that he considers street lighting to be "the most populist topic." It costs relatively little, but you can see the result right away.

The full version is available in Ukrainian – please click HERE