Luboml Territorial Community

History

The town of Luboml was first mentioned in the Galician-Volyn Chronicle in 1287 and was included in the list of historical inhabited towns of Ukraine. It is one of the oldest towns in the Volyn Region, which enjoyed a number of significant privileges, including the Magdeburg Rights.

The territorial community is rich in twenty-two landmarks of cultural heritage of national and local importance.

The oldest building in Luboml is the stone St. George Church built in the 1280s by Prince Volodymyr Vasylkovych.

The height of the church reaches 42 meters. Its steep four-sided dome with a gilded cross can be seen far beyond the town boundaries.

The Trinity Church was built in 1412 and the Belfry was built in 1764 in the Baroque style. The church and the belfry are interesting examples of cult architecture in Volyn.

The church is famous for its miraculous image of the Virgin and Child, known as the image of the Mother of God of Luboml; the icon was first mentioned in 1750.

Today, the Church of the Holy Trinity in Luboml is a parish Roman Catholic church. The church is considered the oldest surviving Roman Catholic church in the Volyn Region and needs general restoration.

In 1768, the Luboml Starosta-headed District became the private property of the great Polish magnate Ksaveri Branytsky, who built a magnificent palace there.

The Branytsky Palace is one of the three partially surviving palaces of the 18^th and 19^th centuries in the Volyn Region.

A two-story building remains from the former count’s palace, which houses a children’s sports school.

Today, the building needs investment for restoration.

The region’s history is preserved by the Luboml Local History Museum, which today has more than 30,000 exhibits, including fine collections of archaeology, numismatics, old prints, and ethnography.

In 2012, thanks to the efforts of Bartholomew, a native of the village of Horodnie, back then the Metropolitan of Rivne and Ostroh, the Oleksandr Nevsky Church, a children’s Sunday school within the church, the Holy Oleksandr Nevsky stauropegion convent, the Church of Saint Peter, who is from Volyn, were built.

There is a cosy gazebo, a guest house, a hotel for pilgrims, a library, a local history museum and other auxiliary buildings.

Economy and Welfare

Today, the town of Luboml and the villages of the Community function and develop following European trends aimed at the comfort of their residents.

The Administrative Services Centre functions actively in the Community providing 244 different types of administrative services.

The Community’s international partners are the towns of Wlodawa and Parczew of the Republic of Poland, with which agreements have been signed on cooperation in the fields of education, sports, tourism, administration, social security and protection of the natural environment.

The Luboml Urban Territorial Community is a member of the Club of Mayors of Ukraine, a member of the Western Polissia Agrocluster, within which it cooperates with a number of Volyn communities. This contributes to open and transparent development, the creation of conditions for high-quality cooperation between businesses and local authorities, and the attraction of foreign investment resources for the implementation of various projects, including business support.

Thanks to the participation of the Territorial Medical Association in the international project “Development of cross-border cooperation with the aim of improving the health of the residents of the Luboml District (Ukraine) and the Bielsko District (Republic of Poland) through health programs and programs of prevention of oncological diseases and tuberculosis”, the material and technical resources of the institution has been significantly improved.

In 2022, the Luboml Local History Museum signed an agreement with the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas – ALIPH (Switzerland) and received a grant.

More than 30% of the territory of the Community is covered by forests, which are the basis of the local mineral and raw material resources. Mushrooms and berries are also an important component of the processing industry.

The territory of the Community has sufficiently high indicators of agricultural land development; there are eight agricultural companies and seven farms.

Agricultural companies are engaged in the cultivation of grain legumes, fodder, industrial crops, melons, oil crops and vegetables.

Horticulture, berry growing and hazelnut cultivation are promising areas in the agricultural sector; the area under these crops reaches more than 470 hectares.

Available industries:

– production of bakery products,

– plastic containers and production of film for vacuum packaging,

– lumber, timber products for frame construction (modular residential and garden buildings, gazebos, etc.).

– paving stones, blocks and concrete products.

Comfortbruk, a local manufacturer of paving stones of various shapes and colours, successfully operates in the territory of the Luboml Community. The products fabricated there are sold not only in the Luboml Community, but also far beyond its borders.

Comfortbruk significantly strengthened its material and technical resources by acquiring a new powerful production line of the European level, which allows the fabrication of up to 400 square meters of vibro-pressed paving stones of various shapes per shift.

The transport and logistics system actively began its development in the Community. A transhipment complex with a capacity of 9,600 tons has been put into operation in the town of Luboml, and it can be increased even more.

Construction of another modern transhipment complex has begun on a plot of land outside the localities of the Luboml Town Council.

Dynamically developing and multiplying its intellectual potential, the material and technical resources of the Luboml Territorial Medical Association in charge of health care of the territorial community, constantly monitors the availability of medical services and an individual approach to each patient. The Territorial Medical Association has been twice accredited to a highest category.

The Community runs eight preschool education institutions, ten general secondary education institutions, a centre of children’s creativity, a children’s and youth sports school and a communal institution “Inclusive Resource Centre”.

The main priority of the 2023-2024 academic year was the creation of a safe educational space in the Community educational institutions. Eighteen shelters were equipped as a result of repairs, overhauls using own resources, seven of them belonging to the Community.

Safety classes were arranged in three schools, and the work of national-patriotic groups was intensified. More than 100 children from the Community deservedly represented the Community in intellectual, creative and sports competitions at the district, regional and Ukrainian national levels.

Considerable attention in the Community is paid to the development of sports and a healthy lifestyle. The local sports facilities include a stadium, ten sports grounds, three football fields, four gyms, forty-two playgrounds with gymnastic equipment and a room for recreational activities.

One of the most popular sports in the Community is boxing. In 2024, the Volyn Boxing Championship was held in Luboml.

According to the results of the competitions, the regional national team was formed to participate in the championships of Ukraine among men, boys and girls. A team from the Republic of Poland also participated in the competition, with whom they held five more international-level fights.

There is an urgent need in the Community for the construction of a new sports school, because the sports level is very good, children show high results, especially in judo.

The trainees of this section include prize-winners of Ukraine, Europe and the world among cadets. The trainees of the boxing and football sections also have significant achievements, and the institution itself constantly occupies high positions across the region in the rating of children’s and youth sports schools.

Community and War

In the first days of the war, the residents of the Luboml Community went to defend their Motherland from russian aggression; 360 men serve in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. To date, 25 soldiers from the Community have died, six are considered missing, and three are seriously wounded.

Territorially, the Luboml Community is located near the border with Poland. Therefore, at the beginning of the war, the town of Luboml became a transit point for those people who had to leave their homes from different parts of Ukraine. The evacuation trains, which consisted of 18-20 cars and had 2,000-3,000 passengers, stopped at the Luboml railway station and were idle for 10-12 hours. It was not easy for a town where 10,000 people lived (half of them have left as well).

However, the Town Council and caring residents of the Community provided refugees with everything they needed.

In the first months of the war, the humanitarian hub of the Town Council handed over 32.5 tons of humanitarian goods to the military, IDPs and residents of the eastern territories of the country.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Community has sheltered more than 1,600 internally displaced persons, 974 persons staying in the Community at present.

Since the war broke out, the Luboml Town Council has allocated more than UAH 12 million from the local budget for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, law enforcement agencies, and payments to military personnel.

Employees of the Town Council purchased five passenger cars of different brands and two drones using their raised personal funds and transferred them to various units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Employees of the public institutions, volunteers and caring residents of the territorial community prepare food for the military, weave camouflage nets and engage in other volunteer activities. Also, employees of the Community health care facilities handed over thirteen drones of various modifications to the military.

People of the Community

Reconstruction of two parks with the installation of children’s playgrounds was carried out. A large-scale project for the reconstruction of the first floor of the hotel as a centre for the provision of administrative services has been implemented as part of the European Union project “Centre for the provision of administrative services as an innovative tool for interaction between the authorities and the community”.

An inclusive resource centre was opened, a modern sports complex was built and equipped with a football field with an artificial surface, running tracks and courts for playing basketball and volleyball, and a sports field for mini-football with an artificial surface in the town of Luboml, as well as a number of other projects.

The Community’s streets and roads have been overhauled and the local localities have been developed. For the efficient operation of the utility company Lubomlske ZKH, the Town Council purchased an excavator-loader, which today is involved in works to strengthen the border and build fortifications in the territory of the Community.

Development Strategy

The development strategy of the Luboml United Territorial Community until 2027 was approved in 2019, and currently needs to be adjusted and amended, taking into account the new challenges associated with russia’s armed aggression.

Priority areas for investment:

– tourist and recreation complex;

– food processing industry;

– agriculture;

– information technology;

– transport and logistics infrastructure;

– alternative energy and energy-saving technologies

– construction industry.

In the near future, the implementation of the project on the modernization of the railway track “Kovel-Yahodyn – Polish border” with further electrification is planned.

In the territory of the village of Horodnie, there is an explored clay deposit, which, if investment resources are attracted, can be used to build a brick factory with a capacity of 13.5 million pieces per year. The resource potential at this capacity is 28 years.

There are a number of investment projects that today require attracting funds from international technical assistance, finding partners for cooperation, through the implementation of joint projects, in particular:

– Reconstruction of sewage treatment facilities with a capacity of 1,000 m3/day for full bio-treatment of wastewater in the town of Luboml. Since the physical and moral wear and tear of treatment facilities is about 70%, in addition, after treatment, the water is discharged into an artificial reclamation channel, which is connected to the Hapa River and has an outlet to the Zahidny Buh River, and this negatively affects the cross-border ecological situation.

– Restoration of an architectural landmark of national importance – the Branytsky Palace in Luboml with adaptation to the Luboml local history museum.

– Reconstruction of the medical building for the rehabilitation centre for servicemen and combatants in the town of Luboml, a project that is especially important nowadays.

– New construction of a sports school with a built-in dual purpose building.

Sources

• Official website of the Luboml Community – lubomlmisto.gov.ua
• Official Facebook page of the Luboml Town Council: facebook.com/lubomlmisto
• Luboml District online: lyuboml.rayon.in.ua
• Official webpage of the Education, Youth, and Sports Department of the Luboml Town Council: facebook.com/lbmosvit