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Boiarka Territorial Community
Kyiv
Population:
The Boiarka urban territorial community is located on the territory of the Kyiv-Sviatoshyn district, Kyiv region.
The area of the territory is 208,15 km2.
The community population: 50,607 people.
There are 11 population centres in the community with the administrative centre in the town of Boiarka.
History
The territory of modern Boiarka has been inhabited since long ago. The territory got its name from the Malkovych boyars, who owned lands north of the Vitianka River and founded settlements during the times of Kyivan Rus. The Scythian settlement (8th-7th centuries BC) was discovered near the town. The first mention of the village of Horodyshche-Budaivka in this area dates back to the beginning of the 16th century.
The village was owned by the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. After the secularization of the monastic lands, Budaivka became a state village.
In connection with the 1760s construction of the Kyiv-Fastiv railway track, which passed near the village, the Boiarka railway station appeared. Later, the construction of a suburban settlement began around it. Since the 1880s, this area has become known as a medical and climatic health resort for people with respiratory tract diseases. Boiarka was famous as a fashionable suburban settlement with hospitals and sanatoriums, healing forest nature, and received up to 10,000 Kyivans every summer. For a long time, Boiarka remained the only suburban settlement near Kyiv.
From November 1918, the headquarters of the Sich Riflemen corps was located in Boiarka under the command of E. Konovalets and A. Melnyk.
Interesting Facts
Since ancient times, there have been spa resorts and medical services clinics in the town. That is why Boiarka is associated with the names of prominent figures of science and culture, who, at different times, received treatment and rest in this town. These are Ukrainian writer, folklorist, ethnographer and philologist Borys Grinchenko; outstanding Ukrainian artist and academician of painting Mykola Pymonenko; Ukrainian poet, satirist and translator Volodymyr Samiylenko (buried in Boiarka in 1925 in the Slavic settlement near St. Michael’s Church).
The great Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko, who wrote one part of the opera “Taras Bulba”. The outstanding Jewish writer Sholem Aleichem. During his stay in Boiarka, he wrote the works “Tevye the Dairyman” and “Countryside Kabala”, which immortalized Boiarka under the name of Boiberyk.
Heorhii Bohdanovych Kistiakowsky, also known as George Kistiakowsky, was born and grew up in Boyarka. After immigrating to America, he became a world-famous physicist and chemist. The participant of the Manhattan Project, one of the creators of the first atomic bomb, head of the explosives department of the Los Alamos laboratory, the Vice President of the American National Academy of Sciences, he was a special assistant to US President Dwight Eisenhower on matters of science and technology.
ARCHITECTURE
In Boiarka, the St. Michael’s Church stands on the site of an ancient Rus settlement – “Peretvorka, Prytvarka”, which got its name from the river flowing nearby. The settlement dates back to the 5th-6th centuries. Later, this area turned into the village of Boldaivka, then Budaivka (now the town of Boiarka), which belonged to the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra from 1741 to 1786.
Economy and Welfare
The town of Boyarka is located 22 km from the capital city in the southwest direction. The Kyiv International Airport (Zhuliany) is 18 km from the town. This gives opportunities for the development of local and international business. The town is represented by enterprises of the oil and gas complex, machine-building complex, and light and food industry.
Vents PJSC is the largest employer in Boiarka, which employs more than 3,000 people living in the town of Boiarka and surrounding villages, the town of Vyshneve, and Kyiv.
Boiarka is an attractive town for investments. The interest of investors is caused by the proximity to Kyiv, convenient transport connections, as well as more favourable conditions for investing compared to the capital of Ukraine.
Community and War
The Boiarka community felt all of Russian aggression from the first days of the full-scale invasion. The high-rise residential and private buildings, garages and other real estate assets were damaged by shelling by the Russian troops. Four civilians were wounded, including a child.
The community cohesion made it possible to immediately organize volunteer headquarters, meeting algorithms, provide assistance to internally displaced persons and establish emergency management systems.
With the foreign partners support, the Boiarka community has the opportunity to help both civilians and the military who protect their native land from the aggressor.
The construction of mobile homes for five families from the Donetsk region who lost their own homes due to military operations was an ambitious volunteer project. The Boiarka Town Council is the first community that has already given 2.5 hectares for long-term free rent for the project implementation. It is planned to attract funds from the donations and foreign and Ukrainian foundations for the project implementation.
People of the Community
Oleksandr Zarubin is the head of the Boiarka territorial community. In 2015, he participated in the first All-Ukrainian educational program “Mayor School” based on the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School. The young ambitious mayor has built a professional team with which he implements large-scale infrastructure and cultural projects.
Among the outstanding cultural projects, the most famous is the All-Ukrainian historical and music festival “Under the Cover of the Trident”. The event is aimed at honouring the fighters for Ukrainian Independence and its territorial integrity. The Valkiriya Public Organization and the Boiarka Town Council are the festival organizers.
The War Is Not Over Yet photo exhibition about Russia’s media crimes was an important community event during the war. Boiarka was chosen as the exhibition location not by chance, as it is the home town of the deceased photojournalist Max Levin.
The project aims to tell about those who informed the world about the Russian war against Ukraine – journalists who died, were injured, came under fire, were captured or were persecuted since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
Max Levin worked as a photojournalist, documentary photographer and operator with Reuters, BBC, TRT World, Associated Press, and Hromadske agencies. His photos were published by Wall Street Journal, TIME, Breaking news Poland, EU AGENDA, World news, The Moscow Time, Korespondent.net, ELLE, TV-24, Radio Bulgaria, Ukraine Crisis Media centre, Vatican news, and Radio Svoboda (RFE/RL).
In 2014, Levin together with his colleague Markiian Lyseiko founded the AFTER ILOVAISK military project (afterilovaisk.com) for preserving and re-evaluating the meaning of the events of August 2014 by military, their families and Ukrainian citizens all.
In addition to journalistic work, he created dozens of photo and video projects for such humanitarian organizations, as the World Health Organization (WHO), UN, UNICEF, OSCE, and UN Woman.
Development Strategy
Today, Boiarka is an actively developing town. The Executive Committee and the Town Council are well aware that sustainable development in today’s decentralization conditions is possible only by attracting investments. After all, this is a competitive advantage of every town, especially the one located next to Kyiv. Therefore, the town is actively creating an environment favourable for investments of any kind.
For this purpose, the most comfortable working conditions with business are being implemented and the attractive investment climate is being created in Boiarka.
Before the war, the community paid a lot of attention to the development of tourism industry. New annual festivals and fairs, artist residencies, unique sculptures, rentable private estates with beautiful views, lakeside resorts, salt rooms, greenhouses, cheese dairies, manufacturer workshops, unique coffee shops, restaurants, and bicycle rentals appeared here. The community residents are sure – this industry will get another boost after the Ukrainian Victory.
Boyarka has twin towns of Pulawy (Republic of Poland), Nyasvizh (Republic of Belarus) and Bziny settlement (Slovak Republic).