Zbarazh Territorial Community

History

Zbarazh is one of the oldest towns in Ukraine. The first information about Zbarazh dates back to 1211, but long before that, the town on the Hnizna River was one of the most fortified local centers of the Halychyna-Volyn Principality.

Zbarazh is included in the 39 cities of Ukraine with the largest number of historical monuments. It is a town-reserve, as it has 56 monuments of architecture and culture. There are also 129 monuments of material heritage on the territory of the Zbarazh community, of which 39 are architectural monuments.

The town is famous for its ancient castle, built in 1631. It is a stone jewel, shrouded in legends, which is included in the list of the “Golden Horseshoe” tourist route and visited by more than 50 thousand tourists per year.

The community is located in an area called Medobory – a natural border separating Halychyna from Volyn and Podillia.

Next to Zbarazh Castle is a castle park with an area of 10.5 hectares, which is a natural monument (late 18th century). 

The main office of the National Reserve “Castles of the Ternopil Area”, which includes 12 castles of the Ternopil region, is located in Zbarazh.

Zbarazh occupies a prominent place in Ukrainian history and the present. The history of Zbarazh is full of heroic events. The town of Cossack victories has been known in the history of Ukraine since the Liberation War of the Ukrainian people of 1648-1654 under the leadership of the Hetman of Ukraine B. Khmelnytskyi.

Economy and Welfare

There are no industrial enterprises with a negative impact on the environment in the community. According to SaveEcoBot, the air quality in the region is “green”.

More than 1,000 individual entrepreneurs and about 180 enterprises carry out economic activities in the community.

The industrial sector is represented by 13 enterprises, the largest of which are “Radekhivskiy Sugar”, “Zarubyntsi Distillery”, the “Kalganoff” Zbarazh Vodka Distillery, and “Ternopil Quarry”.

There are over 60 enterprises engaged in the agricultural sector, 40 of which are farms.

The community has a fairly good record of attracting investors to the development of the production sector. For example, foreign investors restored the work of the Zarubyntsi Distillery, and domestic investors restored the operations of the Zbarazh Vodka Distillery.

Three relocated enterprises from Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipro began operating here, including the shoe factory “Talanlegprom”, the publishing house “Pegas” and the company “Foxgroup”. This allowed for the creation of over 750 new jobs.

Currently, domestic investors in the community are building a tin packaging production plant, a wafer semi-finished products plant, a pasta factory and a flour mill. This will create over 500 new jobs.

There are 22 facilities in the community available for attracting investors, of which 8 production areas and 14 land plots are vacant.

The territorial community has 32 schools, 20 kindergartens, and about 50 health care facilities.

Zbarazh has a stadium seating 4,200, a modern sports complex, outdoor exercise machines in the park, a basketball court etc.

The square of the Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred with installed benches, arranged lighting and planted flowers and trees (Oriental cherry) has become the decoration of the town of Zbarazh. There is also the square of the National Liberation Struggle, the Central Park and the Burliai Park.

Community and War

On February 24, 2022, russian occupation troops invaded the territory of Ukraine. From the first day, a 24-hour headquarters was created and deployed in the town council building to organize and coordinate the reception and placement of internally displaced persons.

Temporary accommodation was set up for these people in sports complexes, schools, administrative buildings, and private homes. In the first months of the full-scale invasion alone, the community took in over 5,000 internally displaced persons, providing them not only with shelter but also with the necessary support.

In 2022, in the village of Staryi Zbarazh, communications were laid in the premises of a defunct school and major repairs were carried out for the comfortable residence of internally displaced persons. Also, windows and doors were replaced together with charitable organizations.

Particular attention was paid to the preparation and arrangement of shelters. 13 “points of invincibility” and 53 “points of heating” were deployed, where people can charge their electronic devices, warm up and get support. All institutions were also provided with alternative power sources and stoves. Measures were taken to protect critical infrastructure, namely water intakes, treatment plants, sewage pumping stations, power substations, etc.

For three years, the community has repeatedly helped the military: they purchased military clothing, footwear, ammunition, and equipment for military units and servicemen.

A particularly important area of work was humanitarian aid to military units, front-line hospitals, and the population.

With the support of the Humanitarian Mission of the Foundation of Ihor Vitenko, a native of the Zbarazh community, currently a surgeon in Belgium, and volunteers from Great Britain, Italy, and Spain, loads of humanitarian aid, medicines, and medical supplies arrived at the Zbarazh Town Council in the first days of the war.

Since February 28, 2022, a medical hub has been deployed at the town council headquarters, where medical first-aid kits for military personnel were formed (a total of about 6,000 first-aid kits were issued).

Together with charitable foundations, the Zbarazh Town Council organized the transfer of over 100 ambulances to the combat zone.

In the premises of the sports complex in Zbarazh, 40 sleeping places were deployed for the rest of internally displaced persons who were traveling to safe areas of Ukraine and abroad.

School No. 2 provided warm clothing and hygiene products for internally displaced persons.

Over 400 supplies – medical drugs, dressings, medical products, and medical equipment – were transferred to military units.

To date, more than 3,000 temporarily displaced persons have found shelter in the Zbarazh community. Many of them were looking for an opportunity to restore or organize their business. First of all, they were provided with basic working conditions, including a work station with equipment and Internet access. The community also provides the opportunity to create or restore their own business.

The Zbarazh Town Council is constantly trying to solve problems and promote business development and quickly respond to challenges and needs for the restoration or opening of a new business. For this purpose, conditions have been created for the work of IT specialists in the points of invincibility – a room with an Internet connection has been allocated. Thus, entrepreneurs, temporarily displaced persons and students work with their laptops in the points of invincibility during power outages.

Community People

The head of the community is Roman Polikrovskyi who has held the position of mayor of Zbarazh since 2014.

The Zbarazh Town Council implemented 6 projects financed with European funds in the amount of about EUR 650,000, including:

Project: “Battle for Independence. Zbarazh 1649”. The goal of the project was to increase tourist attractiveness, popularize the historical past among residents, and attract the attention of foreign tourists to the historical events of the region.

Project: Program “Energy Efficiency in Communities II”. As part of the project, energy audits were conducted for 10 communally owned premises and 3 design and estimate documents were prepared.

Project: Program “U-LEAD with Europe”. Administrative Service Centers were created. In particular, the Zbarazh Town Council created an Administrative Service Center with 11equipped work stations.

Project: “Creation of a network of infrastructure facilities to support entrepreneurship in the Ternopil region.” As part of the project, a Business Support Advisory Point was created.

Project: “Creating a new format “Administrative Services Center – Diia Center” of the Zbarazh Town Council”.

The Zbarazh Town Council, together with the Zbarazh Hospital, implemented a project to insulate and roof the main building of the hospital costing over EUR 400,000.

In 2023, they took part in the competition of the Interreg NEXT Poland-Ukraine 2021-2027 Program, prepared two project applications with partners from Poland – one in the priority area “Health” together with the Zbarazh Central Hospital and the Polish partner, the hospital from the town of Nowa Dęba, and the second one in the priority area “Environment” in partnership with the Lanivtsi Town Council, the Ivano-Frankivsk City Council, and the Polish partner, Gmina Zamość.

The Zbarazh community constantly develops and supports official partnerships with foreign cities/communities. In particular, it closely cooperates with the Polish towns of Głubczyce, Lubomierz, Miedźna and Bolesławiec, with which it has concluded cooperation agreements and constantly carries out mutual visits to participate in cultural events.

In 2022, a historic event took place in the Polish town of Bolesławiec. In the Bolesławiec Town Hall, the mayor of Zbarazh Roman Polikrovskyi, signed a memorandum of cooperation with representatives of 6 cities from Poland, Germany, France and Italy. The signatory cities included: Bolesławiec from Poland, Nogent-sur-Marne from France, Siegburg and Pirna from Germany and the Italian cities of Vallecorsa and Acuto.

Development Strategy

A working group has been created in the community to prepare a community development strategy. The working group includes representatives of all structural divisions of the town council and scientists from the Western Ukrainian National University. Currently, the preparation of the strategy is in the final stage.

The priority areas for attracting investments in community development include:

– development of the agro-industrial complex (processing of agricultural products);

– development and restoration of the manufacturing and industrial sector based on unused real estate and land plots;

-development of tourist infrastructure and recreational infrastructure;

– extraction and processing of local mineral resources.

The community is attractive for investment in the tourism business, which is due to the presence of many monuments of historical, architectural, natural and cultural heritage. The issue of developing tourist infrastructure in the district is dealt with by the National Reserve “Castles of Ternopil ” and the Executive Committee of the Zbarazh Town Council.

Important promising areas of community development are: attracting international technical assistance; transition to energy independence (in particular through the use of renewable energy sources); participation in grant programs (in particular those aimed at creating jobs); popularization of cultural, ideological, and post-industrial tourism.

In 2021, the community was visited by ambassadors from the G7 countries – the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France, Canada, Japan, and Italy. The Zbarazh community was chosen for the visit of such distinguished guests because it is the winner of various grant programs and competitions funded by the G7 countries and the European Union.

In 2024, Zbarazh was visited by the Ambassadors Extraordinary of Belgium and India.

To attract investors to the development of the economy, the Community Investment Passport, Investment Activity Activation Plan, and Investment Profile of the Town of Zbarazh were developed and approved. This allows potential investors to familiarize themselves with investment objects – vacant production premises and land plots for the placement of production and non-production facilities.

List of Sources

• uk-ua.facebook.com
• zbarazh-rada.gov.ua