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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The small village of Khrypivka, surrounded by forests in the Chernihiv region, has lately become almost a pilgrimage site for journalists. Cars with reporters arrive one after another: the village head, Oleksandr Tkachenko, barely has time to show one group around before others pull up. The reason is a housing boom that suddenly sprang up in the little village. About four hundred people live here, but new residents are arriving. 72 new residents have already moved to Khrypivka, buying up almost all the available houses – 30 homes.
- Only two are left, and I’m sure they will be gone in a few months too, - Oleksandr Tkachenko briefly notes. – Although those houses are on the outskirts and need repairs.
“The average Khrypivka bum”
The village head meets journalists and aid workers in work clothes. He introduced himself: “The average Khrypivka bum.”
- Well, I’m not an office person, - our interlocutor laughs. – I’m constantly doing agricultural work. So I relax and dress accordingly.
He tells a story: once, returning from government work in a neighboring village, he met an American delegation from the Red Cross dressed like that.
- I look: 15 Americans are standing with our representatives, - the village head raises his eyebrows. - And our people know me – they’re already nodding. I thought, should I stop or not... It’s embarrassing to be seen like this... and also embarrassing not to greet them... I stopped and said: “Excuse me, but I’m the average Khrypivka bum.” How else could I get out of that situation without a joke? I’m the village head, but I look worse than a homeless person.
Oleksandr Tkachenko says you can’t live here without humor.
- Unless you drink, and I don’t drink. Only humor remains, – Oleksandr Tkachenko continues joking. – When guests talk to me, they start looking at me suspiciously. I say: “I’m not drunk and I’m not a drug addict, I just can’t live without joking!”.
Funds help with repairs
People are moving to Khrypivka from the border area of Chernihiv region. There are constant shellings there; evacuations have been ongoing from many villages for two months. It’s quieter in Khrypivka, although it’s not far from the borders with hostile Russia and Belarus. It’s about 25 km to the border with the Russian Federation, and less to the Belarusian border – 15. By the way, this explains the local speech: a mix of Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian. Surprisingly, despite that distance from the border, no one has left from here during the war.
– People are moving to us not only from our border area, but from Kherson and other cities, too, – the village head shares. – New residents are helped by charities: they provide money for windows, doors, roof repairs, and insulating houses. All the homes need some kind of repair. People took shower cabins, washing machines.
Village houses have doubled in price
The huge demand has doubled housing prices. If the standard price for a village house used to be about two thousand dollars, today it’s four thousand. That’s for a two- or three-room building. A solid house goes for six to seven thousand. In Chernihiv or Cherkasy and other big cities, prices are of course less affordable for many compared with Khrypivka.
Why do people choose this village, which few had heard of yesterday, as their new home? For the village head it’s no secret: all utilities are connected here – there’s gas since 2006, centralized water supply since 2011. The town of Horodnia is only two kilometers away. You can walk there. So people come... He says: even before the war people more or less bought housing in the village. Khrypivka is not some remote forest backwater.
– A bus takes the children to school in Horodnia, and that’s where most of our residents work, – Oleksandr Tkachenko explains. - There’s less work than before, of course. Mostly it’s the timber industry, sawmills. Our area is a forest region. Many of them closed because wood is expensive and there aren’t enough workers – the men are fighting.
“No donkeys, no ostriches”
Earlier in the village, as in many others, people lived off farming and kept livestock. Once there were 176 cows in Khrypivka. Now there are only 12.
- There are no cows, no horses, no donkeys, no ostriches, - the village head sighs. – Milk sells for next to nothing, so they give up large cattle.
But it’s not only that that attracts people. Nature does too.
- People have come from Lviv, Zakarpattia, and Volyn and said: “You have such a blessing here, no industrial enterprises, such air… You could open resorts, start businesses,” - the village head smiles. – Well, locals don’t appreciate our places...
Men go to work at wood-processing enterprises, women can find jobs in trade. There’s a school, a good clinic: renovated, fully equipped, with generators.
There is no work in Khrypivka itself. There is only a feldsher’s station, a shop, and the village council office. There is also an agricultural firm, but it brings its workers in for only a few days.
Housing is being taken not only in Khrypivka but also in the neighboring village that belongs to the same village council – Pivnivshchyna. This village is tiny – it has 137 residents. Currently four houses there are being prepared for sale.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Житловий бум у селі на Чернігівщині: чому у Хрипівці розкупили всі будинки". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: KP.UA.
