“The most difficult thing is living the usual life”– Mykhaylyna Skoryk-Shkarivska on Bucha after Russian occupation

She joined the local government because of her personal drama and desire to become active again. Mykhaylyna Skoryk-Shkarivska is a member of the Irpin City Council, and since May 2022, she is the deputy mayor of Bucha. She is responsible for attracting foreign aid to the city budget and breaks the patterns: a woman who has a child can be in the city administration even after the tragedies that befell Bucha — when the amount of work for city officials is huge.

In the interview with hromadske, Mykhaylyna talks about her political career which began in the Kyiv suburbs, the evacuation and return to Irpin, broken windows in her house and Bucha’s slow return to normal life.

Bucha City Day

We meet with the deputy mayor of Bucha Mykhaylyna Skoryk-Shkarivska on the Сity Day which is celebrated this year under the slogan “We survived and we will rebuild.”

Mykhaylyna makes a short speech, then gives an interview to journalists, repeatedly emphasizing that even though Bucha is the site of the tragedy, the community wants the city to become a symbol of the restoration of Ukraine.

“Ukraine that survived. Ukraine that is fighting for the great victory that we are all waiting for now,” she says.

Then we drive through the streets of Bucha. The deputy mayor talks about the torture cells set up by the invaders, the burial sites, and the tremendous work on identifying the dead.

“It was difficult,” Mykhaylyna says, driving the car. “But we have set up the process and believe that the Bucha experience can be useful for the whole of Ukraine”.

Mykhaylyna shows the destroyed houses and draws attention to the car in front of us: it’s loaded with new double-glazed windows. She says that people start opening restaurants and supermarkets that she doesn’t have time to go to. Business is returning to the city, and this is important, says the official, because it means taxes are paid to the city budget.

Mykhaylyna gives the impression of an extremely strong woman. She is focused and attentive, does not lose sight of anything, and holds her son’s hand tightly.

I came to the City Council, realizing that it was “a men’s world”

Mykhaylyna Skoryk is originally from Dnipro. She moved to the capital to study at the Institute of Journalism, and immediately began her career as a journalist. When she met her husband, she settled in his native Irpin. She says that at first, the town near Kyiv impressed with the silence — she wanted city noise. But over time, the comfort of the suburbs has revealed its advantages.

It was here that a new political milestone in Mykhaylyna’s career began. The woman ran for parliament in the 95th electoral district but did not get enough votes. The same thing happened in 2020 in the race for the seat of the mayor of Irpin. Now, Mykhaylyna is a member of the Irpin City Council and the deputy mayor of Bucha.

She got into local government after trying to defend the road leading to the exit from her home in 2016. The plot became private property allocated for development. When the new owners began to block the road, Mykhaylyna went out to find out what was going on, and heard in response: “Sorry, we’re private owners. Take it up with the City Council”.

“There were more and more questions, so at some point, I heard: “Mykhaylyna, if you are so smart and know how to do it, then come in and do it.” I thought: I’ll go and do it,” she recalls. At that time, when she was just a citizen, she really thought it was easy to solve that problem.

And it was partly true that changes are easier to implement in a small community than in Kyiv, for example. However, there is another issue — stereotypical views.

“Usually, in small towns, society is more conservative, with its own traditions, aspirations, and its own vision of the situation. And it may not be ready for some things that are easily perceived in the capital,” says Mykhaylyna.

On the lapel of her light brown jacket, there is a green badge made up of two simple geometric shapes connected to each other. This is the new logo of the Bucha community. Last year, to approve it, we had to prove the need for modern branding and fight stereotypes.

There are stereotypes concerning both small and large things. Because of them, there are still few women in senior positions in cities and Kyiv Oblast.

“There were always women among the candidates for the posts of heads of communities but they were not elected. Why? Because people wanted a strong business manager and very clear stereotypical figures. A strong business manager is a man, and a woman is a keeper of the heart. A keeper of the hearth cannot be a strong manager,” Mykhaylyna shares.

She noticed these stereotypes when she was running for the post of Mayor: “We were talking to the sponsor and heard: “You are a woman, you should take care of your child.” Or: “You have a child, you can’t run the city”.

However, Mykhaylyna is optimistic about the future: “I see a lot of communities where there is already some balance. When the head of the community is a man but a woman is responsible for managing finances. And this is not just a worker who performs what she’s been told, but a person who suggests and makes decisions. There are a lot of active women, but they are usually on the sidelines, not in a leading role. I think that after a few more elections everything will start changing much more dynamically”.

“We modeled many situations but we couldn’t imagine how ready the Russians were to control the city.”

Before the war, the Bucha city authorities repaired the premises of the old barrack to create the Territorial Defense headquarters. The barrack was located near the Antonov airport, which was quickly captured.

“We bought generators but we were not ready for a completely de-energized city. It was hard to believe that in a week all the benefits of civilization could be turned off in such a huge area,” says the deputy mayor.

She says that the community understood that Russia would attack, but no one thought that this war would be radically different from the Donbas and Crimean stages.

“We modeled many situations but we couldn’t imagine how ready the Russians were to control the city,” says the woman.

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Mykhaylyna took her family from Irpin to a safe area of the Kyiv region, then to Transcarpathia, and later to Germany. She came back. On the morning of March 3, she brought “hedgehogs” to the Bucha fortifications and managed to leave the city before enemy tanks entered. The Council member knew that she was on the “black list” of Russians. After the de-occupation of Bucha, in April, she came back to an empty city without cars, almost without people, without communications and electricity.

“The mayor impressed me. He was under occupation all the time, and it changed him. I was impressed by my colleagues: everyone did what they could. It really was a kind of bee hive, if not an anthill, where each ant knew what to do in this system and how to put this disheveled world together.” recalls Mykhaylyna.

She spent the first night at a colleague’s house. People were afraid even to turn on the lights. The darkness seemed safer.

“People wanted to speak out. There was constant talk: “This man, that man, this neighbor, that neighbor was lying here.” This tactic of the Russians — not to remove the bodies and shoot them publicly — had a huge psychological effect. Everyone knows someone who died. It’s scary, and the city froze, it didn’t move, says the Council member. The opportunity to go out, to go to the City Council was a chance to break free”.

Bucha residents enjoyed simple things: fresh hot bread, the first train, and mobile communication.

At that time, her son remained in Germany but later he asked to come back home. During celebrations, Hlib snuggles up to his mother and, like any child, asks a lot of questions. During the interview, he watches cartoons and laughs. Mykhaylyna says that being alone with her son is not easy, and parental worries haunt her.

“On the one hand, there should be people in Ukraine. Because Ukraine without Ukrainians is what Putin wants. On the other hand, children are safer abroad. We have conferred with other family members, and so far we consider the Kyiv region relatively safe. We chose a school with a shelter, where the staff has experience in evacuating a large number of people”.

“With windows, my house will be a real house”

Bucha has long been cleared of Russian equipment, which was everywhere on the streets. All communications are already working in the city. The locals are coming home. Many were willing to clean up the city and their homes on their own.

“My friends took out everything, made new repairs, bought furniture. The owner of one of the residential complexes had his office looted, the Russians lived there. He says, “That’s it, my office won’t be here, I want the Bucha Museum,” recalls Mykhaylyna.

The deputy mayor admits that the restoration of the city is not proceeding at the pace she would like. For the most part, Bucha residents do everything themselves, but local programs and humanitarian funds also work.

“People are not ready to accept that 3 thousand destroyed houses is a lot and require a large budget, which we don’t have in a city that survived the occupation and does not receive the taxes like it was before the war. Local funds were used to purchase roofing materials because our key task is to repair as many roofs as possible before winter. And the second program is buying windows and doors. The process is progressing, and it is already systematic,” she says.

Officials are trying to attract funds for the restoration. Mykhaylyna is responsible for international cooperation, she negotiates with humanitarian funds, with individuals, and with twin cities.

There are no windows in her house yet: “I have a field regime in my house, you need some inspiration to start repairing everything. My friends say: let’s get together for a clean-up event and clean up thoroughly. The windows are broken. I’ve swept the glass but every strong blow of wind brings fine glass dust back on the floor. It resembles the yellow dust that falls from the pines as they bloom. I’m waiting for the windows, hoping that with them it will be a real house again.”

Now Mykhaylyna works seven days a week and has no time for rest: “The most difficult thing is trying to live the usual life. It’s impossible for me. Just like during the Maidan period: you seem to understand that meanwhile restaurants are working somewhere, there is a normal life — as it should be. And I can’t help but think about the work I have to do. It’s my priority, the rest doesn’t matter.”

The partner material is published as an advertisement. The article was created in collaboration with the UN Women project “Decentralization Reforms and Community Security: Transformative Approaches to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Ukraine” funded by the Danish government.

Journalist Oksana Pavlenko, editors Khrystyna Kotsira and Victoria Beha, designer Tetiana Kostik, creative producer Anna Sokha, and translator Khrystyna Skorenka worked on the material.