UzhNU swimming pool is still unprofitable

You can still swim in it, but it is maintained partly at the expense of students.

  "There has been no order to close the pool in UzhNU," – the university rector Fedir Vashchuk commented on the information that appeared recently in the media. According to the head of the institution, the pool was closed for the period of New Year and Christmas holidays, but now the water is being slowly warmed up. The only problem is that it is quite slow process: the water warms only half a degree per day. 

But, the rector assured, certain groups have already started training, and from March 1, when students return to training, the pool will be working at full capacity.

Recall that online media spread the news that Fedir Vashchuk allegedly had signed the order to close the pool in the university sports complex "Burevisnyk", which was solemnly opened in February 2012. The region allocated over 3 million hryvnias for the reconstruction of the building, and today the conditions for swimmers there are pretty good. Also, nearly 400 thousand hryvnias were spent for the construction of 460 kW battery electric boiler. But electricity bills are a constant challenge for the university. According to the rector, every month they have to spend 120,000 UAH for the electricity used to heat the water. And the fees for use of the pool account for only 22,000 UAH monthly. This great difference must be covered at the expense of the funds that students pay for tuition, and, in the rector’s opinion, it is a crime.

Unfortunately, the problems with maintenance of the university swimming pool began back in the summer: there was not enough money, and even debts began to appear. There were proposals to reduce the fee for the use, so the pool would be affordable for more Uzhgorod residents. However, during this time they even managed to change the administration of the institution, but prices remained at the same level – 35 UAH for a single ticket. For comparison, in the Uzhgorod gymnasium one hour in the swimming pool costs only 20 UAH, and the time allocated for commercial swimmers is quite limited – a few hours after school. However, according to the headmaster of the school, Serhiy Roman, currently they manage to stay at zero, that is, there are no profits as such, but also there are no losses and debts. And the swimming pool is closed only in the hot summer period, because then, for obvious reasons, there are very few visitors.

So the question arises, why the better and newer building in the "Burevisnyk" still can not bring profit. It is clear why the pool is closed in the summer: people in this period have access to open water, but in winter such time-out is especially inconvenient and impractical.

In November last year, during the election of the rector, the representative of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of Ukraine Yuriy Korovaychenko said that they would build in the university a sports center, which the government had allocated 200 million hryvnias for. The question is why the UzhNU need new complex, if this year the unversity discontinued training process for a few months to save money on heating. 

There’s another opinion: that it is very difficult to operate the university swimming pool. As the rector noted, the "Burevisnyk" pool is supposedly twice deeper than other city pools, so the cost of water heating, cleaning agents, etc. is too high. However, the rector said that in any case they were not going to close the facility.