Ivan Baloha: The administration must deal with roads, not the adventurous project of reconstruction of Narodna square

The chairman of the Transcarpathian Regional Council Ivan Baloha strongly opposes the idea of ​​reconstruction of Narodna square in Uzhgorod. He insists that the main square of the region must maintain the holistic appearance designed by the Czech architect Krupka. Even the elite of the region – historians, architects, art historians – declare unreasonableness and disastrous consequences of the reconstruction of the square.

"At the last session of the regional council, the members did not support the initiative of the regional administration to allocate funds for the reconstruction of Narodna Square. Thereby, the representatives of local communities of Transcarpathia opposed the idea of ​​distortion of Narodna Square. I think that changing of the appearance of the main square in Uzhgorod is not possible for several reasons. Firstly, it is an absurd architectural design, which does not fit in the Czech constructivism.   Secondly, Narodna Square is under state protection as a historical and architectural complex. Nobody says that this neighbourhood can not be restored, but radical change of its appearance is not only inappropriate, but from a legal point of view also not entirely legal. Thirdly, now, when in the regional budget there is not enough money for urgent problems, it would be at least immoral to allocate more than three million for an architectural whim of the RSA head.    The region lacks money to repair roads, every year, due to lack of funding, village schools are closed under the guise of restructuring, and they suggest us to allocate millions from the regional budget for some unexplained reconstruction. The community of Transcarpathia do not accept such approaches", – Ivan Baloha said. 

Instead, the chairman of the regional council proposes to preserve Narodna Square as it is now, and expressed willingness to arrange for sponsors funding for landscaping of the square.