New cemetery in the regional center will be near the border and only in three years

In the regional center there is a problem with the lack of places for burial, but they managed to solve it – Uzhgorod City Council claimed last year. The new cemetery will be situated at the gate of Ukraine – right near the border with Slovakia.

Late last year, the executive committee and later Uzhgorod City Council approved the Program of the arrangement and maintenance of the cemetery near the International automobile checkpoint "Uzhgorod" for 2013-2016.

This program will cost 22 million hryvnias from the city budget. This year they are going to spend nearly 6 million of them. 

By decision of the City Council, this year it is planned to spend 450,000 hryvnias to produce documentation, conduct preparatory work, start arranging driveways and prepare engineering infrastructure.

The remaining five and a half million from the Uzhgorod budget should be transferred to the forestry account – as payment for desposing of the land. It is the forestry that the area near the border belongs to now.  By the way, the management of the forestry and hunting farm in the Transcarpathian region demanded from the city council also the premises on Sobranetska street where it is located.

The arrangement of the cemetery will be carried out quite slowly – in 2014 they plan to complete the construction of service buildings and divide the territory into sectors, in 2015 these sectors will be prepared for burials, and only in 2016 the arrangement of the cemetery will be fully completed.

So, for three more years in the regional center people will be buried at the "Barvinok" cemetery, where the number of places is becoming less and less. For example, at the recent meeting of the executive committee on Wednesday, February 20, by the separate decision for two people they even allocated spaces for a double burial.

In Uzhgorod city council they calculated: the new 16 hectacres cemetery will operate for 15-20 years, it will house 15,000 graves. 

Currently, the works on arrangement of the future cemetery have not yet begun.  

Accroding to the head of the SE "Uzhgorod Forestry" Ivan Kostiv, the land where the cemetery is to be located, officially still belongs to the enterprise – Uzhgorod City Council has not yet executed the necessary documents to obtain the land. The forestry completed all the necessary steps to transfer the territory. The next step should be made by the city council.

The forestry will allot 14.75 hectacres for the cemetery. The rest – 1.75 hectares – is already owned by the city. At the last meeting of the executive committee, the Mayor Victor Pogorelov said that on this land, owned by the city, they would soon begin to arrange the cemetery.