Wealth found in diversity: On patrol in the Chernivtsi region

It is an unusually fresh August morning, and Violeta, Yves, and Costel, monitoring officers with the SMM’s Monitoring Team in Chernivtsi in western Ukraine, warm their hands on their cups of coffee as they discuss the plan for today’s patrol with their colleagues, Natalia and Andriy. They have a busy day ahead that will take them first to Mahala, a village where the Romanian minority make up most of its inhabitants. The team will monitor developments related to the decentralization process and then have a meeting with representatives of the Jewish community in the city.

The two-car patrol makes its way through morning traffic, passing in front of historic buildings including the renowned university, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Chernivtsi National University was founded in 1875 when the city was the capital of the Duchy of Bukovina, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the time, the city was called Czernowitz, one of six different names it has had in the past two centuries. Each of its subsequent rulers spoke a different language, and each language left its imprint on the city, its name and its residents.

Chernivtsi is over 1,000 kilometers away from Luhansk where both Yves and Violeta worked when they first arrived to the Mission. With two decades of experience in human rights and dialogue facilitation in her native North Macedonia as well as in Ireland, Violeta has found the work of the Mission in Chernivtsi rewarding.

“This is Ukraine’s smallest administrative region by size, and one of the most diverse,” Violeta, an Irish-Macedonian national says as she keeps her eyes on the road. “The 19th and 20th centuries left their mark on the human geography of the region, which is home to dozens of different communities. Its wealth lies in its diversity of languages, faiths, and cultures.”

Yves, a Belgian national who has recently moved from Sievierodonetsk to Chernivtsi, agrees.

“The SMM’s human dimension work is different here in comparison to the activities in the conflict-affected areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” he says. “To fulfil our mandate, we engage with local authorities, as well as with civil society, to monitor and support respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the rights of persons belonging to national minorities. Today’s patrol reflects these mandated tasks.”

The car exits the city boundaries, heads west and arrives shortly after crossing the Prut river. Mahala lies only seven kilometeres from Chernivtsi, and yet the atmosphere here feels different.

The settlement serves as the centre of the Territorial Community (TC), which comprises five villages where both Ukrainians and members of the Romanian minority, all citizens of Ukraine, live together.

“TCs are new administrative entities established by the decentralization process, which started in 2014 and during which settlements have been merged and given more powers and financial resources,” Violeta explains. “This community is a shining star,” she adds. “Two village councils, a Romanian-speaking council from Mahala and a Ukrainian-speaking council from Ridkivtsi decided to work more closely together and voluntarily merged. In 2017, this community was far ahead in implementing the process of decentralization, compared to bigger ones elsewhere in the country.”

Olena Nandrish, a representative of the TC council explains that the merger unlocked resources that allowed the council to renovate or build key infrastructure from scratch.

“The territorial community now has three schools and six kindergartens, in addition to three medical facilities and two cultural centres. These facilities are important, not least because, since 2008, the population in the five villages has increased by about ten percent, so there was a growing need to provide more services,” she adds.

She guides the team through Mahala’s cultural centre, which includes an amphitheater used for the TC’s council sessions as well as for other cultural events, a library, and a museum containing artefacts dating back to the late 1800s.

As the meeting comes to an end, the team and Nandrish agree to stay in touch and meet again in the near future, to discuss further developments related to the decentralization process.

The team leaves the green hills behind and heads back to Chernivtsi.

“It is fulfilling to work on human dimension issues,” Violeta reflects once in the car. “It gives me the opportunity to use and facilitate a multidisciplinary and holistic approach to continuous development of people, communities and institutions.”

Back in Chernivtsi, the team heads to the office of “Hesed-Shushana”, the Chernivtsi Region Charity Fund, where representatives of the Jewish community await them.

Today, Chernivtsi’s Jewish community is small, but it remains active and dynamic, numbering about 1,500 people. One school in Chernivtsi offers lessons in Hebrew.

“Before the Second World War, Jews accounted for about 40 per cent of the city’s population and were well integrated into city life. Back then, Chernivtsi was part of Romania, and thanks to its Romanian mayor, about 20,000 Jews were saved from the Holocaust,” Illia Khoch, one of the community leaders, recalls.

After bidding farewell, the team returns to the office.

“Encounters like these help us to understand the added value of the Mission across the country,” Yves comments as he looks through the meeting notes.

Violeta, who has been with the SMM since 2016, nods. “It is fulfilling to see how people of different backgrounds thrive in a multicultural environment like Chernivtsi’s,” she adds. “And it is a great satisfaction to contribute to the implementation of the Mission’s mandate: monitoring the respect for the rights of persons belonging to national minorities.”