The semi-darkness that envelops one, then a second, then a third enormous abandoned premises evokes only one association: this is a good location at best for filming the final scene of an action movie.

This is what remains of the Novovolynsk cotton-spinning factory. Once there was a sea of light and the endless hum of machines, hundreds of women worked here at the looms, and after the shift they would pour out of the factory gates together. Now there is dead silence here…

At last, as if at the end of a tunnel, light appeared. Here a new woodworking enterprise is being born, which has settled in the half-ruined former representative of light industry.

A new production facility

In the board lamination shop of LLC "Kronospan UA" there are only two large machines. A young man and a woman work on them. Actually, they don't so much work as service them, because the production is computerized. Quality controller Ruslana Andriychuk says she mastered the new specialty in two weeks in the Polish city of Mielec, where there is a similar enterprise. She is satisfied with the work and the salary, because she had been on the employment exchange for a long time: in Novovolynsk it is hard for women to find work. Per shift she laminates 350 boards. Only 5 workers are involved in this section. Soon there will be more, because the second production line is now being set up. In total, together with the builders, up to 170 people work here. And when the entire woodworking enterprise is launched, work will be found for two thousand specialists in various related professions.

For now, the boards arrive in raw form from Poland. They stand in large packs in the shop right up to the ceiling. But by the end of the year they will already be produced here. The main thing is that now Ukrainian furniture manufacturers no longer need to travel abroad for raw materials.

Investments – under attack

Under the best circumstances, the enterprise was supposed to start operating at full capacity within 1.5 years. But those "favorable" conditions – the special regime of investment activity in the territory of priority development in Novovolynsk and the village of Zhovtneve, which had been in effect since the beginning of 2000 – were abolished with one "state" stroke, as were all other free economic zones and territories of priority development in Ukraine. Now at least 2‑3 years will be needed just for the construction of the "core" of the industrial facility.

"The shop that is operating is only 2-3% of the giant that is planned to be built," says Viktor Lytvyniuk, director of LLC "Kronospan UA," pointing to a small square on a large general plan. "This year we will absorb 20% of the foreign investments. But the project, under which one of the largest investments in the region – 275 million dollars – is supposed to come to Novovolynsk, has come under attack."

According to the regional statistics department, over the years of independence, 111.9 million US dollars of foreign investment have been brought into the economy of Volyn (107.6 dollars per resident of the region). That is why the indignation of Viktor Lytvyniuk is entirely understandable; he believes that such an investment must be protected, because "Kronospan" will increase for the city (which still belongs to a depressed zone) not only the number of jobs and the level of wages, but also contributions to the Pension Fund. Instead, according to V. Lytvyniuk, local-style politicians from time to time return to battles around the enterprise. Only not in its favor.

At the crossroads

The birth of the industrial giant in Novovolynsk was accompanied by difficult labor. On the one hand, certain political forces, seeing an environmental threat to the city, roused local residents to protest actions. This continued until the people of Novovolynsk were taken on an "excursion" to Poland to a similar woodworking enterprise. They returned with the opposite opinion.

On the other hand, "Kronospan" had the imprudence to buy the premises of the cotton-spinning factory (JSC "Notex"), whose shareholders – former employees of the enterprise – were left with nothing but empty hopes after the sale of the enterprise. Here local deputies got involved: at a session they questioned the fairness of the agreement with "Kronospan" on land lease. As Viktor Lytvyniuk explains, his enterprise pays on time and does not violate a single clause of it. As for the purchase and sale agreement for the "Notex" premises, no one has challenged it and no one can do so, because the value of the old facility is not undervalued, but even, by some parameters, overstated. The city mayor Viktor Sapozhnikov holds the same opinion: if there are claims against the buyers of other "Notex" property (equipment, health camp), and the prosecutor's office is dealing with this, then everything is fine with "Kronospan," although the city authorities "wanted, through the new owner, to influence the previous one and thus obtain funds for the shareholders."

In order to somehow get out of the scandalous situation and keep a good name, the owner of "Kronospan" still does not abandon the idea of helping the defrauded shareholders. He will transfer funds to a foundation that they recently created specifically for this purpose. But only after it becomes possible to formalize ownership of the land, the documents for which were lost in Kyiv in long government drawers.

"Volyn probably is not exemplary"

Now Viktor Lytvyniuk is calculating how the enterprise should operate under the new conditions, because the special zone whose benefits the foreign investor had counted on was abolished, something other countries do not allow themselves to do. The city authorities still hope that the government will return to consideration of the issue of the territory of priority development, because thanks to this the city began to rise from its knees. Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov, who recently visited Novovolynsk, commented so briefly on the situation from the point of view of attracting investment: "Volyn probably is not exemplary."

… If the owner of "Kronospan" (he has a network of enterprises in Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Russia) had foreseen that this could happen, then when choosing between the Novovolynsk "Notex" and the Sokal chemical plant, he would have settled on the latter, because the premises there have been preserved much better. Here, however, they are forced to carry out major repairs from roof to floor. But they are not giving up here, because the process, as they say, has begun.

Halyna Byelova, Lutsk