And on the very day of the celebration, he probably turned off all his phones, because he decided to mark the anniversary, which for him is simply a calendar date, in the close circle of “his own.”
Over three terms as mayor, he learned to distinguish sincerity from sycophancy and has no desire to stage a performance on the theme “how we love you, dear Anton Fedorovych.” Why Kryvytskyi took such a step, what he can say about the years he has lived, about the role of the individual in history and in the life of the city – our pre-anniversary conversation.
– Imagining Lutsk without Kryvytskyi (and Kryvytskyi without Lutsk), whatever anyone says, is problematic today. And since when has Kryvytskyi been in Lutsk?
– Practically since birth… In January, my parents, along with other fellow villagers, were deported during Operation “Vistula” from the Hrubeshiv region all the way to the Odesa region. That was in January ’45, and I was born in June. And already in December my parents decided to make their way to Volyn, because it seemed that from there it was closer to their native parts. They left everything behind in the Odesa region, they had to pack in two hours. Mama used to tell how they rode on the roof of a freight train. And the month was December! Now it’s hard to believe that people endured such hardships, having a great goal – to get home… By the way, along the way I was almost… stolen. I was wrapped in a feather quilt, and at some small station thieves wanted to pull it off. Mama saw it, raised a cry…
– So she saved the quilt and the future mayor of Lutsk!
– However many years Mama lived here, she always said: “We’re at home!”, meaning her native Hrubeshiv region. The cucumbers don’t grow the same way in Volyn, and the tomatoes aren’t as sweet, and the sun isn’t the same… Mama, I told her, it’s only about a hundred kilometers from Lutsk! No climatic changes at all – my parents’ village was about 15 kilometers from the current Ukrainian-Polish border. But she so wanted to get back to her village – I took her there, but no trace of it remained, she only recognized the area.
– Who would you have become if you hadn’t become who you are?
– In principle, if I were starting life over, to use a modern expression – planning myself, I wouldn’t have chosen any other path for myself, even though it taught me all the time to make independent decisions and fear nothing! I finished school with a silver medal – they gave me a four in drafting, offered me a chance to retake it, but I said “no.” They gave it – so be it! After school I couldn’t find a job anywhere, there were no connections… So I went to work as a loader at a canning factory, but three months later people saw that I deserved better (laughs). At the institute I earned extra money for living by doing course projects for senior students…
Although I very much wanted to go the military route! I dreamed of being a fighter pilot. But I didn’t become one for various reasons, and one of them was my “Zabuzhzhia” origin: the mandate commission at that time did not allow such “resettlers” (and I wasn’t even born yet at the time of the resettlement) onto the front-line army “front.” After the institute I went into the army, which gave me a great deal in life! I served in the 51st Rifle Division in a rocket unit. We serviced tactical missiles… I wore my officer’s uniform with such pride! We were the so-called “two-year men” and served with officer rank. We were issued everyday uniforms and a piece of fabric for a dress overcoat. Some people sewed a coat for their wife or mother-in-law out of it, but I – I made a dress overcoat! I still have a photo where I’m in all my “finery” in that overcoat…
And I dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot! To this day that unfulfilled dream is memorable.
– Does your soul still long to fly?..
– At one time I really pressed our garrison commander to take me up in a two-seater fighter cockpit. But he never “gave in” (laughs).
– They say that Kryvytskyi’s main problem as mayor is that he has a conscience. In your opinion: is having a conscience a problem?
– And who says that?.. People?.. You know, let me give you this fact from my biography. In the 1970s, when I had already been elected mayor of Lutsk, the position of first secretary of the city party committee became vacant. And then there was a rule that the mayor almost automatically takes that position. I won’t say that I particularly aspired to it, but those were the rules then… I sense that there’s a kind of vacuum around me, and a worthy but different candidate is being put forward for the position of first secretary. I’m not used to looking over my shoulder, so I asked a knowledgeable man what was going on. And he says: “Anton! You will never be first in Lutsk, because you don’t know how to say that white is black and that black is white!” Well, I thought, if that’s the only reason, then life goes on!
Conscience, I believe, must be an essential attribute of a leader. Look how much we struggled to get people to pay for communal services! By various methods, often ones that no one in Ukraine had used before us, and later they became generally accepted. But the extreme method – eviction from an apartment – however much certain radicals pushed me toward it! – was not used. That method is not for me! In my life I always follow a rule that I heard in the army from my chief of staff. He said: “Remember, Anton, in life there is always a way out, and a dead end exists only in the head!” How can you evict an entire family if the father or mother is at fault, and the children have nothing to do with it? In the end, the state too should think about why people don’t pay for the housing it gave them. If there’s a problem, help is needed! And I, for example, don’t understand why give childbirth assistance to everyone?! The state should give it to those who need it. And for healthy people there is plenty of work today! It’s just that a situation has arisen where one can “loaf” at the employment exchange, get subsidies, etc. And we have nowhere to recruit builders, workers for the factories… But in another year or two – and wages at the factories will rise (even though today at some Lutsk enterprises they reach a thousand hryvnias), and people will be thinking about where to find work, because the “free ride” will end…
– What, in your opinion, should a leader not be?
– Most importantly, he must not be vindictive. It’s very easy to take revenge on a subordinate who depends on you. But try to fight someone who stands above you! I always said and say that we live, figuratively speaking, in a forest where for every beast there is a stronger beast, but in the end comes “the man with the gun” and establishes his own order… Therefore one must treat people humanely, respect their knowledge and experience, their dignity. Just now in Ukraine 18 thousand people were dismissed on the principle of “he’s not ours.” And who set the criteria for “ours” or “not ours”? These are complex processes, and a leader’s talent is not in replacing – it’s in making a person work.
– A public person, which you are, undoubtedly loses something in his life. What have you lost?
– It would be more accurate to say what I haven’t gained… I haven’t gained and don’t have peace of mind. All the time in tension, in anticipation of some cataclysms, unpleasant situations in the life of the city. Because if late in the evening someone calls from the 0-80 service, you know they won’t say anything good! Once I was in Germany and met with a business man. His translator – from Kazakh Germans. He’s been there 12 years. I ask: why haven’t you started your own business in all this time? “And why should I? The boss has a Mercedes, I have a decent car too… But he carries a blanket and pillow in his Mercedes, because he has no time to get enough sleep with all his affairs, while I finish work on Friday and until Monday it doesn’t interest me!”
A person who is responsible for nothing finishes work and goes home. I never have that. Here I’m on vacation, and yesterday I went to the park, saw how things are going with the reconstruction of the children’s town. This morning I already drove through the streets where the international cycling race will pass. Wherever the mayor goes – he’s at work everywhere. On the street you look at where the grass isn’t mowed, in some European capital you don’t gaze with wide eyes at shop windows, but at courtyards, at alleys… And, by the way, in many European cities the distance between the center and the periphery is maybe several times greater than between Lutsk’s Prospekt Voli and Vyshkov! You should see the photographs!
– What’s the easiest way to please you?
– I practically don’t react to that. I know where there is sincerity and where there is sacrilege. I’ve lived in Lutsk so many years that when I walk through the city, I can tell about a person: are they local or a newcomer? When they enter the office, by their eyes I see what they want and how they will ask for it. I always try to distinguish where there’s real misfortune – and help, and where there are contrived moments…
– Is that why you decided not to celebrate the anniversary publicly, because you’re afraid of being “fawned over”?
– I’ve been to anniversaries where the ceremonial part lasted in a theater, they “sang praises” for three or four hours, and mostly praised “by position.” Such things don’t delight me. The only friend who licks sincerely is my spaniel Noris (laughs). I look at it pragmatically: when I stop being mayor, 90 percent of the “close ones” will simply forget about me… And there’s nothing surprising here, because in reality a person is needed only by family and very close friends. Are they needed and do I have them? I have friends, and these are people who don’t depend on my position. In difficult moments, and I have buried many close ones, I didn’t turn to structures subordinate to me, but turned to friends. Besides the element of purely human communication, my friends are also for me an element of reliable information… They, of course, can also be mistaken in their judgments, but they are tested by life and, at least, say what they think.
Interviewed by Nataliia MALIMON.