Mitryasova, O. CHRONICLES OF THIRST: DOCUMENTING MYKOLAIV'S WATER SECURITY CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN A WAR-AFFECTED CITY: Monograph. Mykolaiv: PMBSNU, 2026, 124 p.

CHRONICLES OF THIRST: DOCUMENTING MYKOLAIV'S WATER SECURITY CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN A WAR-AFFECTED CITY The city needed a single, powerful "organism" that would deliver water to every house. The key figure of this breakthrough was the talented engineer Victor Weber. It was he who presented the revolutionary project of a centralized water supply system, which finally took into account the rapid pace of urbanization of Mykolaiv. The implementation of such a scale required enormous resources. May 18, 1904 became a historic date for the city community, when the issue of financing was finally resolved. The city took a huge loan of 3 million rubles from the Bessarabian-Tavria Land Bank, pledging the Mykolaiv land itself. It was a risk, but a risk for the sake of the future. On May 22, 1904, a solemn event took place - the official laying of the Mykolaiv water supply system. It wasn't just building another building; It was an act of declaring the technical independence of the city from drought. Ahead was a difficult path of installing kilometers of pipes and erecting structures that would later become architectural symbols of Mykolaiv, including the legendary Shukhov Tower. Fig. 1.9. Spassky spring of the city before the construction of the central stadium (photo from open sources). The Steel Revolution and the electric pulse of the city The implementation of Victor Weber's project was a real technological marathon. The construction unfolded on several fronts at the same time. The primary task was to create a powerful underground water intake capable of supplying the city with 1 million buckets of water (about 12.300 m³) every day. This was the foundation on which the entire future system rested. 17