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You could assume that the final enterprise to develop throughout wartime could be hospitality. But on a sizzling Friday night I discover myself on the launch of a brand new franchise of the Ukrainian seafood restaurant Chernomorka (“Black Sea”) in Chișinău, Moldova.
Positioned in a meals corridor, the place is buzzing with folks. The workers largely include Ukrainian refugees; visitors are each native and Ukrainian. Seashore umbrellas and loungers announce the doorway, the place a stream of individuals queue without spending a dime prosecco and mussels. Taking a seat in entrance of the open kitchen, I have a look at the menu, the place I’m stunned to see the Moldovan staple mămăliga (polenta) with sheep’s-milk cheese served with mussels, calamari or sea snail “roast”, and the chilly Ukrainian (or Russian) soup okroshka enriched with shrimps.
I congratulate Chernomorka’s founder, Olga Kopylova, on the launch. The energetic 40-year-old has spent the previous six months increasing her restaurant chain from Ukraine into Moldova, Romania and past. However she’s already interested by her quixotic subsequent venture, Kozy, “the goats’ city”: a theme park the place ruminants will reside, geared up with their very own put up workplace, foreign money and city corridor, within the Moldovan village of Pohrebea, 35km from Chișinău. She invitations me to go to the constructing web site the following day and introduces me to the one who will drive me there — Ivan, the chain’s technical director.
An imposing 35-year-old, Ivan sits subsequent to me whereas I’m ready for my meals. I ask him the place he’s from. He tells me he was born in Luhansk however extra not too long ago lived in Hostomel, close to Kyiv, “simply the place the battle began”.
The music within the restaurant is booming, alternating between modern American pop and previous Russian chansons. I discover the latter unnerving, and share the thought with Ivan. “My native tongue is Russian and I’ve seen each side of the battle,” he tells me. “I’ve relations in each nations . . . Nicely, I don’t any extra,” he corrects himself. “We stopped speaking because the battle.”
That is the second time Ivan has fled Russia’s aggression. He ran a print home in Donetsk till 2014, when preventing first broke out in east Ukraine. “I used to be terrified by the battle and left with solely a sports activities bag,” he says. His mom remains to be in Luhansk, and has simply closed her personal furnishings enterprise. “She cries day by day . . . The Russian state has supplied her a pension however she says she doesn’t need something to do with them.”
The subsequent morning, Ivan shares the remainder of his story as we drive to Pohrebea. “My spouse was eight months pregnant in February. She has a coronary heart situation, so we had organized for her to present start with top-of-the-line cardiologists within the nation. As a substitute, we needed to flee to west Ukraine after spending three weeks in a basement underneath shelling, and he or she gave start in a small hospital, the place some ladies gave start within the corridors. Russian tanks have been parked outdoors, utilizing the hospital as a defend.”
After their daughter was born, Ivan needed to take his household in another country by a inexperienced hall co-ordinated between Russia, Ukraine and the Pink Cross. However the bridge they have been planning to cross exploded in entrance of them. His spouse would nonetheless wish to return however Ivan doesn’t need his kids to see the battle. And if he goes again, he received’t be allowed to go away Ukraine once more, as a person of preventing age; he was solely in a position to flee due to the new child and his spouse’s incapacity.
As Ivan tells me his story, we drive by the Russian “peacekeepers” on the Nistru (Dniester) river separating Moldova and the breakaway area of Transnistria, the place 1,500 Russian troops have been stationed because the 1992 battle between Chișinău and Moscow-backed separatists. (Regardless of being situated on the left financial institution with Transnistria, Pohrebea is managed by Moldova.) “They already know me,” Ivan says. “After I go by them, I play the Ukrainian anthem.” The troopers cease us to verify our IDs and automotive. I get shivers as I see their weapons and the Russian flag sewn on their uniform. “If one thing occurs right here, that is the primary space they are going to take,” Ivan says.
I inform Ivan that I’ll in all probability begin the piece together with his story. “Battle and enterprise . . . these are two totally different tales,” he replies. However that is precisely what drew me to cowl Chernomorka — reasonably than being crushed by battle, a enterprise is increasing internationally. I battle extra with the hyperlink between seafood and goats.
In Pohrebea, we’re greeted by Kopylova and her native companion, the Moldovan architect Serghei Mîrza, who takes me on a tour of the constructing web site, throughout small white huts constructed with conventional native hay and clay. “Initially, I assumed this was a joke,” one of many builders tells me, “however I see it’s getting critical.” Kopylova factors out the goat magnificence salon, the sports activities stadium, the police station. Subsequent to them, there shall be a Chernomorka restaurant and, up the hill, a glamping web site the place human guests can keep in a single day. “It’s like a rustic inside a rustic,” Kopylova says.
I ask her how she received the concept. “We now have an analogous venue in Mykolaivka. At one Chernomorka opening there, I noticed a wonderful goat on a hill and I assumed it will be good to have a goat on the restaurant, to stroll round. Then we received her a pal.” Now they’ve 140 goats there. With the restaurant closed because of shelling, Kopylova will convey 40 of these goats to Pohrebea, and ship the opposite ones to a brand new venue in Bukovel, Ukraine. Kozy is about to open in September. 4 extra seafood venues will comply with in Poland and Germany. “I believe I’m in my aspect after I begin new issues up,” Kopylova explains.
Born within the small city of Balaklava in Crimea, Kopylova began as a waitress. In 2004, she determined to strive her luck in Ukraine’s capital. “I arrived in Kyiv with two hryvnia [50p] and a child,” she says. Working her method as much as managerial positions in eating places, she additionally offered packing containers of seafood for an previous classmate from again dwelling. “I by no means imagined that somebody would pay for mussels,” Kopylova says. “In Crimea, folks favor meat to fish, so I solely caught mussels as a teen after we ran out of all our different meals.” In 2013, she opened the primary Chernomorka tavern in Kyiv. However the subsequent yr, simply as she was having fun with the fruits of her first successes as a businesswoman, Russia annexed Crimea. Kopylova was undeterred. She modified her supply of seafood to Odesa, and hasn’t returned to Crimea since.
Kopylova appears to thrive in adversity. Her chain grew throughout Covid-19, switching to a flamboyant supply scheme involving video-chats and Mini Coopers. By February this yr, Chernomorka had 40 branches and there have been plans to launch 18 others. Then Russia invaded Ukraine. “My first concern was getting my daughter out of my nation,” Kopylova admits. “Then I requested my workers who needed to remain in Ukraine and who needed to flee, in order that we may assist them depart.”
Those that stayed began to offer meals for the folks hiding within the Kyiv metro, in addition to for the self-defence league and the aged — one thing that continues to at the present time. In April, because the preventing moved eastward, the eating places began reopening, working at 70 per cent capability.
Kopylova, in the meantime, has been driving 1000’s of kilometres throughout Europe as a way to broaden her chain. “We’re able to fry fish for your entire world so Ukraine wins” is certainly one of Chernomorka’s slogans. The staff depends on investments from different Europeans, in addition to Ukrainian expats. “Folks assist us as a result of they wish to assist Ukraine,” says Kopylova.
For its half, Chernomorka strives to assist Ukrainian asylum-seekers who’re unable to proceed their work overseas. Former academics, authorities bureaucrats and engineers are actually working as waiters, cooks and cleaners within the chain’s eating places in Moldova and Romania.
Within the case of Anastasia Surai, a former supervisor in an IT firm from Kherson, this has proved a blessing in disguise. Earlier than the battle, the 24-year-old used to go to Chernomorka as a buyer. “It was certainly one of my favorite spots,” she tells me over the cellphone. In April, as her quantity of labor and pay was lowered, she left Ukraine collectively together with her finest pal and their two kids. They went to Constanța, wanting to remain near the ocean, and settled in a resort, after which in a flat supplied to them without spending a dime. “I noticed that Chernomorka was opening in Romania on Instagram. I used to be shocked. I went to the launch after which got here throughout their job openings,” she recollects. With some expertise serving to in a restaurant kitchen as a teen, Surai turned a sous chef. “My profession is now extra fascinating,” she says.
In July, Surai additionally managed to convey her mom and grandmother to Romania. She counts herself “fortunate” to have been in a position to take them out of Kherson. “I don’t plan to get again to Ukraine, as a result of my hometown is nearly solely occupied — everybody in a position to flee has left it,” she says. “I discovered work, and I discovered myself right here.”
Not everybody shares Surai’s enthusiasm for his or her new life. Her colleague Konstantin Alexeev labored as a building engineer for 16 years. For 5 years, he ran his personal enterprise in Odesa. “However who will construct one thing new once they know that this may be destroyed instantly?” he asks.
Affected by a medical situation that makes him unfit for army service, the 39-year-old left Ukraine together with his spouse and kids for Constanța. Now he works as a barman, and his spouse, born within the Romanian-speaking city of Reni in Ukraine, is utilizing her Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian and English abilities as a hostess and supervisor. “The battle has turned my companion right into a linguist,” Alexeev jokes, “and it has turned me into an engineer of drinks.” Altering tone, he provides: “Morally, it’s onerous, as a result of we’re right here as visitors, it’s a unique tradition and a unique metropolis. When Ukraine turns into protected, I wish to return to my dwelling nation and assist rebuild it.”
In distinction, Kopylova admits: “I haven’t had a lot time to consider the battle.” However then she shortly provides: “We don’t know when the battle will finish however we all know that every of us is making efforts to win and reside freely at dwelling.”
Paula Erizanu is a journalist and creator
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