Oksana Dudyk scanned a small selection of houseplants on the shelves of a new flower shop that recently opened in this remote city in western Ukraine. Her eyes landed on the perfect flower for her new client.
Late in the afternoon, the flowers were only her 10th sale of the day. But for Dudik, who started the shop with her last savings after fleeing her now-devastated hometown of Mariupol in a hail of Russian rockets, it was nothing short of a miracle. Her husband, who enlisted in the Ukrainian army after the invasion, was captured by Russian forces in May, and she has not been heard from since.
“These flowers help me stay alive,” said Dudyk, 55. A former construction engineer who helped design and build schools before the war, she said she never imagined that she would one day sell flowers to survive. “They bring me joy and help my customers as well by creating a positive atmosphere in this incomprehensible war,” she said.
Dudyk is one of thousands of Ukrainians trying to rebuild their shattered lives. Many have started small businesses hoping to bring new purpose to themselves and their new communities. Others have taken a step back from the positions they lost because of the war, and hold onto the lifeline to keep their families alive.
“The Russian invasion made many people stand up and start new businesses.” People fleeing the war-torn East. The government encourages this entrepreneurship by providing subsidies, interest-free loans, and other financial support to small businesses.
“Ukraine will go on uninterrupted,” he said, a large part of which has to do with “ensuring economic development and prosperity.”
That sounds like a daunting prospect as Russia braces for new attacks in the east and south of Ukraine.The Ukrainian economy is expected to shrink by a third this year. International Monetary Fundan estimated one-fifth of small businesses nationwide have closed.
But many refugees fleeing the war-torn region are collectively forging a new front of economic resistance to Russian aggression.
The foundations are laid by people like Serhii Stoian, 31, a former mathematics professor who opened a small storefront selling coffee and fresh pastries in Lviv after his escape. Work in Bucha, infamous for scenes in which unarmed civilians are killed by Russian soldiers. Named after his cat, who went missing in the war, the cafe struggled in its early days. However, business is so active now that he is about to start his second business in Lviv. A third of him is planned in Kyiv.
Coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian War
“We came here with $500 in our pockets,” Stoian said. “When we started, we promised our landlords to pay us back in two months. I was able to pay him in two weeks.”
Stoian dreamed of opening his own cafe, but feared failure. As a side job to teaching, he ran his YouTube cooking channel in Ukraine. Hungry Guy Recipe It has about 700,000 followers. “Life was so wonderful,” he said.
I had just started a part-time job at a bakery in Bucha, making pastries from YouTube recipes, but an invasion brought everything to a halt.
“The bakery owner called me at 5 a.m. and said, ‘We are being bombed. “My friends and I didn’t have time to think, because when you hear that Russia is invading, you can’t think,” he said. “I was worried about my neighbor’s cat. But we grabbed our clothes and papers and jumped in the car. And we drove like crazy.”
They ended up in Lviv, where they lived in shelters filled with other refugees from all over the country. They spent her three weeks helping women and children cross the border. But they needed paid work.
When Mr. Stoian saw the “for rent” sign in a small former souvenir shop, the light bulb went out. “I could rent it and sell coffee and pastries,” he recalled thinking. “We had no business experience. There is corruption in Ukraine, so we were a little worried. But my friend knew how to make coffee. And I bake. I was able to.
They rented an espresso machine and Stoian stayed up all night making fruit pies, rosemary cookies and cinnamon buns. But no guests came. Mr. Stoian began to despair. He then erased the menu from the sidewalk café’s chalkboard and began writing his dramatic story.
“We moved here because of the war,” said the message. “We want to do our best, to make great coffee and pies. We believe in Ukraine. People helped us. I want to help.” He promised to donate a portion of the store’s proceeds to the war effort. Free coffee was provided to military personnel.
The next day, there was a line of 20-30 people. After posting on Instagram, the cafe had up to 200 customers in a day.What made him such a sensation was Inquiries about opening a Kiit franchise have been received.
Fueled by his success, he still grapples with the senseless killing of an acquaintance in Bucha and the loss of his beloved cat, which a neighbor left behind to escape artillery fire. “Naming the cafe after Kiit helps keep it going,” he said.
Recently, he wiped out the bare walls of the second Kiit cafe. The floor was littered with construction machinery. “It’s still a gamble,” Stoian said. “If you lose everything, that’s okay, because we started with nothing,” he said.
“But maybe we’ll make it too. Maybe we’ll have our next big success.”
For others, resilience means embracing tougher transitions. Kirill Chaolin, 29, worked as a senior air traffic controller trainee at Lviv’s international airport. His job was wiped out when Ukraine closed its airspace to commercial flights. In recent months, Chaolin, who has his wife and his five-year-old daughter, began driving taxis for Uber rival Bolt.
“It’s hard to get off a big job to do this,” he said as he navigated through heavy traffic on a recent weekday. “But I have no choice. My family needs to eat.”
Many of his former colleagues at Ukrainian airports do the same, he added. “You have to do whatever it takes to survive.”
People like Dudyk are rebuilding their lives while struggling to overcome the ravages of war.
She and her husband lived a quiet life in the port city of Mariupol, one of Russia’s first strategic targets, but were about to visit Prague on vacation when the invasion began.
“We were making a decent salary. We are a happy family,” said Dudyk, who has two children and four grandchildren. Her husband had a window making business and as a beekeeper she tended 40 beehives. As a construction engineer working on an important building project, Dudyk had a job she was proud of.
When the Russians attacked, she and her 77-year-old father tried to hold out until a powerful blast blew the front of her home as she took refuge inside.
Dudyk, 59, said her husband, 59, enlisted to fight the day Russia entered, joining the Ukrainian army inside the Azovstal steel plant. He was one of her 2,500 combatants taken as prisoners of war in Russia in May, but she has not heard from him since. An explosion at a prison camp last month killed more than 50 people, but Dudyk dreams of one day returning home.
Today, the home is a cramped shelter in a temporary modular town set up for Ukrainian refugees, where she lives with her father.
“I want to run a successful flower shop,” said Dudik, who is expanding his business under the guidance of another refugee who used to run a nursery school. If all goes well, her humble storefront will be transformed with new shelves and more flowers.
Most of all, she wants to sell roses. “But for roses, I need a refrigerator. And I don’t have money.”
With little savings, Dudyk applied for a grant under a government program to help small businesses.
She takes nothing for granted. “When your country is being bombed, you realize your life is threatened and everything can be taken away,” says a beaming woman whose blue eyes cloud with tears as painful memories surface. Mr. Dudik said.
“One moment you make plans for the future, but the next you lose everything. You start fighting for stuff,” she said. “If you wait for the nightmare to end and realize that the invasion is of this magnitude, what is the possibility?”
While she was talking, customers came in one after another and her face lit up. Her deaf couple approached and hugged her, her sign language becoming a symbol of her tears and heart. She showed them the latest floral line-up and they pulled out their purses.
“I’m no plant expert, but I know what can cheer people up. ‘Thanks to them,'” she said.
