From baking desserts to selling underwear: Ukrainian veterans are returning from war to start up successful businesses and create jobs for their comrades.
Since Russia unleashed war in Ukraine’s east in 2014 in the wake of the EuroMaidan Revolution in Kyiv that forced then-President Viktor Yanukovych from power, over 354,000 Ukrainian men and women have been mobilized to defend the country. The troops normally spend two years in service.
So after more than four years of war, Ukraine has a huge new community of veterans. But the country has still not created a program to help former fighters return to civilian life after leaving the front lines.
That’s where the more entrepreneurial of Ukraine’s veterans have stepped in, starting businesses that employ their fellow former soldiers and become centers of the veteran communities.
Larysa Mykytion, a volunteer who has collected food and clothes for Ukrainian soldiers since the beginning of the war, says that in 2016, when fighters started returning home and launching their own companies, a need to form a community emerged.
To meet that need, Mykytion founded the Veterano Service website, which now provides information about over 130 enterprises run by Ukrainian veterans.
“The main goal was to show that there are so many of (these businesses), and they are very diverse, in order to motivate other veterans to not give up if they can’t find a job,” Mykytion told the Kyiv Post.
Apart from that, the volunteer said the website was a forum to introduce veterans to each other. Once in touch with each other, they communicate, cooperate and help one another.
The following are some of the most successful veteran-owned enterprises in Ukraine.
Pizza Veterano
Since its foundation in 2015, this pizza place has become a popular venue for veterans to meet and talk in Kyiv’s city center, near Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square.) The pizzeria serves 13 kinds of pizza, from the classic Four Cheeses, with mozzarella, parmesan, gorgonzola and ricotta, to the Diablo, with spicy salami, mozzarella and tomato sauce. There is also a signature Ukrainian pizza, with bacon, ham, salami, mozzarella, tomato sauce, onions and tomatoes. Apart from pizza, which cost Hr 130–250 each, they serve traditional Italian dishes like bruschetta, pasta, and ravioli.
Leonid Ostaltsev, who fought in Ukraine’s east in 2014–2015, decided to open Pizza Veterano after he came back from the war. He says he heard so many stories about veterans who couldn’t find a job, he decided to open a restaurant and employ his comrades.
Apart from that, the restaurant gives veterans a 50 percent discount on their pizza. And they also encourage charity: the restaurant’s website offers the option for customers to pay for pizza to be delivered to fighters on the front line, or to injured soldiers in hospitals. Over the three years of work, Pizza Veterano delivered charity pizzas worth over Hr 800,000.
The restaurant works as a franchise — apart from the outlet in Kyiv, there are five Pizza Veterano in other Ukrainian cities and towns — Mariupol, Dnipro, Drohobych and Cherkasy. The launch of the restaurant also marked the start of the Veterano group, which combines veteran-owned enterprises such as the chain of to-go-drinks spots, Veterano Coffee.
Pizza Veterano. 8 Sofiivska St. Order pizza delivery at www.kiev.veteranopizza.com
The cooks of Veterano Pizza restaurant in Donetsk Oblast’s Mariupol, an Azov Sea city of 500,000 people located 800 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, pack pizza for delivery on Oct. 11, 2018. (Volodymyr Petrov)
Veterano Brownie
Veterano Brownie is another enterprise from the Veterano group. As the name suggests, they produce all kinds of brownies. Flavors include hazelnut, banana, caramel, cherry, cinnamon and pear, cherry and blue cheese, as well as the classic brownie with grated cocoa. The business is run by a couple of veteran Roman Nabozhniak and his wife Julia Kochetova-Nabozhniak. Their desserts are served in numerous cafes, and since 2017 when their business was launched they reckon they have made over 2 tonnes of brownies — and it’s just the two of them who work in the kitchen.
The couple donates 10 percent of their profit to the families of Ukrainian fighters killed in the war. Nabozniak, who served on the front line in 2015–2016, says that the business was part of his rehabilitation back into civilian life: while working he focused on the process, and wasn’t distracted by any unpleasant memories or thoughts.
Now he wants to help other people affected by the war, and plans to employ fellow former soldiers and people displaced from Ukraine’s east by the war, and from Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimea.
“We all are a generation living in times of war – in such time, we need to stick together,” Nabozhniak said.
Right now Veterano Brownie is not accepting any orders, as the couple is fully occupied with preparations to open a brownie bakery where they will make and sell desserts. To do that, they recently started a crowdfunding campaign, hoping to find 30 people who will become Veterano Brownie patrons by donating $500 each. In return, the Nabozhniak family promises patrons a supply of brownies on their birthday for life, free coffee at their future bakery, invitations to tastings of new products, places in a workshop on how to make brownies, and a special discount on all products.
Veterano Brownie bakery opening soon. Follow this link to become the enterprise’s patron www.bit.ly/patronvb
Regata Club
The story of this brand started when its co-founder Oleksandr Matiash served at the front in 2015–2016. He says he couldn’t find comfortable underwear of high quality, so he decided to create it himself. Along with his friend Yevhen Alekseev, he bought materials, drew up designs, and brought in another friend to sew the product.
Today Regata Club has over 12,000 subscribers on Facebook and sells its products online through its website, as well as at Kyiv’s Vsi Svoi store and various markets and fairs. The brand offers underwear, t-shirts and socks for men made of cotton. The underwear costs from Hr 285 to Hr 350, but veterans get a discount.
Regata Club brand founded by Ukrainian veteran Oleksandr Matiash sells underwear, socks and t-shirts for men online.
Matiash says that although he didn’t have very traumatic experiences at war, running Regata Club helped keep his mind off the past.
“I didn’t have time to think about all sorts of nonsense,” he told the Kyiv Post.
Purchase products by Regata Club at Vsi Svoi Store (27 Khreshchatyk St.) or at www.regata-club.com.ua
Front Med
This enterprise, based in Shepetivka, a town in Khmelnytskiy Oblast, produces a range of honeys. Front Med (“med” is “honey” in Ukrainian) was founded by three veterans. One of them, Maksym Petryk, 32, says that after he and his comrades were demobilized and came back home, they very soon realized that all the promises of authorities to help veterans with employment and social adaptation had been empty. Petryk, who served in the military in 2014–2015, was lucky to join the apitherapy school, a rehabilitation project initiated by the Ukrainian Cooperative Alliance NGO, with financial support from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Petryk says that the school gave veterans legal and financial lessons, and taught them about apitherapy, a branch of alternative medicine that uses honey bee products.
After that, the three friends established a social enterprise: they buy honey from another enterprise called Medokrai, process it, add flavors, and package it. Front Med sells over 30 kinds of honey, herbal tea, and dried fruit through its website. The honey ranges includes pure honey made of buckwheat, acacia and herbs, as well as honey with various nuts, seeds and fruit for Hr 56–230.
The enterprise employs around 40 families of veterans and internally displaced persons who had to flee Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. Petryk says that former fighters need help with socialization and returning to normal life — help he is in a position to provide.
“If you can’t find a job, create workplaces and share them with others,” Petryk told the Kyiv Post.
Purchase products by Front Med at www.frontmed.com.ua
