A bakery in western Ukraine has reopened, providing employment to refugees

Transcript

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Well, as we said, you did spend the past week in western Ukraine far from the actual fighting. How different does it feel over there compared to Kyiv?

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

Yeah. We spent a few days in a city called Ivano-Frankivsk, and life there looks almost normal. It feels almost normal. Bosh Labosh (ph) is a small bakery just off the city's main pedestrian thoroughfare. The walls are bright yellow. The display is, of course, filled with sweet and savory pastries.

LUBOMIR KITRAL: Cherry, banana-chocolate, apple and cheese.

DETROW: Lubomir Kitral (ph) opened the bakery just a few months ago, this January. He insists we call him Louie. When the war began, Louie shut the bakery down, but two weeks later, he and his employees went back to work. Why?

KITRAL: (Through interpreter) There are three main things. The first thing is that people who came here - we need to feed them. People who came from Kharkiv, Odessa, other big cities of Ukraine - they needed food.

DETROW: Thousands of them have flocked to the relative safety of Ivano-Frankivsk. The second reason was pretty basic. Louie says his employees needed the income.

KITRAL: (Through interpreter) And the final thing is that, during the first days of war, our government was calling on business owners to reopen. And this business can be reopened, and we can work even during the airstrike collapse.

DETROW: There have been some changes. Curfews mean the bakery's hours are shorter, and that means salaries are lower. In the back of the bakery, Nadia Nosteryastra (ph) is rolling out dough for khachapuri.

NADIA NOSTERYASTRA: (Through interpreter) We were very happy about that because we lost our job, and we were waiting for that moment when they will call us again.

DETROW: As she sprinkles cheese on top of the dough and pushes it in, she admits that, like many people in Ivano-Frankivsk, she started sleeping through the air raid sirens.

NOSTERYASTRA: (Through interpreter) To be honest, we have a small child, so we do not get out.

DETROW: When you look at the customers coming in and out and out the windows at the buses and the streets full of people, things seem normal. Louie is quick to insist they're not.

KITRAL: (Through interpreter) Today in the morning, I was looking at pictures from Bucha. And I think that this is a catastrophe of world scale, of planetary scale. And I think this is a false idea that Ivano-Frankivsk or any other city can live a normal life.

DETROW: The horrific images of Bucha have just begun spreading across Ukraine the day we visited. Louie begins to cry. He steps away to compose himself.

KITRAL: (Non-English language spoken) - two minutes, please.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).

(SOUNDBITE OF RECEIPT PRINTER HUMMING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).

DETROW: When Louie reopened the bakery, two of his employees had left Ivano-Frankivsk for Poland. So he hired two people who had come from elsewhere in Ukraine. Maria Nowitzka (ph) is one of them. Three days into the war, she decided she needed to flee her home in Kyiv.

MARIA NOWITZKA: Oh, it was a hard decision, but it was fast.

DETROW: So how quickly - how did you find this job?

NOWITZKA: Oh, maybe two weeks I sit without job. I just sit in flat and read the news. And then I understand that war will not end first and decided to looking for a job.

DETROW: She found an ad for this one. Two days later, it was hers.

Do you like your job?

NOWITZKA: Oh, yes, yes.

DETROW: Before the war began, in Kyiv, Maria was an interior designer.

NOWITZKA: Yes (laughter), very different. But it's a help to feeling good, feeling that I am necessary, that I help in our economy.

(CROSSTALK)

DETROW: Svetlana (ph) and Azari Kozak (ph) come in with their kids. Ana (ph) is 3, and Ilya (ph) is 5. They pick out pastries.

AZARI KOZAK: Cake with chocolate and nuts here for Ilya and also one with the raspberry.

DETROW: I got that, too. It's really good.

Svetlana and the children went to Poland when the war began. They stayed in an apartment in Warsaw. But after a month, it was time to come home.

SVETLANA KOZAK: (Through interpreter) We are very happy. It's better to be home. And kids are very happy, too, because we really, really wanted to come back.

DETROW: So you just got back, then.

S KOZAK: (Non-English language spoken).

DETROW: They all went to church together this morning.

S KOZAK: (Non-English language spoken).

DETROW: The parents had promised Ana and Ilya a treat afterwards, and here they are. Still, the children get anxious when Azari isn't right there after all the separation, and he and Svetlana get fleeting worries about bringing the kids back to Ukraine.

S KOZAK: (Through interpreter) It's very hard for children to hear the sounds of airstrike alarm. It's hard for the kids to wake up in the middle of the night, and they just close themselves with the curtain covers.

DETROW: But at least in this moment, they seem happy. It's Sunday morning. They've got chocolate and raspberry pastries, and all four of them are together. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.