2024-03-02 13:17:21
“I originally started baking cakes in the Czech Republic as a thank you to those who helped us,” says Marina at the outdoor table in front of her pastry shop. She opened it in the center of Ostrava in mid-May. She already made a living by baking cakes to order in Mariupol, and that’s where she first planned to open her own business. However, the pandemic and the war thwarted her plans. “Nevertheless, we unexpectedly fulfilled our dream here,” her nineteen-year-old daughter Alina, who has been living in the Czech Republic for five years, translates Marina’s words into Czech.
Marina gets up at four o’clock every day. From five in the morning, he bakes, for example, honey Napoleon, Pavlova cake, strawberry desserts, marshmallows, potatoes or a chocolate mousse popular in Ukraine under the name Bird’s milk. She also makes cakes to order. At ten o’clock he prepares the premises of the pastry shop for guests and opens it, until six o’clock in the evening he sells together with his daughter or another barista.
Before she started baking cakes and desserts seven years ago, the economist with a degree had her own real estate agency. “What do I enjoy about baking? I just like it, it’s pleasant,” boasts the woman, who discovered her love for sweets years ago at a Belgian praline-making workshop.
Cakes of hell as a thank you
Marina came to the Czech Republic last March with her nine-year-old son Míša. Daughter Alina has lived in Ostrava since 2018, when her parents sent her to the Czech Republic for secondary school. “It was not safe in Mariupol, we lived 15 kilometers from the front. When we walked around the sea, we heard explosions, we saw soldiers in the city. That’s why my parents sent me to the Czech Republic to live with friends who already lived here,” says Alina, who is studying economics at the Mining University. “But it’s not very practical yet. Just a dry theory that I can’t use much in the pastry shop,” admits Alina, who will start her second year after the holidays.
When Marina arrived in the Czech Republic last year, she started baking cakes as a sign of gratitude to the people who helped her and her son Míš upon arrival. Among other things, to Míš’s teachers and the parents of his classmates. “I am grateful that my Czech classmates invite him to their birthday. I know from my surroundings that not every child succeeds in integrating in this way. For example, some classmates do not invite the children of my acquaintances to celebrations, explaining that they would like to, but the parents hold anti-Ukrainian attitudes, ” Marina confides. She adds that she doesn’t even count how many such cakes she has given away.
I only have work and children
She did not originally plan to open her own confectionery in Ostrava. But at the same time, she wanted to start a business rather than be employed. At first, she was worried that confectionery production and recipes were too different in the Czech Republic and Ukraine. “I was afraid that I might mess something up,” admits Marina. She reveals that when she bakes her own confections, she uses ingredients intuitively.
She and her daughter have been looking for premises to open their own pastry shop in the center of Ostrava for more than half a year, and they haven’t had a day off in recent months. They work on weekdays and on weekends. “I don’t have the energy or time for friends. I only have work and children,” adds Marina, who likes the Czech Republic just like her daughter.
“I was already tired of the nine years of war. There were soldiers in the city, we heard gunshots, the shops were half empty. For the whole nine years we had evacuation luggage ready. I unpacked it last year and packed it again in a few weeks,” describes a woman whose husband remained in Ukraine. “Sometimes I cry, but then I’m strong again. I have no other choice but to wait,” she points out and doesn’t want to talk about her husband anymore. Since the beginning of the war, she and her daughter have visited him twice in Ukraine.
Has sold out before closing time
While hateful comments sometimes appear on their business’s Instagram, the offline reality is different. Families with children come to their pastry shop, local seniors also return after their first visit. People order cakes and desserts to order, and there are days when Marina is sold out even before closing time. “Some people think that my daughter and I received some subsidies for the business. But that is not the case at all. We run it with our own funds and we acquired the premises as part of the tender process of the city that owns the premises,” emphasizes Marina. In order to open the business, she also had to pass three pastry exams.
She is currently looking for another space where she and her daughter could have a larger production plant together with a confectionery. They still want to keep the existing one. “He’s kind of our baby,” they smile. “We didn’t expect that there would be such interest in our desserts. We don’t know why this is so. But customers say that they feel at home with us and that they like our desserts. We are waiting for someone to come who doesn’t eat our dessert. So far but no one has discovered one,” they laugh.
Video: There are queues for cakes from her bakery: We are still in shock, says Vavrová (January 14, 2022)
Cakes are national pride, we all know it and it’s nostalgic, we associate them with holidays at our grandmother’s, says the co-owner of Kus koláke. | Video: Martin Veselovsky