I gave birth in a bomb shelter, now I run my dream business

Yahoo

24-02-2025

Maryna Korolova was nine months pregnant when the war in Ukraine began.
She gave birth to her daughter Emmanuelle in a bomb shelter as she, her husband and two young sons fled the capital, Kyiv, in 2022.
They arrived in Wales with nothing but their most basic belongings, having left behind their home and a construction business.
But now the family runs a cafe on the high street of Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, and said the people of the town were largely behind its success.
"The [local community] hugged us, cried with us, prayed with us - we feel welcome here," said Maryna.
She is one of three Ukrainians, all now running businesses in Wales, who have spoken to BBC News on the three-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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Maryna previously also fled her hometown of Donetsk in 2014 following unrest in the Donbas region.
"I know how to survive and I know what it is to start life again," Maryna told BBC Cymru Fyw.
After arriving in Wales, Maryna's husband Vadym decided they should try to start a new business.
Maryna did not believe it was possible, but her husband's optimism encouraged her to persevere.
"My husband said, 'we have to try, we must to try for our children'," she said.
With just £40 to buy a small juicer, they initially opened an orange juice stall in the Abergavenny Market Hall in January 2023.
Maryna and Vadym began travelling across Wales to sell their juices, taking part in the Royal Welsh Show, Hay Festival and the Abergavenny Food Festival.
In June 2024, they opened their own cafe, Squeezing, on Abergavenny's High Street.
Maryna said much of the success of their business was down to the support of the local community.
"We have so many friends in Abergavenny - they love us and support us," she said.
"I will be forever grateful to them."
Yaroslav and Oksana Izviekov also fled Ukraine and arrived in Wales with their three children in June 2022.
The couple ran their own coffee stand in Ukraine and had just begun renovating their first ever coffee shop when the war began.
"Our dream was to have a real coffee shop, but we had to leave everything behind," Yaroslav said.
The family lived in a hotel for seven months before finding a house of their own.
They then decided to pursue their dream of opening their own coffee shop once again.
The couple spent months looking for the right building, completing the renovations themselves and learning how to run a business in Wales.
"It was very difficult to open a business in a country when you don't know anything about the rules and laws," he said.
Two years later, their dream became a reality when they opened their cafe Zerno on Wrexham High Street in September 2024.
"My biggest fear was that no-one would show up... but we've had so much support from the community," Yaroslav said.
"We now have regulars, people we see every day."
Someone Yaroslav hopes will become a regular visitor is Wrexham AFC owner Ryan Reynolds.
The Hollywood actor visited Zerno while filming Welcome to Wrexham.
The experience, according to Yarolsav, was "unforgettable" and "amazing".
"We were full of admiration and so excited to see him."
Yaroslav said Reynolds was "very easy to talk to" as they shared a coffee and talked about his home in Ukraine.
Volodymyr Pavliichuk opened his restaurant Ruta Kitchen in Neath on 31 January with his close friends Volodymyr Ivliev and Ihor Tertyshnyi.
The Ukrainan-born businessman has lived in Wales with his family for the past five years, but his two business partners fled the war in Ukraine with their families.
He said their business was not intended to make a profit, but instead to create an escape for Ukrainian people in the local area of Neath.
"We [also] wanted a place to be an ambassador of our culture to the local people," he said.
"We provide jobs for refugees from Ukraine who cannot speak English and therefore cannot find jobs anywhere else."
Volodymyr said he believed the most important thing was that Welsh and Ukrainian people could come together to socialise and share their cultures together.
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