Sorina Kiev: Being a Restauranteur During Russo-Ukrainian War

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/01/27

*Further resource hyperlinks at the end of the interview.*

Sorina Kiev is a restauranteur in Kyiv, Ukraine. We met after a meal at one of Kiev’s restaurants, which Remus Cernea and I had during the final city visit in a multi-city ‘tourism of war’ trip through Ukraine from November 22 to December 5 in 2023. Our travels started from Chisinau airport in Moldova, then on to Odesa, Mykolaiv, almost to Kherson, back to Mykolaiv, to Dnipro, to Kharkiv, to Kyiv, and back to Chisinau before parting ways. Kiev and Cernea are friends. Remus is a prominent humanist activist and independent war correspondent with Newsweek Romania. This is a continuation of a comprehensive series on a war following in the footsteps of a similar educational series on Israel-Palestine a couple years ago through Canadian Atheist.

Here Sorina and I talk about the business side of civilian life during war. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we are here with Sorina Kiev. So, you and your husband are restauranteurs in Kyiv, Ukraine. We met in early December when I was visiting several cities for some independent journalism throughout Ukraine. So, if that’s okay, I wanted to touch on the pre-war context, the early war context, and the current context concerning living in a city and running businesses.

Sorina Kiev: Yes, we are the co-managers/co-owners, and I, together with Emine, am a co-managing partner. So, the two families are the owners, and we, with Mika and also Kemal and Rustam, are involved in managing. We are two families managing it.

Jacobsen: You have three restaurants, correct?

Kiev: Yes.

Jacobsen: Before the full invasion on February 24th, 2022, what was the context in Kyiv for basically regular civilians and business owners such as yourself?

Kiev: Overall, there was much less discussion in the media and the public about the imminent invasion. I usually follow international media and Romanian. I have a couple of online sources that I constantly check, and if in CNN or other international sources. In Romania, the discussion started around October. I think that there are lots of troops and so on. The Ukrainian media was barely reporting it. I mean, early on, there was almost nothing. Then, some vague reports came slowly, and even in January, there needed to be more reporting about that. I remember because one week before the invasion, I called a meeting with our managers to discuss our reaction, what we could do, and how we organize it so it is manageable. Everybody was sort of looking at me a bit, wondering what the point of such a meeting was.

We said, “You go in the basement,” “You take some reserves quickly…” etc. So, we made a scenario of extreme cases which afterwards occurred. Also, I took a photo on my phone because PrivatBank appeared to have some sort of a ‘what to do in emergencies,’ I thought it was pretty cool, and I thought we would also work with it. So, there was some sort of preparation, but it was minimal.

Jacobsen: And from that first day of the invasion on February 24th to when the Russian front line, as you told me over the lovely restaurant dinner with remus, which was 5 km from Kyiv, which is within artillery fire. What was the context there for mobilizing as a civilian to just provide food and a sort of safe house in some ways for other civilians?

Kiev: A small correction, 5 kilometres is from where we left, which is at the outskirts of the town. To the restaurant, it’s more like 20 up to 23 kilometres. So, not that it’s a big difference, but it’s slightly further. The question again, please?

Jacobsen: Sure. As you told me, basically, everything in terms of food production, going down into the basement, keeping some staff, some accidentally having to stay and being very helpful, and then I believe people are staying and sleeping in the restaurant. So, this is sort of providing temporary housing as well as food; I don’t know if it was 24/7, but food and beds for free for civilians, these sort of humanitarian efforts on the part of just a regular co-owner of restaurants.

Kiev: Well, indeed. At the time, a minimum of 10 workers lived in our restaurant. So, we organized the sleep in the basement. We have a hall and part of our kitchen in the basement. So, they were using these parts, which are their basement. Initially, some people were trapped because they couldn’t get out of Kyiv and were living in all three restaurants. There were two restaurants in this location where we met, so we closed the other two, and we were just periodically replenishing whatever was finishing at the one where they were staying. There were constantly around ten people who were working to provide food for voluntaries, for the army, for the police, for Teroborona, for people in the Metro because there is a Metro exit right next to the restaurant. Some 100 metres away and staying with them since the first day. People simply stayed there because everything was so scary and closed. So, there was no possibility of buying anything. They started taking sandwiches to people. I mean, everybody was doing that; it’s not like we were the only ones.

One of our sous chefs was there, and then he started organizing and producing food for volunteers; they were the main carriers.

Jacobsen: And personally, for yourself, how did you feel during that period?

Kiev: So, we escaped with Emine. Kemal and Rustem, they came back. So, the four of us travelled westwards towards Czernowitz. Then, after we arrived at Czernowitz, we stayed the night, and then Rustem and Kemal returned to Kyiv by train. So, basically, on the 26th, they were back. They spent one night at the house, then the next night, they took their things and moved into the restaurant.

Jacobsen: As this period developed, when the Russians were 23 km from the restaurant and 5 km from your home, how long did this period last before the Russians, the front lines, started to get pushed back sufficiently where people started to feel at least marginally safer?

Kiev: We can check the exact dates, but it’s the end of March. It was for one month. We opened very early when it was more or less safe because many people were coming and asking; mostly, they were the soldiers and the Tero. I mean, everything was improvised, so they didn’t have proper kitchens, and they didn’t have proper places to stay. So, everybody was living in some sort of temporary whatever, so it was very difficult. I remember Kemal trying hard to open up so that people could feel that everything was okay. I can search and see; I will send you some photos because they sent us the photos, we were full from the first day. Maybe another one or two places were also open, but nothing. So, everything was closed. So, it got full quickly because everybody was in touch with everybody, and it was very quick for the news to spread that there was something open, and then many people came. The only time when we cooked Ukrainian borshch [Laughs].

Jacobsen: [Laughs] For those, this is a parenthetical statement for everyone. My lovely colleague, Remus Cernia from Romania, planned a trip for me as a Canadian and a much younger journalist, going through all these cities in Ukraine together. This was his idea and pitch, and I had the gumption to go through this plan of his, which was a fabulous one, and I’m eternally grateful to him for it. He was constantly pumping up this borscht at Sorina’s restaurant, so he kept asking the poor waitress about borscht when he got there. And it must have been a slight misunderstanding, and she said, “Oh yeah, I know him,” And then he’s like, “So, what kind of borscht do you have? She’s like, “We don’t have borscht,” so she gave some close substitutes. So, this is the whole thing and, thus, the humorous commentary from Sorina.

When you’re sort of managing staff in that war context, not just the sort of the feeling for yourself, sort of younger people that are working for you; how do you keep the morale together when they’re working around the clock, they’re living in temporary housing and they don’t know what the outcome early stage of the war is going to be at that point, whether the Russians going to be pushing further into the city or if they’re going to be capture/ killed or if the Russians are going to be pushed back so they can have a sense of more safety?

Kiev: There are lots of things to talk about here. Our major contact hub was one of our managers. Usually, he’s on the spot with everybody, with the audience, with the guests, with some of the institutions. He even organized the evacuation of some families from Irpin, which was really like on the verge of being under occupation, because they waited and waited. At some point, some bomb fell in front of the block, and they decided to eventually leave, but already no car was driving in Irpin. There, he is talked to somebody from Teroborona, with whom they were working. I mean, Teroborona was doing a lot of stuff, so they were also helping volunteers to move from here to there and to deliver, and so he got to Teroborona, and then they went with two cars because it was a big family. Then they evacuated them literally under fire.

So, many stories of people getting trapped here and there and staying with the family wanting to come. That’s why they needed to keep working: we could reorganize the team faster than elsewhere. Even now, it was really like the coagulating event because we have three places where people work. Before, there were people who wouldn’t know other people from other restaurants, right? But like this, they worked together and got into this extreme solidarity in Kyiv. We were trying to help everybody. Many people got trapped here and there were these evacuation lines, and people who work in the restaurant put them in contact. I mean, there is still a big group of people in Germany who are working together. There were two weddings in Germany. Now, soon, there will be a baptism. So, it’s a lot of stories and a lot of not-so-happy stories.

The fact that people were able to communicate and have these private channels, it’s like when certain people spread out everybody went home to relatives, to friends, and to wherever they thought it’s safer and then via communicating you sort of figure out what is going on there, what is going on here and at this time it’s easier to believe what your friends are telling you than what it’s written in the media or other public reports because that is already tricky.

Jacobsen: Did you happen to lose anyone who worked for you to the war?

Kiev: Yeah, unfortunately, we did. We have one who passed away during a car crash. So, there was a horrible car crash with a bus which was hit by a car and then hit a gas benzene system like a transporter, and then it caught fire, and there were lots of people. She was trying to go to Poland. That was sort of, I think, in April or May.

Jacobsen: And then was out of 2022 or 2023?

Kiev: 2022, and then we have another former hostess who got killed in the bombing in Kramatorsk. She was working there, and they bombed the pizza place, and she was walking there.

Jacobsen: And how did the other staff and yourself, the other owners, react to hearing that news, if they heard it? I assume they did.

Kiev: We heard it because it’s basically via social media. The first waiter died in the car crash; it was really painful because her mother was also working with us, and she was working for a long time with us, and she was like 22.

Jacobsen: Oh! I mean, her life just started.

Kiev: Her boyfriend was also working with us. It’s completely devastating. It’s the sort of life now for Ukraine. Everybody has somebody on the front.

Jacobsen: When I arrived in Chisinau, Remus and I went from Chisinau airport to Odesa and Mykolaiv. We got very close to Kherson, but at one of the last checkpoints of the last checkpoints, we were turned around and went back to Mykolaiv. Then we went to Dnipro, Kharkiv, and then to Kyiv and then back to Chisinau, and in each city, anyone I talked to, as you noted, either had lost someone or had someone actively in the front. It is such a common story, and people don’t know the context of what Ukrainians live under right now. Unless, they go there because there are subtle aspects of curfews: 12:00 p.m. till 5:00 a.m. in many cities. There are air raid alarms pretty much every day in every city we went to, a lot of the time in the early morning. So, the idea of just a regular schedule, let alone regular sleep, are ways the public is, and I do mean the civilians, being terrorized by this war whether missile attacks or drone attacks constantly. When we were there, I believe the largest drone attack was struck on Ukraine with 75 drones or something to that point in the war; this was between November 22nd and December 5th.

So, what are some common themes or aspects of life for people living under war even when the front line is not necessarily close anymore? I don’t think people realize the pressure is just for regular civilians.

Kiev: So, it’s human nature that you try to cope and move on; it’s common sense. Step by step, you go on. It takes quite an effort for everything to work because it’s not easy. Initially, there were problems with the gas and supply and incoming whatever products were needed for living. Now, everything is settled. All economic, political, and social life cycles are insured with everything they need to work, but all these interruptions are extremely disturbing. I remember the worst was May 2023, when every night of that month we had from 1, 2, and 3 a.m. until early morning, 6-7 a.m., the air raid alarms. It was horrible. I mean, hearing bombings and anti-air artillery, it was tough, and you could see everybody that it’s very tiring and it’s very difficult to go on like this. On the other hand, it was morally supporting people, the fact that especially in Kyiv, there was a very high rate of air defence success that was preventing the bombs from reaching their targets, which was very good. But overall, I think people’s health is taking the whole weight of the trouble. Now, we have one of our colleagues with a heart attack. Even though, she had a very difficult operation, they are putting her out of the hospital because there is no place.

So, they are so overloaded that even in pretty difficult cases, they have to send people home because they don’t have enough places, and it’s not epidemic. It’s simply heart disease. So, this is all basically based on stress. You won’t see it because everybody’s trying to keep up a happy and smiley face, but I think the people take the toll in really weird ways with heart problems and other insults. They are very common now. Also, the incidence of cancer is very high here. Overall, the stress is putting everybody in the most extreme conditions.

Jacobsen: When I was travelling to each of these cities with Remus, I am not a clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist; however, as far as I could tell, several people had clear signs of PTSD, to your point. And I think sleep deprivation as well is also a factor in heart disease, cancer risk, and so on. And with these air raid alarms, I don’t think people understand. Every night, from 2 a.m. to 3:00 a.m., we walk to our next bus to go to the next city with the trip at 9:50 a.m. in one city and at 9:30 a.m. we hear the air raid alarm and then maybe only a couple kilometres away, all we hear is Boom Boom, and people were like, “Oh, okay” and then just started continuing to walk nonchalantly, casually. We went “Okay,” we walked to the next bus, waited for the bus, took the bus, went on our way to the next city and then started that routine again.

You would be more intimately aware of this. The Russians are targeting civilian infrastructure, fine art museums, cathedrals, UNESCO sites, residential buildings, administrative buildings, schools, and so on, without any military targets around at all. So, I would assume as civilians, this is even more impactful in terms of hearing those air raid alarms in the sense of constant lack of safety is a feeling.

Kiev: Yeah, I think you just adapt. For instance, there are nights when you stop hearing the air raid alarm, continue sleeping, and stop reacting so strongly, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect you. Kids are also quite funny; I remember in the middle of the year, the main teacher of my youngest son, who is in the sixth grade, was writing a really angry letter to a group of parents. She wrote there, “I can’t believe these kids. When there is an air raid alarm, they start applauding!” Of course, I mean, kids are kids. They will always be happy because they don’t have class. It’s kids; what do you expect? As always, people have some sort of mechanism that protects them, and they adapt, and that’s what we try to do.

I think a major thing is Zelensky’s role; he took very seriously mobilizing, supporting, and showing the right way. So, all this democratic speech and caring about everybody, about each and everyone, about men, women, and kids, I wouldn’t have expected, and it was one thing that made the difference. Even now, he keeps giving a speech every evening. I don’t think it’s easy, I think it’s very difficult, but it is important because it addresses today’s problems, and making it every day keeps you going. It was at the beginning, and it’s even now. I think there are lots of people who are still following his speeches.

Jacobsen: What are the typical contents of those daily speeches?

Kiev: He speaks about what happened today: I did this, I did that, we need to do this, we need to do that, etc. It’s very down to earth and communicates the main points you must discuss. There are a lot of people saying a lot of stuff, but I think without that, Ukraine and Ukrainians wouldn’t have managed the way they did. Now, I think there is a really strong attack on all the public features in Ukraine, and I think this is also some sort of Russian attempt to break up the morale and the support of the leaders in Ukraine. I mean, it feels like it starts a really difficult time. Hopefully, it will not be that difficult.

Jacobsen: You mentioned paying attention to the international media, including CNN. Is that common among many Ukrainians, or is it more uncommon? Are people too focused on survival at the moment?

Kiev: No, I don’t know. At least 10% of your available time is spent on searching the news, that’s for sure. Everybody learned that the more varied your sources, the more chances you have of getting the right information or the closest to reality, truth. There are lots of people who are checking Ukrainian and some other sources. Some groups are like local or more interest-oriented groups that provide information. Many people, for instance, check the city hall groups, Telegram, or Instagram. I think people pay much more attention to institutions because now they’re the only credible sources of information available.

Jacobsen: What do the international media, on a theme base, tend to get wrong and tend to get right about the facts of the war?

Kiev: Oh, I think certain interpretations are not in place. I mean, there is a way of showing news in Ukraine and telling it, like on the one hand is Ukrainians who say this, and on the other hand is the Russians who say this, but you can’t make it as if it’s equally true or equally guilty parts. There is no equality there. There is one party that attacks and another party that defends. I mean, there cannot be equality in any way.

Jacobsen: I agree with you. I’ve gone over the central documents of the United Nations around the time of the full-scale invasion, including one of the first letters written by the Ambassador from the United Nations, the permanent Ambassador to Ukraine. There were votes on these resolutions condemning the war. They are specifying a condemnation of Russian aggression against Ukraine, demanding the withdrawal of the troops, etc. The vote was overwhelmingly against the Russian aggression against Ukraine. So, it’s framed as Russian aggression against Ukraine, not the reverse, and the overwhelming majority of the member states of the United Nations, in my review of the documents, are against that aggression and so voted for resolutions condemning the actions of the Russian Federation under President Vladimir Putin. So, certainly, I agree.

So, any framing against that would not be in proportion to the evidence of that voting record at the United Nations. So, the majority of the world agrees with the Ukrainian perspective of Russian aggression because it fits the facts.

Kiev: Yes, but all the time you have the news that Russians attacked and bombed, blah blah blah and then it comes, “Yes, but the Ukrainians also did this.” The underlying message that the news gives is that they are not saying that Ukrainians are guilty or anything, but the way the news is generally presented shows that there will be equal participation in the conflict or something like that. For instance, there was a very cool response to the question, “Let’s negotiate the peace.” It’s like, “What negotiations? Just leave, and there will be no war.” I mean, what to negotiate?

Jacobsen: So, you’re pointing to a problem in media generally of not necessarily a false equivalency but a sense of trying to provide balance in contexts where the style of balance is disproportionate to the evidence where you need to present more than one side; however you don’t need to provide a 50/50 balancing of that equation. You have to make it proportional to the evidence where there might be a couple of crimes and human rights abuses. However, the vast majority are on one side versus the other, especially when in a defensive position rather than an aggressor position.

Kiev: Yeah.

Jacobsen: I just want to be mindful of your time because you did say 1 hour, and it’s past 1:00 now, your time.

Kiev: Yeah, I’m leaving for my house for the winter holidays, and somehow everything is gathered, and it’s really difficult now to organize everything. If you have more questions, I could also answer them in writing, which will be less constraining regarding meeting and being online. Maybe afterwards we can talk.

Jacobsen: Certainly. So, let me say thank you very much for your time today. I know you’re busy, in the middle of a war and the middle of a holiday season coming up. So, I appreciate you taking the time for this interview today.

Kiev: At night, they threw maybe ten drones again, and I couldn’t fall asleep until almost 2:00 a.m. when the air raid alarm was over.

Jacobsen: I believe you; I mean, the entire time Remus and I were travelling, I was constantly sleep deprived, not simply because we travelled every day and a half to two days to new cities but also because of the air raid alarms. I wasn’t used to that. Even when returning to Canada, a safe country, when I hear certain things at the horse farm where I work, I recall the air raid alarms, or I might miss seeing something, and I think it’s a Ukrainian soldier because those memories stick. I’m glad I went, but I sympathize and agree after experiencing that firsthand because you don’t know. You don’t know unless you’ve experienced it, and that’s life for you right now, too; that’s the other thing.

Kiev: Yeah, hopefully, it will be over sooner than later.

Jacobsen: I agree.

Kiev: Okay, let’s stay in touch. I hope I was at least a little bit helpful.

Jacobsen: You were very helpful. Civilian perspective is very important in this. Thank you very much, Sorina.

—

Further Internal Resources (Chronological, yyyy/mm/dd):

Humanist

Humanists International, Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the United Nations (2024/01/08)

Personal

The Long Happenstance of Iceland and Copenhagen (2023/12/09)

Romanian

Remus Cernea on Independent War Correspondence in Ukraine (2023/08/25)

Ukrainian

Ms. Oleksandra Romantsova on Ukraine and Putin (2023/09/01)

Oleksandra Romantsova on Prigozhin and Amnesty International (2023/12/03)

Dr. Roman Nekoliak on International Human Rights and Ukraine (2023/12/23)

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