WEBVTT - Made with VTT Creator 00:05.453 --> 00:25.006 position:50% align:middle I, Kondratiuk Olha Mykolaivna, live in Yahniatyn. I am a small entrepreneur, I am a producer of craft products, I deliver cheese products to "Silpo". When the war broke out, I was supposed to make a delivery on the 22nd, 00:25.006 --> 00:41.172 position:50% align:middle and I was waiting for the truck. Perhaps I am the biggest optimist who encountered the war. We could already hear the explosions, and I was packing the products for shipment. To give you an idea, 00:41.172 --> 00:58.082 position:50% align:middle 700-800 kilograms of products is a very large amount of money for me. I called my manager and asked if there would be a delivery, if there would be a truck. He said that people are always hungry. I said that everyone was leaving. 00:58.082 --> 01:11.232 position:50% align:middle He said that everyone would not leave, someone would stay anyway. Everyone was heading west, and the truck was supposed to go west too, so the truck didn't come to me because we are located west of Kyiv. We waited one day, 01:11.232 --> 01:27.918 position:50% align:middle then the second day. On the third day, I realized that no one would come, so we started unpacking and distributing everything to the displaced people. Then they set up a military recruitment office, and there were a lot of the military. 01:27.918 --> 01:45.916 position:50% align:middle These cheese baked puddings, this cheese, brynza, butter, caramel - I was distributing everything by the boxes. At that moment, I realized that I couldn't just sit idly and wait for trouble to come. We were not allowed to switch the light on. 01:45.916 --> 02:01.071 position:50% align:middle The windows were covered. My children came to me from Kyiv. I have a large family, there are 9 of us in the house. In order to defuse the situation (my granddaughter was 7 years old at the time), I suggested to not just sit around, but do something. 02:01.071 --> 02:19.622 position:50% align:middle My two girls, my granddaughter and I started baking. To avoid falling into that nightmare, we started baking. Our guys joined the Territorial Defense Forces - the way they were called at the time. They got dressed, patrolled day and night 02:19.622 --> 02:33.032 position:50% align:middle and guarded the village. They set up checkpoints outside the village. My eldest son took a bus and began transporting people from Irpin and Kyiv who wanted to leave and did not have a car. Somehow we joined the work, 02:33.032 --> 02:48.367 position:50% align:middle and it was not so scary to endure all that. Leaving Ukraine was out of the question, no one even thought about it. My cousins left; they would come round and stay for a day or two or three. We had up to 20 people a day. We were like a transit point, 02:48.367 --> 02:59.558 position:50% align:middle because people were passing through our village from Popilnia, stopping to have some coffee, change clothes and wash up. Life was in full swing at our place. While everyone else was as quiet as a mouse, we were all working. 02:59.558 --> 03:17.526 position:50% align:middle Then I started bringing everything to the military recruitment office. We even baked the Easter cakes in order to keep ourselves busy. I don’t know if they needed those sweets, but we wanted to do something, so we wouldn't lose our mind because of all of that. 03:17.526 --> 03:33.982 position:50% align:middle That's how we worked for 2 months. Then we realized that it's easier when you're working. Then my work resumed, everything got back to normal, and I started working as a manufacturer and began supplying to “Silpo”. 03:33.982 --> 03:51.880 position:50% align:middle When our president said that we needed to plant every piece of land because there would be famine – that was the mindset we had. We planted a lot of vegetable gardens, a lot of different vegetables, as we expected that help would be needed. 03:51.880 --> 04:08.508 position:50% align:middle So, it passed, you could say, with not as much of psychological trauma. Most of all we were worried about was our granddaughter. Our position was such that helicopters were flying over our house all the time. 04:08.508 --> 04:22.361 position:50% align:middle It felt like it was going to hit our house with its wings. I was very afraid that she would get scared. We explained and told her. We went to church. By the way, we had a prayer in the morning and in the evening for our military. When it is a collective prayer, 04:22.361 --> 04:37.516 position:50% align:middle it supports life, supports the guys who are there. The child went to church with us, and we told her that this is how it happened, that's life, not all people are good and we have to live through all of this. When there was a question of leaving the country 04:37.516 --> 04:53.273 position:50% align:middle and taking the child abroad, we didn't take her out, we kept her here. We hope that everything will be fine. Our Ukraine is the best, our country is very rich and our people are very kind. At first I baked sweets, and then the team joined me 04:53.273 --> 05:12.668 position:50% align:middle and I started working with meat. I joined them when they were working at their peak, when they were slaughtering pigs, making canned meat, volunteering, in a word. I came to their assistance and baked the meat. If they slaughtered [a pig] 2 times a week, 05:12.668 --> 05:35.987 position:50% align:middle 3 times a week, then my job was to bake meat. Sometimes I bake 50 kg, sometimes 70 kg. I also gave them the idea to try drying jerky. I bought a dehydrator for making jerky. I also bought a slicing machine to make jerky. Actually, 05:35.987 --> 05:51.164 position:50% align:middle we went to their place and they kept making canned meat, while I started making jerky. I have this idea, I would like to implement it, to produce jerky. Although I am a dairy producer, I would like to produce meat products, such snacks. 05:51.164 --> 06:12.012 position:50% align:middle I also have an idea, it's in my heart, somewhere deep in my soul. I really want to make our region a tourist destination. We have a lot of craft producers who produce and sell at the market, and I faced that. We have so many exclusive producers, 06:12.012 --> 06:31.837 position:50% align:middle they just don't know their worth. If we could help them and create small locations... The way I see it, we should make a route in our area to attract tourists. We have the Balzac Museum, we have Nemyrentsi, so we should connect this path along the way. 06:31.837 --> 06:52.639 position:50% align:middle In Yahniatyn we also have a place with a Titan imprint, about 80 cm in size, a stone - a footprint. They say there's a legend here that once upon a time there were Titans, which means that our water is bad in all the wells, but it is the purest one there. 06:52.639 --> 07:08.670 position:50% align:middle I suggested that our head of the district council do a water analysis: check all the villages, and if you find good water, you don't need to go to Zakarpattia. I can't cover everything, but you can do that. If you have water, 07:08.670 --> 07:20.774 position:50% align:middle you can create a clean spring and starting from there, you can sell wicker baskets, dried viburnum, dried apples, jerky and my baked puddings. But for this, 07:20.774 --> 07:34.980 position:50% align:middle we need the authorities to be interested. If I didn't have my own business, I would develop this. At the moment, I have my own business, I work, I earn money, and I can pitch an idea like this.