Bread factory in Ukraine survives amid recovery hopes

In a bread factory embodying Ukraine’s determination and recovery 100 days after the start of the Russian invasion, dough balls roll on the assembly line and a sweet aroma fills the air.

The Tsar-Khlib factory, located near the capital Kyiv, continued production despite advancing Russian troops and fed the city’s residents despite a missile attack on a nearby facility.

Tsar-Khlib faced extreme hardship, including many of his employees being stranded in territory controlled by Russian forces, and many of his clients fleeing for safety.

“But we soon realized that we had to keep producing because there were some people left,” said Anton Paliy, 43-year-old production director. At one point the factory was less than eight kilometers from the front line until the withdrawal of Russian troops from the area at the end of March.

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Operating with only a small part of its 800 employees, the factory currently produces 16 tons of fresh bread per day compared to the normal production level of 100 tons. When the air raid sirens sounded, the workers rushed to the basement. When they returned, they found heaps of freshly mangled bread outside the oven.

According to Paliy, the sound of the machines drowned out the sounds of war in the background and made the situation “psychologically” a little more bearable.

“We did our duty”

The modern Shanta factory, just a few hundred meters away, was not so lucky. The facility was targeted by Russian missiles, which destroyed half of the building on March 16.

Olyaksandr Tarenenko, director of Khlibni Investizii, which owns both facilities, said the attack was a “war crime” as Russian forces attacked civilian infrastructure. A missile shot down by the Ukrainian air defense forces is still visible outside the building.

Rebuilding can be time-consuming and expensive, and the factory’s 140 workers, meanwhile, are unemployed. But in Tsar-Khlib, activity increases as residents of Kyiv return to the city. Tarenenko said demand was “increasing every week”.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts Ukraine’s economy will shrink 35% this year, but parts of the country are slowly recovering despite ongoing conflict in the south and east.

“Demand from consumers is increasing, connections are being reestablished” in and around Kyiv, Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko told AFP.

According to Marchenko, the return of foreign embassies was sending a signal to the public that the capital was open to trade and that residents were returning to “restart their economic activities.”

Even in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, whose surroundings are still bombarded by Russian forces, there are some signs of recovery. The popular Café Crystal in a central park reopened its doors at the end of April two months later, although the menu was limited and the staff had been reduced from 30 to 40 before the war, to seven or eight.

“We have to keep things going. The city is slowly picking up. People want to go out and have a coffee. They want to live a little after staying in bomb shelters,” said manager Alyona Kostrova.

Production at Tsar-Khlib rose to 50 tons a day, and Paliy said he was at least a little relieved to “feel useful in these difficult times.” “It’s not that I wanted a medal, but we did our job, we helped people,” he said. “And we will continue to do that.”