Liudmyla had to abandon her hometown of Sloviansk twice—first in 2014 and again in 2022 when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. With the war and personal hardships, she found herself at a crossroads, facing a difficult decision about her future.
An entrepreneur at heart, she knew that returning to work was essential. After a brief pause, she decided to pivot towards cooking, a field where her natural talent had always shone. When Liudmyla discovered the craft of cheese making, it became her passion. She dedicated herself to mastering the art, learning from top Ukrainian and Italian cheesemakers, and soon earned the loyalty of her customers with her exceptional products.
Her father-in-law, a goat breeder, provided her with high-quality milk, allowing Liudmyla to expand her offerings and satisfy even the most discerning palates. By early 2022, she had built a thriving business, preparing for the March 8th holiday with a large stock of soft, blue, and hard cheeses. However, as the threat of war loomed, Liudmyla, like many others, did not fully believe it would come to pass. “Although there was talk of a full-scale war, I didn’t believe it... I kept preparing for the holiday,” she recalls. But on February 24th, her worst fears were realised.
Forced to flee, she left everything behind—including her carefully prepared cheeses, which spoiled when the refrigerators lost power. “We threw it all away,” she remembers. “I asked them to distribute the soft cheeses to people, so at least they wouldn’t be wasted. There were a lot of losses.”
Initially, Liudmyla and her family sought refuge with her parents in Sviatohirsk, Donetsk Oblast, and later moved to Kharkiv Oblast. However, the sight of enemy bombers convinced them to seek a safer place. They eventually settled in Poltava oblast, where her uncle had invited them to stay.
At first, Liudmyla had no intention of resuming her business. But encouragement from a friend in Kazakhstan, who was also a cheesemaker, and a request from a customer in Kherson—who longed for “the taste of the peaceful past”—rekindled her motivation. With orders growing, Liudmyla realised she needed to scale up. For a year, she wrote grant applications while continuing to make cheese in her kitchen in a rented apartment.
Her breakthrough came when she was awarded UAH 180,000 from the Estonian Refugee Council in Ukraine, as part of the Ukrainian Response Consortium led by acted and funded by USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA). With these funds, she purchased essential equipment, including:
● A cheese-ripening refrigerator
● A cheese pickling bath
● A 50-litre cheese-making machine
“I am grateful for this support every day,” says Liudmyla. “Most of my equipment was left behind in Sloviansk, and I wouldn’t have been able to afford this on my own. This kind of assistance is vital during the war—it lifts the burden we’re forced to bear and reignites our will to live. These projects give us a second wind.”
Today, Liudmyla lives in Sokolova Balka, Poltava region, where she continues to make cheese. She has expanded her production, renting another apartment to house her equipment and converting it into her workshop. Most of her sales are conducted online through Instagram, where she continues to share her passion for craft cheese with customers across Ukraine.
