ENGUkrainian war hero founded our business. We keep it going after he was killed at the frontline

Dmytro Pashchuk was killed in Kherson Oblast; his friend opened a café in Lviv. Ivan Prybylo joined Ukraine’s territorial defense forces alongside his son when Russia’s full-scale invasion started; his daughter-in-law is cultivating snails – a dream he didn’t have time to fulfill. Yurii Olefirenko’s daughter is working on the farm her dad dreamed of starting in retirement, which he never reached: he was killed in 2015 while trying to save his brothers-in-arms. The Village Ukraine shares the stories of three fallen soldiers and their families whose work now is bringing their dreams and ideas to life.

 

 Garden Republic

Viktoriia Hnivushevska is Dmytro Pashchuk’s friend. After he was killed on 12 March 2023 in Kherson Oblast, Viktoriia opened Garden Republic (Respublika Sadu in Ukrainian), a café in Lviv. Dmytro had plans to open a café since before the full-scale invasion, and the opening date was set to be March 2022 – but it didn’t open its doors until May 2023. Before the full-scale invasion, Dmytro had served in the French Legion (hence his call-sign, Frantsuz, the French one) and had launched a wine bar, Port, a café, Papi, and No Name Gallery in Lviv.

 

Dmytro loved people; he was very giving and always prepared to help others. If anyone in his team had difficulties, Dmytro would put everything else aside and do everything to help them. He was generous, open, full of light, very funny – even a bit crazy sometimes, especially when it came to parties that involved the wine he served at his wine bar Port. 

He loved the village he came from (Hlivchany, Lviv Oblast) and had something homey about him, he loved having people over. Since his death, we’ve often visited his grave and celebrated holidays with his parents. I feel so sad, because I know how happy he would have been if these big groups of friends could visit him while he was alive. It would have been a real treat for him.

Romko Lozynskyi, Dmytro’s brother-in-arms and a people’s deputy, said Dmytro was always cheerful and lively, not at all focused on training. He was always a mess. But during combat engagements, Dmytro would pull himself together, focus, and undertake his duties with great care and precision.

He never talked much about serving in the French Legion. Maybe he shared that with a small circle of friends, which I wasn’t always included in. He never spoke of war lightly; I think it was a painful experience for him. War is not what he wanted to do. But last time he was in Lviv, Dmytro dug out his old laptop and showed me pictures from his time in the French Legion, which he hadn’t shared before. That was the only time we talked about it.

The major factor in the success of his business was his belief that everything would work out, and his faith in other people. When everyone else said, “No, that’s impossible, let’s come up with something more pragmatic,” Dmytro never abandoned his idea, and everything always worked out in the end. That’s what he was told when he decided to open a tyre fitting shop, but he believed he’d be able to offer a top tyre service. The shop never opened its doors, but his friends still laugh about it.

 

 

Port was a bar Dmytro created to have a place to gather all his friends. Port is all about how Dmytro was at the time when he created it. Garden Republic is a manifestation of his more mature self, though that’s my own interpretation, that’s how I see it.

I first found out about Garden Republic when I was invited to paint murals there in September 2023. I owned a small business then, but didn’t have a stable income. When I started, it turned out we had to make a special plaster that had to be applied in a special way. My boyfriend and I were trying to figure out how to do it together. Coincidentally, my boyfriend’s name is also Dmytro. Pashchuk liked to gather Dmytros around him; another Dmytro was in charge of  renovation and interior design.

We ended up spending two weeks on those walls, and somehow over the course of that time Dmytro convinced me to become his communications manager. At first I resisted, mostly because of his creative energy – I’m the opposite, I like when things are clear and well-defined. I knew I’d have to keep Dmytro organized. Eventually I decided to try though.

Once I’d developed a brand strategy, I didn’t have much communication work to do, so I started helping with other things: things like plants and curtains. Dmytro started introducing me to his friends.

After one of my meetings with Dmytro, he had a meeting with another friend of his – I stayed behind and we all talked. We were talking about how much we needed a manager to see the Garden Republic’s opening through. At some point Dmytro’s friend looked at me and said: “Why can’t she do it?” But I had no experience in the restaurant business – I’ve only ever worked as a server, and then only for six months. We all laughed and forgot about it. That evening, I got a text from Dmytro: he said I knew everything about the business, that he’d help me open it, and that I’d definitely manage. Dmytro always had a lot of faith in other people – sometimes too much, sometimes it bordered on naivety. His greatest business talent was finding the right people and inspiring them.

 

 

I thought about it for a long time. We had several more meetings to discuss both his and my expectations, his vision for the café team. Eventually we decided that we’d find someone who could teach me and open the café with me. We found one guy, but when he sent us his employment documents, they were totally unprofessional.

That’s what my last email thread with Dmytro was about. I told him we should look for someone else, and he agreed. He promised to get in touch with an old acquaintance, but he never got around to it. We spoke on a Friday, and Dmytro was killed on Sunday, March 12.

After Dmytro’s death I realized that whether or not Garden Republic would ever open its door depended entirely on me. Dmytro’s friends and relatives were wrecked by the funeral and the nine-day wake. But everyone knew Garden Republic had to open, because he wanted it and had done a lot to make it happen – we couldn’t just forget about it.

Some of his closest friends and family and I contributed the money needed for the opening. Dmytro had some savings, but no one knew where he held them, so we were working on a shoestring budget. I started meeting some of Dmytro’s friends I hadn’t known before; they helped me hire staff and otherwise navigate the process of opening a café. It was a high-speed sprint, lots of things weren’t ready yet, but we couldn’t delay the opening any longer. The longer you wait, the less money you have left: we had to either do it right then, or never. But I’d never have succeeded if it wasn’t for the people who supported me at the time.

Many people spoke during the evening honoring Dmytro’s memory, after his funeral. I said I was sad that Dmytro wouldn’t be able to share in our joy, that I wouldn’t be able to share our success with him. We opened Garden Republic two months after he was killed, in May 2023.

 

 

Traces of Dmytro in Garden Republic

Dmytro wanted to create a space where you would be comfortable and that you’d want to keep coming back to. We wanted it to be a city café, that was the concept, but for some reason Dmytro wasn’t sure whether he wanted to highlight that label, “city café”, on the sign for example. I don’t know what exactly he was so worried about, but we did end up including “city café” on the sign.

Dmytro really cared about social responsibility, or maybe just business responsibility – so we’re trying to live up to his values. Each month, we use the proceeds from some of the dishes to fundraise for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Our customers can also donate by following a link on our menus.

Dmytro used to have three or four days of leave every couple of months. It’s difficult to run a business and serve in the armed forces. During each of his visits, Dmytro had to find time to tend to his businesses, but also visit his parents who live way outside the city, spend time with his girlfriend Hannusia, and handle stuff around drones, training, and paperwork.

He’d always bring old dishware, almost Soviet-style, to Garden Republic; he’d look for them in some grandmas’ houses. There were stacks and stacks of filthy dishes, wrapped in film and stacked on pallets. I tried to convince him that clay plates would be nicer, that they’re trendy, but we always put off the decision. After Dmytro’s death I decided we had to use the plates he’d chosen. Of course we’re not using all of them, but they seem to fit really well with the café.

I used to really want to get rid of the Orliatko (“Little Eagle” in Ukrainian) kids’ summer camp poster [that Dmytro had framed]; it didn’t really fit with the concept of the café. Dmytro saw the poster during his first military training session, which was held at the former summer camp. He really wanted to take the poster, but his commander wouldn’t let him. The camp was later destroyed in Russian attacks, but about six months later Dmytro received the Orliatko poster in the post. He was over the moon. It was a funny poster, drawn in colored pencils, and Dmytro droned on and on about how we needed to frame it. He never relented. Now our customers ask us whether we hold kids’ camps when they see the poster.

Dmytro managed to achieve a lot. Unfortunately, he wasn’t involved in hiring the staff, he wasn’t able to attend to every detail before the opening, but he did manage to outline the café’s mission and vision, which is what’s holding it all together today, and to introduce me to everyone [whose help I needed].

 

 

Garden Republic today

I like that Garden Republic doesn’t stand still. It’s filled with people and it’s taken on a life of its own. When I was working on brand identity for the café, I asked Dmytro to describe Garden Republic as if it was a person. He said it would definitely be an adult, independent, and very free woman. He spoke so beautifully about it.

It was difficult to come into the café and see Dmytro’s photos after the memorial evening; the photos were up for a couple months after his death – a lot of them, maybe around 300. It was another reminder that Dmytro was dead. People would come in and become immersed in his life. But once we started hosting exhibitions in the café, we had to take down or move most of his photos. I had to choose only 55 of those 300 pictures to keep in the café.

Many people seem to think that Garden Republic is a church café, because our premises are located on church grounds. Dmytro loved attending service at the St Michael Church. The monks have a workshop where they restore wooden items. That’s probably how Dmytro met them and found the premises. The monks sometimes come in to have a beer at the café.

I really like how the café is a bit hidden, there aren’t as many people as in the city center, though we still have a lot of customers. The sunsets here are so beautiful. I remember one summer I was sitting on the terrace. I could hear the service in the church, there was greenery all around me, and I felt real peace and serenity, as if I was by the sea somewhere: a light breeze, none of that city dust.

Garden Republic is a place for friends to bring their friends to. Our team is quite big, around 20 people, and we outsource some roles. They’re from a bunch of different Ukrainian cities, like Kharkiv and Kryvyi Rih. In September it was a year since I’d joined the café team, but I hardly feel the passage of time because of the constant flow of things. I never anticipated I’d be doing this, but Dmytro turned my life upside down.

There’s another dream of Dmytro’s I want to make happen. There’s a hotel above Garden Republic, and Dmytro wanted to always have a room there reserved for Garden Republic, so that anyone serving in the military could spend a night there free of charge at any time. Dmytro knew the work those people are doing, and he wanted to make sure they always had a place and people to come back to from the front. He said soldiers could sleep in the hotel and eat at the café.

Once a soldier came to the café during the first rotation he’d had since starting service. He liked the atmosphere of the café so much he started crying from joy. I was on my way to work when I read his review, and also burst out crying.

After Dmytro’s death, I got together with his friends, and we divided up all of Dmytro’s ideas that he didn’t have time to bring to life. Little by little, we’ll work on all of those projects, so that Dmytro’s vision and ideas can live on. He wanted to set up a rehabilitation center in the village of Tukhlia, and to plant nut trees by a lake where people could go kayaking.

 

 

My father-in-law did a lot of business in Skhidnytsia. He was one of the first people to start building homes here. In 1998 he also started building a hotel. He studied to be a vet, but his vocation was as a builder. He loved construction work.

He was a great person. All of his friends and acquaintances mourned his death at his funeral. He never said no to anyone, whether they wanted to borrow money from him or asked him to use his tractor to pull someone out of a snowdrift – these things happen in the mountains. He would rather sacrifice his own interests than not help someone else.

When the full-scale war started, we drove to a gas station, filled up every canister and container we had, packed our backpacks and warm clothes. [Ivan] and his younger son went straight to a military enlistment office. He was very worried about his son, they used to work together and spend a lot of time with each other.

He was 55, and he had issues with his sight. He served as a driver in the Soviet army. [Ivan’s wife Svitlana] asked him: “What are you going to do there?” And he’d reply: “Do you want [Russian forces] to get all the way here?” At that point it was unclear where the front would be. Again, he just couldn’t not help.

Not everyone understood his decision; some thought he joined the army because of the money. But it wasn’t until a few weeks after he started that he called his wife and said: “[Svitlana], send me [my] debit card number, turns out they’re going to pay me a salary.”

He had a NATO-standard first-aid kit, as did half of his division: I bought as many as I could (early on, you had to wait for 10 days for your mail to be delivered). Dad had decent, good boots and an armored vest.

He was an intelligence officer. His positions were on the bank of the Siverskyi Donets river to prevent the Russians from crossing it. He never took leave, even though he could have. He said others needed it more: someone’s wife was pregnant, others had to harvest hay for their cattle. He saw them as his children, his call-sign was Batia [“Dad” in Ukrainian]. He’d swap his shifts with others, skip several nights of sleep in a row, and help build fortifications. During his funeral, his brothers-in-arms said there are a lot of people who know how to dig trenches in theory, but few in practice, like father-in-law did.

 

 

My father-in-law’s friend from his university days has been in the snail business for about seven years. He now has the biggest farm in Ukraine. Father-in-law would often visit him, they’d prepare snails together, and then he’d bring bags of them home and study them. None of us liked snails, we didn’t want anything to do with them. But my father-in-law dreamed that we’d cultivate them and sell them to restaurants – we’re a resort region.

We kept putting it off for two years, but with the beginning of the full-scale war we wanted to do something he’d be proud of, something we could stay in touch with him about. First we opened a shelter for internally displaced people. My father-in-law helped us at every stage of the process; he built almost everything with his own hands.

Then we decide to cultivate snails. We owned 5,000 square meters of land in the next village over, just 17 kilometers away from Skhidnytsia. We didn’t invest a lot of money, we were just curious whether we could raise snails in the mountains (the farm in Rava-Ruska, our collaborators, has a bit of a warmer climate). Many farms were not working because the men had been called up.

We had no experience, so we were too late placing them outside. They didn’t quite grow enough. [Young snails are first hatched and placed in a field with a special type of grass, then they’re moved to special outdoor pens to mature.]

Internally displaced people who were living with us free of charge got involved with the farm, too. Generally you don’t need more than one person to look after a snail farm during the growing season, but we wanted to get them involved so they could feel part of a wider social mission. One person, a teacher, brought her students for a visit to the farm: we let them feed the snails, they were delighted. Afterwards, we started to organize occasional farm tours.

 

 

My Viber chat with my father-in-law is full of “Look at the irrigation system we created” and “Look at this beautiful snail.” We also sent him funny, action-film-like videos of snails opening their mouths, stuff like that. This gave him strength to carry on; he found our ideas life-sustaining. He didn’t always have phone service so sometimes he’d climb on top of a building to get a connection. We were worried a sniper might take him out.

My mother-in-law was also obsessed with our snails, she always wanted to take pictures of them. She was subconsciously afraid of hearing news about the war. Psychologically, she wanted to keep the war away: what happened at war had to stay there. We only talked about it when my father-in-law needed a warm sleeping bag or when we sent them packages.

My father-in-law was brought back here on October 1, 2022. He died in an intensive care unit on October 10. It’s horrible, seeing someone you love in a refrigerator. He was buried on October 15. We had to harvest the snails on the 17th, because the first frost was forecast for the 18th. All 40 people who attended the funeral came to help us. We were gathering the snails and crying. When the temperature gets below 5ºC, snails burrow underground, so you have to dig them out, like potatoes.

You feel like you can’t get out of bed, but you also can’t not do it. If we missed that season, we’d have lost four months of work – my father-in-law would’ve said that was wrong. The work helped us: we were spending time with other people, even if we were all crying, bent over those snail pens. Now I know that 7.5 tonnes of snails is an amazing achievement for first-timers.

 

 

During the first few months of the full-scale war, all legal work was suspended. No cases were scheduled in court, so my work as a lawyer was suspended too. Later, when things resumed again, I realized I was finding it emotionally difficult to deal with family cases. Parents would sue their kids for apartments and women would sue their ex husbands for alimony – at a time when many women would sacrifice a lot to have their partner near them. I felt a real dissonance, I couldn’t grasp the meaning of it all. Now I work on cases that I’m interested in and with businesses, and I’m also writing a PhD thesis on administrative cases. We also have a small restaurant and now the farm.

Ukraine is the third biggest snail exporter in the world, after Morocco and Poland. You would struggle to find another agribusiness that had grown by 60% after Coronavirus. Ukrainian snails taste really good, because we feed them Ukrainian feed, though there are of course logistical issues. [At the time of the interview on December 11, 2023 a shipment of snails was stuck at the Ukrainian-Polish border due to Polish protests; the snails were on their way to Spain.]

Europe’s largest snail farm used to be located in Kharkiv Oblast, but it was destroyed in Russian attacks. There was a processing plant there where they extracted mucin and used it to make cosmetics. We also met a woman who had a snail farm in Mykolaiv Oblast. She was selling snail-based products at cost just so she could keep paying her staff, but we weren’t able to get them out of the frontline area.

The peculiar thing about cultivating snails is you can introduce snails to the farm and then forget about them for a month. It takes four hours to feed them. The man we hired to do it would end up walking 10 kilometers while doing it!

We had €10,000 invested in the farm in 2022, though people told us we’d need at least €20,000. We got around €13,000 from sales and even made a small profit.

We applied for an agriculture grant from the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation and the MHP-Gromadi charitable foundation two hours before the deadline. We emphasized the agritourism potential and exports to a lesser degree. 

People looking to open a snail farm in Odesa also applied for the grant. There were a total of 120 or 130 applications, 30 were selected to present their projects live on a video call. I couldn’t share my screen for some reason so I just had to explain how beautiful it is in the Carpathians and what stunning views the farm boasts due to its hilltop location. Despite all this, our farm was one of the 10 winners.

The application process was difficult: we had to put together lots of documents that all had to be authorized, then printed, scanned, and stamped with an electronic signature. Though that’s understandable – this is state money after all. You can’t advance to the next stage until you complete all reports concerning the current one.

We were able to secure 1.48 million hryvnias (approximately US$38,878). We used the money to expand the farm and purchase equipment. We also want to buy a small tractor to help with harvesting the snails (it’s difficult to do it by hand because snail pens are heavy even without the snails, and can weigh up to 5-6 kilograms with the snails attached). We also started to build a gazebo overlooking the mountains and planting a park where people could spend time. We’re hoping to convert an old khata on the grounds into a small museum and a place where people could spend the night.

We’re also testing different snail recipes. We’re getting help from an internally displaced woman who used to live in our shelter and is now competing on Master Chef. We’re learning how best to prepare and serve snails from restaurants across Ukraine and Europe.

We were able to grow the farm to more than two times its previous size this year and the grant really helped us in that. We also built a bridge to the village – when the river floods, it’s impossible to get from the farm to the main road connecting it to the nearby villages.

Securing the grant was about more than money: it helped us reimagine our business. If we didn’t apply, it’s unlikely we would’ve expanded the farm or got involved with agritourism. I used to think: who would be interested in this? But experts said it will be a success, keep working on it.

We gave a few interviews about the farm, and then we started to get visits from wives of fallen soldiers: they wanted to talk, find a sense of community, share their experience. In September, groups of soldiers undergoing rehabilitation in Truskavets started to come for visits too. Some of them come to our shelter just to get good sleep.

Many people just want to see successful business women, even if their success was hard-won. The farm helped us endure our loss and not fall into a deep depression.

My father-in-law’s younger son, who’s 31, is still serving on the Kupiansk front; he’s been injured. He only took leave three times: for rehabilitation, and to come to his dad’s funeral and a memorial service a year later.

 

   

 

He returned to service in 2014 and formed the 42nd Battalion. He used to always say: “We will die for Ukraine and Ukrainian people.” He went along with everyone else to defend Mariupol. Now we have more military equipment, but at the time it was either faulty or non-existent. It took them 10 days to gather enough equipment, then they had to train.

Dad was a capital ‘H’ Human and a top intelligence officer. He always held leadership positions and was like a father to the soldiers he led. They felt protected with him. No one ever said a bad word about him as a commander, he was always setting an example for others. He died while trying to protect three of his brothers-in-arms with his body after also protecting a village from Russian attacks. He was only 49. None of his brothers-in-arms had any doubt that a ship should be named after him: Yurii Olefirenko.

Dad also served in Afghanistan. He was there as a peacekeeper in 2008-9. He knew lots of languages and was a reference interpreter; he was a fluent Persian speaker. As an adult, he continued studying. One year we celebrated three graduations: I graduated from high school, my sister from university, and dad from the academy. [Yurii Olefirenko graduated from the Faculty of Operational and Tactical Specialists Training of the National Defense Academy of Ukraine]

Dad has been awarded the Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Order, III Degree, but we want to petition for him to be awarded the title of the Hero of Ukraine. We’ve already done it, but our petition was unanswered. Dad deserves this title. Next year marks the 10-year anniversary of his death. We hope he’ll be presented with the Hero of Ukraine award by then.

 

 

I really wanted to have running water at the farm, I wanted to expand it, but I faced rejection wherever I turned. I also still had to work on my other business and drive 40 kilometers to Kropyvnytskyi, where I live now. It was hard, and one day I decided to just close the farm.

I spent every year since then thinking about wanting to grow the business, but I kept postponing it. In 2023 I finally decided to get piglets again. Dad’s brother, my uncle, lived in Bobrynets and helped me with the farm. Around the same time, my sister got a letter from the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation saying that families of fallen soldiers were entitled to apply for a business grant.

The grant stipulated that applicants had to be business owners who already had premises. That was our case, so we decided to give it a go. The grant gave us hope – it was like a breath of fresh air. We wrote a proposal and a business plan and submitted all the paperwork. I wanted to prove to dad that I can revive this business.

However, there were lots of very strong contenders for the grant. I knew that many of them have more experience. My application was number 409, and there were only 10 winners. I presented my proposal on my own; my mom and sister were the only people who helped me. I was asked lots of questions but I answered all of them. I’m keen, and I read a lot and always keep learning, so I know what I’m talking about. I’m actually quite interested in understanding accounting reports – or knowing how water supply works or how much feed an animal needs per kilo of weight. I’m always learning about these things.

At first we didn’t even know we won. We were told we’d get a call but we didn’t. A couple days later we checked the website and saw our names listed among the winners. We couldn’t believe it. We cried and hugged each other. It was a major push for us! It was tough without dad. [She starts crying.]

 

 

When I first set up the farm, I had more calves. Now I have more piglets. The calves require more demanding conditions: you have to take them out on walks and there are more vet issues – though each pig also has to be vaccinated. And besides our region needed this particular type of farm; there is only one other pig farm in Kirovohrad Oblast, but it uses artificial feed. Locals started to get curious about how we’re doing.

With the grant, we could apply for up to 1.5 million hryvnias, but we only managed to secure 765,000. I tallied up the expenses I needed to cover: feed, ventilation, and other maintenance costs. The farm isn’t yet profitable, because the pigs are still young. But once I start to turn a profit, I want to donate some of the meat to the Ukrainian Armed Forces – it’s a contribution, however small.