Another customer recently called Taras and wanted to order more boots. The last order was from Odesa, a big port city in the Ukrainian south, where the company requested 10,000 boots from Taras’s manufactory. The most expensive pair cost about 1,000 Euros,” says Taras. “Probably, we were the first manufacturer in Chernihiv that started producing shoes for women. At the start, the factory produced men's boots but soon started producing shoes for women as well. Sales went well and he found sales chains in big Ukrainian cities that ordered thousands of different kinds of shoes.
“Maybe Ukrainians finally learned how to create good shoes,” they said in amazement,” describes Taras his first steps as a businessman. “At one of the exhibitions, the businesspeople from Germany and Poland were surprised to see such quality shoes made in Ukraine. Continuing to make shoes on his own, he also found customers, resellers, and visited shoe exhibitions in Kyiv where he found lots of new clients. In 2021, the owner of the business lost interest in the shoe factory and Taras took over leadership. Unexpectedly, he liked it and found a job for years to come. That year, an acquaintance advised him to come to the shoe factory and see if that would be an interesting job for him. About 30 people-seamstresses, cutters, shoemakers-created thousands of different boots every month. Before 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation started the military offensive against Ukraine, he owned a shoe factory. Taras wears one glove, he is thin, and it seems as if he is looking right through me. “This is Mozart”, Taras introduces his black and red cat. I meet Taras, 48, on the street and he guides me to his apartment on the third floor. It is an ordinary apartment building in Chernihiv city not far from the brewery brewing “Chernihivske” beer widely known in Ukraine. DRC Ukraine, Chernihiv, February 2023, Volodymyr Cheppel.
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