Rubizhne Hosiery Manufacturer (RHM) is preparing to resume its work in Lviv. The company lost all its equipment and stock of finished products when Russian troops destroyed the factory the Misiurenko brothers had been building for 20 years in Rubizhne, Luhansk Oblast.

USAID Economic Resilience Activity (ERA) paid for the manufacturer’s annual lease of 1,000 square meters of production premises in Lviv. Currently, the company is waiting for twenty knitting machines, purchased with funding from RHM’s partners Dodo Socks. RHM has already started accepting pre-orders from partners, and the team is discussing prints on men’s and women’s socks, and looking for high-quality raw materials.

“We are preparing our production premises, planning where to put the machines, and how to organize the process. Our socks are made of cotton, but synthetics are needed for prints on them, so we are looking for quality raw materials in Ukraine. Before the war, we had a wide range and stocks at our own production facilities. Now, in order to shorten the delivery time, we plan to buy them in Ukraine. As soon as the machines arrive, our partners from the Czech Republic are ready to place an order for socks. It will be a new product with a bright design, some kind of patriotic socks with Ukrainian symbols,” says RHM’s director Hennadii Misiurenko.

Small companies selling socks have begun to contact RHM, as they are also interested in cooperation with the company.

To support its employees, the company has begun to pay them wages. This is funded by selling part of the raw materials RHM bought in India a few days before the start of the war. but received in Lviv only months later, because the goods were delayed at the port.

Fifteen families of factory workers were evacuated from Rubizhne to Lviv. Recently, these people received free social housing in Mykolaiv dormitory, 40 km from Lviv. Now they are organizing their lives, and getting their children to school. The company will take employees to work by bus to Lviv, where the production facilities are located.

“Now we are carrying out the important work of presenting our company in Lviv, getting to know local business and looking for partners who are interested in cooperation with us. We need 30 workers to start up the 20 knitting machines we are waiting for. In addition to our own employees, we will invite local seamstresses and knitters to work,” says commercial director Olha Ushakova.

The company’s management believes that everything will work out in Lviv. But after Ukraine’s victory, they want to return to Ukrainian Rubizhne and rebuild their factory there.

Hanna Dondyk and Nataliia Yefymenko from Zaporizhzhia have been successfully developing their own business for three years. They make pastille and fruit chips, crispbread and vegetable chips, and have been increasing their assortment and volume, creating new recipes for natural delicacies. They regularly took part in festivals held by USAID Economic Resilience Activity (ERA), gaining new partners and clients until everything changed on February 24.

Due to Russia’s full-scale invasion, the women were forced to change their main product. They did not work for the first few days of the war, but then they decided to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine while earning money to support the state economy and themselves.

The women had developed 42 types of pastille from various fruits, but with the beginning of the war they realized that people would no longer be buying delicacies but only basic necessities. The business partners had to reorient production to something else. Now they make soups for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

“Orders for pastille dropped to zero, and we needed a new product, so we started experimenting,” says Hanna Dondyk, Arty.ua co-founder. “We saw that there was no way for soldiers on the frontlines to cook, but they needed hot food that could be quickly prepared in the field. So we decided to prepare dry soups and borsch.”

Their equipment was suitable for this, as it was used to dry fruit and vegetables. Every day in their workshop, the women experimented with new flavors. Over a period of time, they created their own recipes for nine soups with rice, mushrooms, lentils, spinach, buckwheat and meat, as well as borsch. The soups just need hot water to be added, although some need to be cooked for 15 minutes.

“We mix boiled vegetables and dry them, then grind them, so we get a vegetable powder that just needs boiling water. Thus Arty.ua has created a new line of products according to the needs of the time,” says Dondyk. “From our assortment, we created a fully-fledged dry ration called “Victorious” for the Armed Forces. It includes soup, crackers, crispbread (cereal flakes), pastille and tea or coffee; it is in demand, and we have orders for such dry rations. Those who want to join the business can make a “suspended” dry ration: when a person pays for a ration but doesn’t take it, we send this ration to the frontline, to whoever the purchaser specifies or volunteers ask.”

Soups are sold through social media pages. The company is also willing to work with other farmers and volunteers. For example, bread can be brought to the women to be made into crackers. Or they arrange an exchange, whereby farmers bring vegetables and receive finished products in return.

“In the difficult times that have come to our country now, such flexibility in business helps us and our partners to survive. Therefore, we agree to such cooperation, in fact, to barter,” Dondyk says.

The entrepreneurs have considered what to do if the security situation in Zaporizhzhia worsens. “We discussed among ourselves whether we should leave, and what to do in case of increasing danger — where to transport the equipment, where to find premises. That’s how we developed plan B,” says Dondyk. “Plan A was to stay in place and work.”

Plan B has not been implemented yet, because the women’s team of six employees remains in Zaporizhzhia, working every day to produce delicious products.

This year raw materials supply is problematic. Fruit and vegetables that used to be brought from Kherson Oblast are unavailable due to the occupation, while produce grown in Zaporizhzhia Oblast has become more expensive, as it is not sufficient to meet demand. But even in such difficult times, entrepreneurs find new opportunities.

In September, representatives of Arty.ua took part in RigaFood 2022 international exhibition of craft producers in Riga, Latvia, which gathered about 400 manufacturers from Europe, Mexico and the USA. The entrepreneurs brought pastille, dry soups and borsch, which they sold to visitors of the event or offered to potential partners. Similar products (fruit pastille and dry soups) are available in Riga, but the entrepreneurs from Ukraine hope they will be able to find a niche for their delicious natural products. Now the women are negotiating with several European wholesale buyers, which will allow them to sell their products in stores in countries of the European Union.

The women also plan to open a craft store called Soloma in Zaporizhzhia, where they will sell their products to locals. There are already several such shops in the city where craftspeople sell their goods. Such cooperation is a profitable opportunity to present a wide range of different manufacturers and help each other in difficult times. The entrepreneurs also dream of creating an online store to present the delicious products of craft producers of Zaporizhzhia Oblast and other regions for purchase and delivery.

Kostiantyn Kuznetsov has been making various metal products for ten years. He started with barbecues and forged items (railings, stepladders, grates), and now produces fencing. Due to hostilities, he had to leave his native Kramatorsk and move to Dnipro.

A few days before the war started in February, Kuznetsov rented an office in Kramatorsk, bought metal, and was about to start producing metal fences from corrugated sheets. He was planning to scale up his business to several regions, but then war broke out.

“People were not ready to install gates; instead we had to save lives and property. For several months, I volunteered in Kramatorsk, helping locals to evacuate,” he says. “In April, I rented a car and took the metal, my tools, welding tables and racks to Dnipro. Even then, I still did not think about resuming work, but I realized I had to relocate equipment which would help me to earn money in the future.”

Kuznetsov did not really believe that people would order fences during wartime. But later, in Dnipro the entrepreneur rented a space for production in an industrial workshop and learned about ERA’s consultation program on the resumption of small business. An ERA consultant assisted Kuznetsov in setting up targeted ads and helped promote his services through a website. Later the entrepreneur received his first orders, and the number of customers soon increased from two to twelve a month.

Kuznetsov was known at home, receiving orders from various towns in the north of Donetsk Oblast. Now these customers have either left or have no money and remain in dangerous areas. The entrepreneur now fulfils orders for Dnipro residents, learning a new market.

In addition to gates, Kuznetsov also has an idea to make potbelly stoves.

“Without gas supply, these stoves can help people in the east to survive the winter and heat their homes. I will start their production soon. I already have a drawing of such energy-efficient stoves, and I want to make them affordable in price and size so that people can buy them. With an average price of around 6000 hryvnias, I plan to make them for 4000 hryvnias each. I think they will be in demand,” he says.

Kuznetsov hopes to return to his native Ukrainian Kramatorsk. And he believes there will be a lot of work for him there, including restoring fences and other objects.