KYIV — On a recent Sunday morning — after a night when air alerts sounded almost hourly and sleep came in fits and bursts — Andrii and Olga Chevozorov arrived at the small cafe they own at 7 a.m. sharp to prepare from scratch Kyiv’s hot new trend in baked goods: bagels.
Their cafe, Uiavy Beyhly — or Imagine Bagels — tucked in an alley off one of Kyiv’s main streets, is a rare taste of New York in the Ukrainian capital.
Andrii mixed the dough and rolled small balls into long strips, which he formed into rings, let sit for a while and then dipped quickly into boiling water with honey. He added ingredients that Olga had bought as toppings: slices of spicy jalapeño peppers and cheddar cheese for one batch of bagels, and a mix of seeds including poppy and sesame for another.
Then, into the oven — and a sweet smell of baking bread spilled into the alleyway and the street.
Air raid sirens continued throughout the day, but that did not stop a steady stream of customers. They ordered bagels cut and filled with familiar ingredients like cream cheese and smoked salmon, but also the cafe’s less-traditional menu items, including “The Camembert” (soft cheese, caramelized onions, cranberry sauce and lettuce) and “Bagel With Eel and Wakame” (smoked eel, seaweed salad and unagi sauce).
At the end of the day, Andrii and Olga said they had posted their best turnover so far, selling out all 90-plus bagels. Business is expanding rapidly as the news about their establishment percolates through social media and by word of mouth, they said.
The humble bagel is becoming the food of Kyiv’s ultrahip, even as missiles and drones crash into the city.
“We noticed, after a very loud night with missiles: People come to eat bagels to cheer them up,” said Olga, 31. “Like, there must be something you do the next day, to try to get some weight from your head and try to get through the day.”
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and Ambassador Piotr Lukasiewicz have dropped by the cafe, a visit that Andrii proudly posted on social media.
“Our clients tell us that bagels are a very fashionable food right now — they’re considered cool,” Andrii said. “We have a lot of models coming here lately, since there’s a modeling school nearby. So we are sure our food is healthy, since the models eat it.”
For Andrii, 28, a war veteran, the bagel business has given him a mission after he lost part of his right leg in battle two years ago.
“Bagels are a moral support for me,” he said. “I communicate with people, and I’m distracted by making bagels. I’ve created a calming routine for myself. I do not worry about what I went through before.”
The Chevozorovs’ path to opening a bagel cafe in Kyiv passed, appropriately enough, through New York City.
Andrii lost the lower half of his right leg after stepping on a mine during a combat mission in eastern Ukraine in September 2023. He went to New York shortly after to receive a new prosthetic and undergo rehabilitation at Staten Island University Hospital, treatment that was financed by Kind Deeds, a U.S.-based charity working with Ukrainian soldiers who have lost limbs.
One Saturday morning, he visited a Streecha, a Ukrainian restaurant in the East Village, to help make dumplings to raise money for Ukraine. There he met Olga, a Polish architect who was working at a firm in Manhattan.
The two started to meet regularly, though they did not share a common language, communicating with the help of Google Translate. Olga’s mother’s family came from Ukraine, but she did not speak the language. Andrii spoke Russian and Ukrainian but no Polish, and his English was not strong at the time.
Before Andrii’s program ended, he proposed to Olga, and the two moved together back to Kyiv. Olga found work as an architect, and Andrii looked for a new occupation.
“Honestly, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I have a prosthetic limb. I’m still relatively young, but they already sent me into retirement,” Andrii said. “I was basically told, ‘That’s it, you’re done.’”
“Of all the things you can do in business, I knew how to deal with people,” he continued. “So I thought, okay, maybe I can bake.”
He landed on the idea of opening a cafe but did not know what he would sell. Croissants, pastries and other bread products were in sufficient supply. Olga suggested bagels, which she had grown to love over her three years in New York, but which Andrii had not tried.
One year ago, Andrii found a location just outside the center of Kyiv where he opened a cafe and sold a variety of items, including bagels. At first he ordered them from a local company, which delivered them frozen in bulk. “When you defrosted them, it seemed as if they had been lying around for a week,” he said.
He decided he would make them himself, starting from a recipe but then seeking advice from an expert baker who helped him improve his products. They turned out to be such a hit that he eventually jettisoned the other menu items and focused on bagels exclusively.
“The bagels that we made were 10 times better than what we bought,” he said. “More people started coming to us, and they would buy bagels instead of the pasta or other breakfasts we offered.”
Then Russia’s massive bombardment of Ukraine’s energy sector last winter left the cafe without electricity and heat. Andrii moved to a new spot in the center of Kyiv, where the power supply was more dependable.
The war has intervened in the cafe’s business in other ways. Russia’s ongoing missile and drone barrage has struck supermarkets and food warehouses, leaving some ingredients in short supply or missing altogether.
He used to add Ayran, a Turkish yogurt drink, to the dough to give it a special tang, but this disappeared from the stores. Now he adds sourdough.
Andrii also suddenly lost his one employee to the draft. Now, Olga fills in by helping out on the weekends and making the rounds at grocery stores to buy what the cafe needs.
“For us, it’s important because we created something together, and I support Andrii with all my power,” Olga said. “I’m very proud that he decided to create a product that nobody ever had here in Kyiv.”
Olga’s support is crucial, Andrii says. “Many of my good friends, comrades, died in the war. All my best friends are not alive now. My only best friend is Olga.”
Although Andrii and Olga’s cafe is one of just a few places in Kyiv specializing in bagels, versions of the food can actually be traced back to Ukraine and Poland. Eastern European Jews modeled bagels on other types of ringlike rolls and brought them to New York and other places when they emigrated. Bagels were first mentioned in the official documents of Krakow, Poland, in the 17th century.
None of this was known to Andrii and Olga when they first started selling them, but now they are familiar with bagels’ history and lore, which they enthusiastically share with customers — many of whom, if they were familiar with the food, associated it with New York or simply the West.
Kateryna Lanevska, 28, said that she and her boyfriend, Bohdan Kinoshchuk, 35, had recently come for the first time.
“We do this quite often when we’re looking for somewhere to eat in a particular area and want something unusual,” Lanevska said. “If one of those places happens to be veteran-owned, then we’ll 100 percent choose to go there rather than somewhere else.”
“We came, and the food was so good that we’re back again,” she said. This time, they brought a friend, a bagel novice.
The number of businesses owned by those who have returned from the front line is slowly increasing, though in Ukraine’s tough economic circumstances, the growth is limited. Others include a photo studio, a dance studio, a backpack manufacturer and a medical center.
Andrii said that many of the veterans who come to the cafe “are searching but still cannot find themselves” after returning from the war. His likes to think his cafe, which is turning a profit and has now hired a barista and social media manager, provides an example to aspire to.
“I share with them my mood, and they are inspired,” Andrii said. “I spoke to a veteran yesterday, a lieutenant colonel. She said that she now wants to open a pastry shop.”
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