Ukraines frontline bakery revisited
Lucy Ash catches up with a warzone bakery comforting people in an east Ukrainian town. She visited in 2017 to tell the story of a small enterprise that was bringing hope to a trapped community living near the frontline. The town of Marinka is in the buffer zone \u2013 the \u2018grey zone\u2019 - that separates Ukraine from the Dontesk region \u2013 now claimed and occupied by Russian backed separatists. For the town\u2019s inhabitants the low-intensity conflict had become an unavoidable part of daily life. But there was one bright spot amidst the gloom \u2013 a bakery. It was Ukraine\u2019s first frontline workplace-generating enterprise, and a haven from the politics, propaganda, and violence that had been tearing the town apart. But now, more than four years on, with Russian troops now massing along Ukraine\u2019s eastern border, the threat of all out conflict looms. The bakery\u2019s owner Oleg Tkachenko tells Lucy Ash he hopes there will not be an all out conflict. He fears an invasion could destroy everything that he and his community have built up over the past five years.
(Image: Workers in the bakery in Marinka. Credit: Frederick Paxton)