Conducting furniture business in difficult conditions of martial law in each company turns out in its own way. The only thing they probably have in common is that it is no longer what it was two years ago. By the end of last year, some managed to stabilizenand even reach pre-war production volumes, while others, due to various circumstances – mainly objective – are not yet able to do so, but they, so to speak, have not dropped out of the production distance, they continue to furnish, pay taxes to the state, looking for opportunities to improve their situation. One of such companies is the capital “RightWood” and this will be the story.

For the Levins, furniture entrepreneurship is a family business. They furnish with two sole proprietorships: Oleksandr, with whom our conversation took place, runs the “RightWood” company, which is mainly engaged in the woodworking part of the furniture business, and his sister Marina heads a company that is engaged in ancillary operations – working with metal and other materials, electrical and installation work, because complex furnishing projects were common for the Levins before the war. Their brother Anatoliy also helps in this business.

When the Ukrainian Association of Furniture Manufacturers and the directorate of the “Furniture of Ukraine” exhibition, despite the war, already in 2022, began to organize the participation of domestic furniture makers in prestigious international exhibitions in the form of a collective national

stand, due to limited travel of men abroad, the organizers faced a problem: who will assemble the stands and exhibits to showcase the achievements and offerings of the Ukrainian furniture industry? Permits for travel abroad for such an urgent industry need were obtained for several men. Oleksandr Lіevіn, whom they knew as an active participant and assistant in organizing various corporate events of the UAFM, was offered to head this group (brigade).

The demand for this foreign assembly unit of the UAFM grew quite quickly, because the organization of collective trips to international exhibitions has become regular in the activities of the Association. It became obvious that it can benefit the domestic furniture industry by operating outside exhibition events, in between exhibitions. And Levina’s team also began providing services to Ukrainian companies implementing foreign furniture projects, but due to the aforementioned circumstances they face the problem of their installation completion. This is what Levina’s team helps them with.

In export companies, in current conditions, not only the final installation stage of implementing foreign projects is problematic, but also the initial one: at the site of the future furnishing, the customer needs to accurately take the necessary measurements to prepare technical documentation. So Oleksandr, traveling from country to country, – both with a team and alone – provides UAFM colleagues with services of this kind as well. Our call found him in Lithuania.

– We are performing final installation work for one Lviv company that is implementing a “turnkey” project here. We are receiving such requests from colleagues more and more often.Therefore, we already feel the need to increase the team quantitatively in order to meet the requests we receive from Ukraine in a timely manner, because there is already a queue for our services.

Such cooperation has also been established with Ukrainian designers who are currently working outside the country. They mainly involve ukrainian furniture makers in the implementation of their local projects, and hire us to perform installation work. Of course, when the company that asked to take measurements assigns the final stage of their project, installation, to our team as well, the assembly is performed more simply and quickly.

– What is the current quantitative and qualitative composition of your team, which has actually become a foreign representative office of the domestic furniture industry?

– Now, performing work for Lviv colleagues, there is a furniture group of about two dozen people (of which two are employees of my company) and a smaller construction subgroup. We have completed the most facilities in Germany and Austria, but we have had to work in France, Italy and Spain as well.

– So you handed over your own company’s business to your relatives?

– No. I still run my company, my sister runs her sole proprietorship. My brother helps out. Of course, I manage the business remotely – I conduct phone negotiations with customers, purchase materials and components, monitor the progress of order fulfillment. Despite the fact that RightWood’s production volumes are still far from pre-war ones, unfortunately, because we have not been able to obtain large turnkey orders during the war, combining two jobs is still difficult and hard. Also in view of the fact that in the installation and construction team I’m like a “playing coach”: I mainly work on a par with everyone, taking a saw or screwdriver in hand, or helping unpack furniture transported from Ukraine.

– Creating exhibition stands for others, knowing that your furniture will not be on the collective stand, is probably not the best job?

– That’s not true – it’s a job if you do it, understanding that this is an additional opportunity to earn money that will make it possible to bring products from your own company to one of the next exhibitions as well. This is what I aim