The capital’s creative workshop “MILADA” has experienced such upheaval in its history that the current troubles caused by the war, from which all Ukrainian furniture makers suffer to a greater or lesser extent, not only do not scare, as its founder and current manager Serhiy Vovk assured, but also force with even greater persistence to overcome them with the confidence of victory over them.

The current “MILADA”, like the legendary Phoenix, emerged five years ago from the ashes, after a devastating fire that consumed everything down to the last screwdriver. We had to be reborn from scratch. And the company was reborn, and it worked in a renewed way no worse than it worked before that disaster. None of the client orders was cancelled, and all obligations to customers and partners were fully fulfilled.

The company found itself in a similar situation this year as well. True, not in such a critical one: it did not lose its production capacity, its efficiency, but, as then, due to a fire, it was forced to stop working for a couple of months when the enemy was raging on the outskirts of Kyiv. And then, as then, complete the previously received furniture and carpentry orders. As a matter of fact, this is what the creative workshop is mainly occupied with now, waiting and looking for new orders, the number of which, of course, has decreased many times.

Serhii Vovk told about an incident – already during wartime – which instilled confidence in the most critical period of the enemy invasion: Ukrainians, despite the war, want to live in a humane way, therefore – no matter what – you have to work, you have to furnish furniture, to ensure this desire of theirs. And this is the case. On the second of April, they received a phone call from Odesa, which was under the most intense shelling at that time: a bed was needed. The client immediately agreed to prepayment on the condition that Kyiv furniture makers would come to him for exact measurements and bring samples of furniture textiles. Such an order during the hottest phase of the war turned out to be so unusual for Mr Serhii and his team – to the point of improbability that he himself decided to go to that Odesa client, despite the fact that the Russian army was still atrocious near the capital. The bed was quickly made and delivered to Odessa. The client was satisfied. And they still carry out similar orders – for the manufacture of individual items, mainly furniture. Large, complex turnkey projects, which were often implemented before, were not yet received during the war, so designers, unfortunately, were without serious work.

– Given the one-time orders that you still receive, what is in greater demand now, and what have people stopped ordering?

– They started to order fewer “joiners”, cabinet furniture, there is still a demand for soft, bedroom furniture. For example, before we did not have beds in our assortment priority, but now we sell them almost as much as before.

– And among those pre-war orders that you are completing now, are there, so to speak, solid ones?

– We received a half million advance payment for one of these orders literally on February 22. And these funds helped a lot in the most difficult period of the war: in particular, they made it possible to financially support workers. However, when, after resuming the company’s work, they began to finish this project, the money from that advance payment was spent for the wrong purpose. Of course, they did not have time to purchase everything necessary to fulfil this order before the war began. And now the prices are different, especially for imported materials and components. However, as I told you, we have already learned how to add difficulties, and how to get out of difficult situations, so this project – despite the fact that it is now complicated for us financially – will be implemented in exact accordance with the pre-war agreement with the client.

– Practically all member companies of the Association – at least from those with the managers of which we had similar conversations – at the most acute time of the enemy attack, changed their production activity to volunteer…

– Some of our employees still meet the volunteer needs of the warring country: they bring the necessary equipment for the army from abroad. Until the company started its usual furniture business, I also regularly ran the “bus” between Kolomyia, where there is a powerful volunteer hub, and Kyiv, delivering volunteer cargo. Even recently, in August, he was in Germany on volunteer work. And that’s not all. At the beginning of the war, we moved part of our sewing equipment to Ivano-Frankivsk and organized a workshop there, in which we sewed the so-called unloading items of soldiers’ ammunition – for placing in them automatic magazines, grenades, and other individual weapons. Now the workshop has stopped working, because the urgent need for these things, which was at the beginning of the war, has already disappeared. Our workers have returned to Kyiv, but some of the equipment is still there.