The workers of White Burger restaurant wait to take orders, in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023. The restaurant was reopened in September of the previous year following the successful counteroffensive of Ukrainian army in the Kharkiv region. stands out as a painful reminder of lives and livelihoods dashed in an instant.
The bombed-out building in Kramatorsk underscores the massive risks for businesses in this front-line city in the Donetsk region. But that has not deterred many other business owners who have reopened their doors to customers in the past year. The White Burger chain operated mainly in Donetsk and Luhansk regions before the war. But after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it could reopen only in Kramatorsk. It launched two new restaurants in the capital, Kyiv, and Dnipro to keep the chain alive.
Kramatorsk's economy has adapted to war. The city houses the Ukrainian army’s regional headquarters, and many cafes and restaurants are frequented mainly by soldiers as well as journalists and aid workers.Soldiers joke that Kramatorsk is their Las Vegas, providing all the “luxuries” they need like good food or coffee. But restaurants offer only non-alcoholic beer due to the city's proximity to the battlefield.
“Probably, thanks to the military, we can still come back to this city,” said Oleksandr, who asked to be identified only by his first name because of security concerns.