The priest who plans to open a bakery

In the heart of Kharkiv’s North Saltivka estate is a small church - and an energetic pastor who is determined to open a bakery in the basement to supply local residents with free bread.

The idea of creating a bakery in his church came to Pastor Dmytro in a dream. He’s the energetic, driven man in charge of the Blahodat Methodist church, in the heart of Kharkiv’s North Saltivka district. It already dishes out plates of hot food every morning to around 150 local residents, and he has plans to get a group of volunteers together to learn bread making skills, and buy all the equipment they need to make it happen. He is very confident that G-d will provide.

The pastor, and his church, have already lived through some highly challenging times, especially during the first few months of the full-scale war when Russian forces came within a few miles of Kharkiv and targeted Saltivka relentlessly. He shows me how close rockets fell near the church, which windows were broken and which they managed to protect by piling up sandbags around the ground floor. “People started to come to our basement during the shelling, we set up benches and tables for people to sleep – I slept on chairs pushed together in this corridor for weeks. “

The basement where 100 people lived for weeks

Soon there were more than a hundred people staying in that basement, whole families with children moved in, taking refuge from the incessant bombing. “During those first weeks people just sat here, they didn’t even try to relax because they were so stressed. Whole families, students, some who were not even citizens of Ukraine but they all suffered our common pain.” One couple even got married down there, despite all the chaos and violence going on outside.

Along with his highly motivated young colleague Andriy - who has also been acting as my translator - the pastor ventured out to deliver food to people who needed it. They went to the nearby Metro station where a thousand people were living, children, dogs, cats, all sleeping on the platforms, a few managing to grab some privacy inside subway train carriages. They got supplies from charities like World Central Kitchen and other agencies, so they could put food packages together along with essential medicines, and drove around the estates to deliver it.

A view of Saltivka

We got in the car to Saltivka’s giant tower blocks – the ones nearest the east side bore the brunt of the Russian attacks. There are now some cranes and construction workers repairing some of the less damaged buildings, but some blocks have been left terribly destroyed, entire facades torn off, what once were homes reduced to rubble. As so often happens in Ukraine, people have stories of extraordinary escapes from death: as we drove down one road Andriy suddenly started telling me about a time when they’d come under shelling in that very spot. “We were driving down here and for some reason we decided to stop and talk to someone, and at that very moment the shelling started. My first thought was to hide near the car, but then I looked up and saw that we were right next to a gas station, and I thought if any shrapnel falls here there will be no one left alive.”

North Saltivka destruction

Ukrainian troops managed to push the Russians further back in May 2022 – and in September that year, liberated the whole of Kharkiv region. The frontline remains perilous around Kupyansk, but for the residents of Kharkiv, and North Saltivka, it has been much calmer. There are frequent missile attacks during the night, but Pastor Dmytro says Kharkiv is no longer afraid. “We have a bible study class for children every Saturday, we have space to teach English and Ukrainian.” Andriy remembers the moment Ukraine’s advance made life more manageable. “One day I woke up and there was ten minutes of silence, without shelling, I can’t even express to you the joy I felt not to hear any explosions or fighter jets overhead for ten minutes.  I would never have imagined I would have this kind of joy – simply not to hear explosions.”

Meals for 150 people a day are made here

We drive back to the church for lunch, a plate of potatoes cooked with herbs and some chicken, large mugs of tea and some little biscuits. In the kitchen area a volunteer cook is busy preparing vegetables: there are large jars of pickled tomatoes and cucumbers stashed away.  Next door is the room where he plans to kit out a bakery. “We have six volunteers ready to learn baking, they can get all the training online from our friends in Odesa – then we plan to start baking here twice a week and if it all goes well we can scale up.” The bakery which came to him in a dream, the phone call with Maria at Bake for Ukraine which we hope will make it all happen: this small church in northern Kharkiv has already lived through terrible times, and has been an actual sanctuary for those who needed it most. Pastor Dmytro has travelled to Bakhmut and Kherson to offer help where it is needed: but it is here, in the heart of the community he serves, where he wants to bring the gift of daily bread. Just one story from Ukraine during this time of war: another story of those small miracles, which happen every day.

Pastor Dmytro