NYC bar owned by Ukrainian-Russian ex-pats selling region’s alcohol to fund efforts to stop power-drunk Putin
For Oleg “Ollie” Sakhno and his wife, Olga, Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is personal and almost too much to bear.
Ollie was raised in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Olga in Leningrad, Russia — and while their homelands are on opposite sides, they are united in opposition to Putin’s brazen attack.
“This would be like the United States invading Canada. We are closest by blood, culture and economic ties. We look the same. We eat the same food,” Olga said of Russians and Ukrainians.
The couple, who owns the Keuka Kafe wine bar in Forest Hills, Queens, have put Ukrainian beer and wine on the menu, which they are selling to raise money to help the Ukrainian people.
“Every penny from the sales of the Ukrainian beverages will go to charitable groups helping the Ukrainian people,” Ollie said.
While Sakhno said that Putin’s meddling in Ukrainian affairs was a given, he was surprised by the unprovoked attack on his native country.
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“When I first heard of the invasion, I had tears in my eyes. To me, it was a complete shock. A full-scale invasion of a country in a world with the internet and where events can be seen in real-time?!,” Ollie said.
But Ollie said Putin may have underestimated the resilience of the Ukrainian people.
“There will be stiff resistance. Ukrainians are known for it,” he said, reminding people of their heroic fighting during World War II.
“Russian soldiers will not have a safe place to sleep at night in Ukraine — and they know that. Ukrainians have a lot of pride.”
He said Putin is crazy like a fox. He complained that the sanctions announced by President Biden are insufficient to stop the madman, who made a calculation that the inflation-battered West would not challenge him.
His relatives in Kyiv are on edge.
“I talked to my cousin in Kyiv. Every time a bomb goes off, his family goes into the basement. It’s very scary. You see the images of the main streets where I grew up and they are empty,” the bar owner said.
Ollie, 53, fled Ukraine when he was 21 — before the Soviet Union collapsed and residents tasted freedom.
Olga, 49, left Leningrad in Russia when she was 16 and Communism still ruled the day.
Ollie and Olga were among the 2 million Jews who emigrated from the former Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s — looking for a better life and freedom in the U.S. and elsewhere.
As it happens, they both ultimately landed in Queens, fell in love, married and started their own wine bar near where they live.
Olga, who is also a teacher at Information Technology HS in Long Island City, said
Russian Americans are “shock and dismayed ” by Putin’s invasion.
Both expressed concern about the Russian military seizing control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which leaked a massive amount of radiation in 1986 following an explosion. Ollie and his family had to evacuate and relocate following the environmental disaster.
War is not an abstraction to the Sakhno couple, who have an 18-year-old daughter, Bekka. Their parents and grandparents were displaced during World War II as Jews sought safe havens from the Nazis.
Ollie said Ukraine is a much better place now than when he lived there when it was a Soviet republic.
“I left before the collapse of communism,” he said.
He said Jews under Soviet rule were treated as second-class citizens, with religious discrimination barring them from coveted jobs.
“It was a given as a Jew growing up you would be treated differently,” he said.
But Ollie recalled visiting his homeland for the first time in 2008 and marveled at seeing a country transformed for the better, post-Soviet Union.
“Kyiv was vibrant. There were a lot of new towers and restaurants,” he said.
“People felt liberated. The Ukrainian flag was hanging everywhere. There were more people speaking Ukrainian than when I was growing up.”
He said Ukraine has been on a “very good path” under President Volodymyr Zelensky, who he noted is Jewish.
“Zelensky put in a lot of good reforms. They were moving toward other European countries as an equal,” he said.
Putin must not be permitted to destroy that progress, he said.
