About

Why in the good golly lord of mercy did we open this store? What's wrong with Etsy?

 

TL;DR; Babushka (My Grandmother) knits, I buy it all, re-sell it here. Both my purchase price and your purchase price goes to babushka and associates in Ukraine.

 

Well, similarly to many other stories, this store came to be out of a need.

My name is Kirill, and I am a software developer living in Ottawa, Canada. I was born in Ukraine, where most of my family, including my grandmother (babushka) currently lives. I was born in 1991, the year when the Soviet Union broke down. This major world event has left Ukraine in a great economic despair. My family; highly educated and well respected members of the community, were struggling with the very basics. 

Luckily, the government has given my grandparents a piece of land, so called "dacha", and being the resourceful people that they were, they built a house and grew vegetables and fruits. Much of my childhood was spent at that place, and the majority of our food was provided by the hard work and effort that was put into that soil. I tend to believe that the only reason I am in good health and shape today, is because of that dacha. We always had quality food on our table, no matter how skinny the wallet was.

While my grandparents were labouring at their day jobs, and at the dacha to feed us, my parents were working tirelessly in a one of the Institutes in Kharkiv, saving up every dime they had for a plane ticket, while submitting applications to all the scholarships and mentorship programs they could find, hoping to find a position to do a research abroad. When I was 8, my parents found a position in Israel, at the Weizmann Institute of Science. We embarked on a long journey to a better life, the end of which has brought us to Ottawa Canada, where we are quite happy.

The grandparents, however, were left behind. The only signs of gratitude for their hard work and endless efforts were talking to us over Skype, and seeing the occasional pictures of three happy faces, half the world away.

Back to the babushka.shop. My grandmother is quite the knitter. And she is very resourceful. She saved all the wool she had gathered back in the post USSR breakup days and has knit an endless amount of goods. Hats, socks, laptop bags, sweaters, blankets, you name it.

I bought them all, and I keep buying whatever new stuff she makes, as it comes in. I sell it here, and when an item is purchased, the money goes back to her and the family in Ukraine. Whatever you pay for an item, will be sent to Ukraine.

To conclude. This is my sign of gratitude for all the hard work and effort. 

Thank you, for having spend the time reading this story. Thank you for visiting our store.

 

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Kirka

 

 Babushka & Dedushka