Hiya Lili here I just wanted to tell you about my life in the Ukraine before moving to London and starting Veselka.
For many years I struggled in Odessa, Ukraine raising my Son after divorce.
Life in Ukraine was very hard even before the war with no welfare system as compared to the west.
The average wage was about $300 per month in 2020 before the war and that’s if you were lucky enough to find work.
You might be surprised to learn that food and many products are actually more expensive in Ukraine than they are in England even before the war.
The hardship in some strange way probably helped me become more creative and resourceful.
I always had an affinity to craft and artistic.
So I decided to work in the local school with young people helping them to discover and engage their creative skills through games, crafting objects and painting.
Do you like making things? ..
If you do,
I would love to see pictures of your work.
Please email me veselkadogcoats@gmail.com.
In Odessa I was also very active rescuing animals mostly cats and dogs and on one occasion I also rescued a rabbit that had a dangerous skin condition.
Cema the poor rabbit suffered from hair loss all over her tummy.
One day I returned home and was baffled to find some socks and other clothes missing only to find Cema had used the clothes to make a bed for herself.
Cema was also quite wilful she would sit next to me on the sofa and bite me if I didn’t continue to stroke her :).
Even though life was hard financially, being able to care animals like Cema more than made up for it.
Sharing my small apartment with animals was heaven.
But my night in shining arrived to save me from Cema.
I met Jason in Kiev in 2016 from that point our love for animals helped blossom the romance.
Sofiyivsky Park is an arboretum and a scientific-researching institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
In 2021 we got married in a little town called Uman, south of Kiev and spent our honeymoon in Sofiyivsky Park.
Shortly after I finally managed to Join my husband in the UK after a long struggle with bureaucracy.
My base now is London.
I hope it’s okay to tell you all this and I have not bored you.
In the next email I will share more about the first ever knitted Veselka coat called the rainbow coat.