Dzvina Shevchuk fled from Ukraine to our country with her mother. She found shelter in the house of comedian Karin Bruers in Oisterwijk. Dzvinka has a dream: to become a famous pastry chef. Karin helps her make that dream come true. With a crowdfunding, Dzvina hopes to be able to go to the best pastry shop in the world, in Paris. “Here I get the chance to make my dream come true.”
While Dzvina slides a bowl of cookies into the oven in Karin’s kitchen, Karin immediately sets something straight when we start talking about that dream. “I always say: you dream in bed at night. Don’t dream, just do it.”
“Karin can do anything with her eyes closed. I don’t understand how it’s possible,” Dzvina shouts from the kitchen. When the war started in her country, she had to flee. “People don’t buy cake when there’s a war in your country. So we chose a safer place.”
She ended up with Karin through someone else. And he soon discovered that Dzvina has a talent for baking. “The second day they were here, she came to thank me with a cake. And then another and another”, she points to her expanding belly. “She showed me pictures and videos of what she bakes. So I called Robèrt van Beckhoven.”
“She was just watching every bomb that fell on Ukraine.”
“Bring it on,” said the master pastry chef. And so he lets Dzvina work in his bakery in Oisterwijk. According to Karin, it distracts her from everyday misery. “She just sat here watching her phone call and watching every bomb that fell on Ukraine the whole time, in tears. I said, ‘Come on guys, work on the future’. Maybe you’ll be here for a month, maybe three months? That’s what we thought then. Now I see her going to Robèrt’s bakery early in the morning on her bicycle.”
The choice to start baking was an easy one for Dzvina. “From childhood I only remember tastes. So I think it’s my passion,” she laughs. At sixteen she already had her own bakery in Lviv. It did not go unnoticed: Ukrainian TV already paid attention to her special talent. It was clear that she would make it her profession. She was going to study baking.
But with the war lasting longer and Dzvina and her family unable to return for the time being, plans have changed. “We are going to work on her future here,” says Karin. And then go straight for the most prestigious pastry training in the world: Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. “That costs a lot of money,” admits Karin. “9200 euros. I pay half, but I also said: you have to do something for it yourself.”
What Dzvina earns from Robèrt has so far gone to Ukraine, for military equipment. Now she is saving. And she hopes to raise enough money through crowdfunding.
“I want to open my own bakery.”
The ambitions are limitless. “I want to open my own bakery. I want to write books. I want to change people’s ideas of Ukrainian cuisine. Everyone confuses it with Russian cuisine. But we have our own, more flavorful recipes.”
Karin looks full of admiration: “If you see how she is now and talk about it. And she bakes like a charm. I think a lot of doors will open for that girl, she’s getting a Ukrainian cooking show. Eat your heart outRobert van Beckhoven.”
On August 21, Karin and Nol Havens (known from VOF De Kunst) will give a concert in the garden of her house. The proceeds go to Dzvina. More information about the crowdfunding for Dzvina find you here.
