Everything was very wide and very big!” says Anastasia Vavrenyuk about her first impressions of the U.S. when she arrived three years ago as a Ukrainian immigrant from Spain. Vavrenyuk, now 25, immigrated with her husband, Gregor Nikulesku, and their baby daughter, while she was pregnant with the couple’s second child. Two suitcases held all of their belongings.

Vavrenyuk was born in Ukraine but left her home in Ternopil when she was five years old. Jobs were scarce, so her father found work in construction in Madrid, Spain.

She met Nikulesku when she was 19 years old and a nursing student. They fell in love and returned to Ukraine to get married in 2019, then moved to Asturias, in southern Spain, and rode out the Covid-19 pandemic in an apartment they shared with her brother and his family. Vavrenyuk took classes in business management and administration and, in 2021, she planned to open an internet cafe that served coffee and tea and catered to university students.

But those plans were postponed when she discovered she was pregnant with her first child. A month after her daughter was born, she got pregnant again. Life in Spain was expensive, and Russia had just invaded Ukraine, making a return to the couple’s homeland impossible. Nikulesku's sister encouraged the couple to join her family in America and start a new life, safe from the conflict. Within two days, they’d purchased tickets, packed up what they could and boarded an airplane headed to North Port, which is home to a vibrant Ukrainian-American population.

At first, Vavrenyuk spent her days at home with her children while Nikulesku tried to find work. A fellow parishioner at the First Slavic Pentecostal Church took him on as an apprentice, installing windows and sliding doors. Eventually, Nikulesku started his own business, and he and Anastasia were able to move into a place of their own.

“The Ukrainian community welcomed us,” she says. “They helped us with basic needs, like clothing, diapers and furniture, which made the transition a lot less scary.” With extra time on her hands, she took up baking. “I had never baked much before,” she confesses, “but I researched how to make sourdough starter and made one from my own secret recipe in just 11 days.”

At first, she baked solely for her family and friends. “They said, ‘No one is making bread like this!’ and told me I should sell it,” she says. Word of her bread spread through the community, and people started asking if they could buy it. She baked 46 loaves to sell at her church’s bazaar, which quickly sold out. Before she knew it, she and Nikulesku had to purchase a second oven to meet demand.

Vavrenyuk's bread booth at the Ukrainian festival in North Port in March was also a sell-out, and now she has a monthly stall at a local farmer’s market. She’s in the process of getting her catering license in a commercial kitchen so she can sell her bread to local cafes.

“I’m a little bit in shock at how this business has taken on a life of its own,” she says.