Meet Olga from Olgish Cakes in Leeds

We meet Olga from Olgish Cakes whose passion for baking has risen since moving from Ukraine to Leeds in 2022.

Transcript

00:00I like the result more probably than the process, when the people have a new emotion, a new

00:07taste in their life, yeah, because it's like new colours in your life, yeah.

00:13Olga Airomenko likes nothing more than to see the reaction from people trying her baked

00:18creations. Her Leeds baking venture is flourishing and feels like a world away

00:23from her 16-year job as a sales manager in Ukraine. The outbreak and escalation of war

00:28in the country disrupted her family's life more than once.

00:32February 2022 changed our life completely. For us it was second time because we are

00:38originally from Donbass and 2014 we just take our suitcase and we were in Bulgaria

00:46three months and lived in Odessa, it's near the sea, and then we moved to Kyiv and we just

00:55bought our house, finished our repair completely. In January we finished everything and we had a

01:03lot of plans and suddenly one morning changed everything. We wanted to move to England

01:10because of the language. It was very sudden, but we are so happy and grateful for our host

01:18because they gave us a new opportunity. A visit to a Chapel Allerton cafe with her

01:23host family ignited Olga's baking dream. We had an amazing afternoon tea and for me it was,

01:31it's really another life and I was sitting there and thought, oh it would be nice to do the same.

01:41Olga has gone on to complete two patisserie courses at Leeds City College and regularly

01:46attends local markets to showcase her treats. I wanted to share our recipe, Ukrainian recipe,

01:54our Ukrainian taste in Leeds. That's why I decided to start my own business with

02:01Ukrainian treats like honey cake, Kyiv cake. The most important reason to bake, I like to feed

02:09people. Our hosts know about that and I can't understand the word no. If I ask something,

02:18would you like this, better to say yes. On market a lot of people just came and I

02:25asked about would you like to try. I like this process when the person takes small pieces,

02:33tastes this and they feel completely different, they are so happy, they are

02:39surprised about the taste because it's unusual taste for England.

02:44A new and unique phrase inspired Olga's business name.

02:48Sometimes our hosts don't understand me and it was, okay, Olga, English,

02:55something between, it's Olgish. That's why it's Olgish cakes now.