Sofra, the Crimean Tatar takeout located next to the Zhytniy Rynok indoor market in Podil, has become a popular destination over the last few months. It sells chebureks and yantykhs, traditional deep-fried turnovers filled with ground meat, onions and spices. Lines here can last up to an hour at midday.
It is not just the food that attracts the crowd, but the story behind the venue. It was opened in November 2014 by a Crimean Tatar family that fled Crimea after Russia invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula.
The owner of Sofra – the name meaning “dining room” in the Tatar language – Eskender Budzhurov says his recipe for success is very simple.
“We put our soul into cooking,” he says.
A year ago his life was quite different in Simferopol, Crimea’s capital where Budzhurov owned a guesthouse.
His Crimean Tatar family moved to Crimea from Uzbekistan in 1989, when Crimean Tatars were again allowed to live on their native land after Soviet authorities ordered the Tatars to leave the peninsula in 1944.
“I had always wanted to live on my native land,” says Budzhurov, 55, who was born in Uzbekistan.
His dream came true, but 25 years later he had to flee Crimea again. The Budzhurovs were among some 10,000 Crimean Tatars who decided to leave Crimea to avoid repressions by the new Russian authorities that are believed to be hostile to the Tatars.
The family experienced the hostility firsthand when a neighbor threatened Budzhurov’s elder son with a gun for his pro-Ukrainian views.
In early November 2014 Budzhurov and his two sons moved to Kyiv. By the end of the month they opened a takeout of authentic Crimean Tatar pastry where they now work 10 hours a day in shifts.
Budzhurov said he would move back to Crimea once it is returned to Ukraine. For now, Sofra is the only place that reminds him of home. So does the smell of chebureks, the greasy turnovers that are sold at every corner in Crimea.
Sofra’s chebureks come with mutton (Hr 18) and cheese (Hr 15). They turned out to be different from the classic cheburek found in Crimea’s takeouts. Crimea’s pastry is usually extremely greasy, with fat dripping off it, while Sofra’s pastry is much drier.
“Chebureks are one of my favorite meals and my friends recommended me this place,” Ivan Hrynyshyn told the Kyiv Post while visiting Sofra on April 21.
He came from Boyarka, the suburb, to buy some meat and cheese chebureks, and found them tasty and inexpensive.
The owner says people like his dishes because they are made according to an old family recipe. He learned how to cook traditional food from his grandmother as a child but hardly ever used this knowledge before moving to Kyiv.
“During the first days (when Sofra opened) we all lacked skills, it was taking us too long to make one piece,” he recalls.
But in a couple of weeks they learned to be faster. Now the three men produce more than 150 chebureks and nearly 100 yantykhs a day. The café also offers tea (Hr 4), coffee (Hr 5) and ayran (Hr 7). Every month, the owner donates some Hr 2,000 of the profit to Ukraine’s army.
Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at [email protected]
