Inna Kazulina from Inna's Cuisine

The dining room area is set in traditional formal attire, with white table cloths and red cloth napkins, with a picturesque mural painting on the wall.
Inna Kazulina is the owner of Inna's Cuisine, who wears a black apron and professional chef's uniform. Kazulina specializes in European cuisine, with dishes originating from Russia, Greece, Italy, and Ukraine. She has been a staple of the Wenatchee Valley's culinary scene for over 25 years. Mrs. Kazulina is a Ukrainian immigrant, growing up in the village of Kharkiv. Inna went to the culinary school of Odessa, which is also where her husband, Sergei Kazulina, and his family originated from.

It's hard to tell how Inna is feeling when you first meet her. You can presume that she's fatiqued, anxiety-riddled. Maybe she is trying to stay busy and try not to think of the current situation. Whenever she has a break, Kazulina checks her phone to see if she has a message from her little sister Olena Zolotareva.

"It is really heartbreaking for me because I only have one sister," Kazulina said. "She lives there and she is my younger one."

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has reported over 900 civilian casualties in Ukraine, with the number of refugees fleeing the country has steadily climbed into the millions.

Olena Zolotareva and her husband Oleksander Zolotarev have recently fled from Odessa to an unknown village, a fact that was ommited from Inna in order to keep their family safe. As of right now, Inna keeps in steady contact with Olena's family with Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

Her family can't leave due to the immense number of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the border and the danger of being seen after curfew. Her sister and sister-in law also wish to stay close to their male loved ones and not leave them behind.

"Russian and Ukrainian wives," Kazulina said, "Are really loyal women. They're going to stay with their husbands and older children."

Her Ukrainian relatives in Russia are not receiving information of the war, seeing propaganda of the situation in Ukraine. She is unable to contact them due to the Russian government blocking Facebook communication. One of her aunts recently passed away and could not get a proper funeral because of the recent conflict.

Inna's and Olena's childhood village was one of the many Ukrainian villages hit in the wake of Russia's invasion. Hospitals, schools, homes, destroyed. Amidst the chaos and uncertainty, Kazulina has received an immense amount of support and love from the Wenatchee Valley community. On Feb. 24, she received multiple emails, calls, and texts from residents who wanted to check in on her.

"Some of them have personally met my family. They have seen my friends, they meet my father-in-law, they meet my sister, she was here in October, with her husband," Kazulina explained. "If you know somebody, it's really different than if you generally think about that kind of situation. And this is what's hard for them and they are supporting me because it is a really hard period."

Her main hope is to bring her sister and sister-in-law's family to Wenatchee. In the meantime, she plans to keep running the restaurant as best as she can.

"We are managing, we're still working. I think with the whole support of the community with what we are having here, we are managing this," Kazulina states. "But it's hard. This way we can survive. Sitting in and watching the news, it will be killing you more. Then in here, dinner is open for public business and it's easy for people to come over to me and hug me or just come over and say all this support and talk and it's easy, then people hiding at home and living with this is fear and obsession."