“Staff are falling ill with pneumonia, and there are no customers”: cafés and restaurants in Kyiv are shutting down as the city faces a severe heat-and-power crisis

In Kyiv, food-service venues are closing because of the blackout, which has led to a lack of heating and water.

This was said on TikTok by restaurateur Anastasiia Zavadska, a finalist of the show “MasterChef.”

“In Lisky (an area in Kyiv’s Dniprovskyi District — Ed.) there’s no electricity, no water, no heating — there’s просто nothing. The staff got sick, a temperature of 40, many have pneumonia. There’s no one to work, and no one to work for, because people don’t go to cafés — almost everyone sits at home and freaks out. Yesterday evening after work, my employee in Pechersk was taken by the TCC. What else should I tell you?.. I feel like I live in some kind of curiosity cabinet; all of this has catastrophically worn me out… You know what I was just doing? I went to ‘Epicenter’ and bought water bottles for 3,000 so I could fill them at home — because I have a well — and send the water to ‘Iskra’ (‘Iskra Gastrobar,’ Zavadska’s venue — Ed.). That’s how business exists in Ukraine right now,” the restaurateur said.

She also quoted her supplier as saying that just the day before yesterday five establishments wrote to him about closing.

Earlier, the media had already reported that in the capital, due to the lack of electricity, shopping centers and catering establishments are closing.