Solomiia and her husband, Ihor, are native Lviv residents but moved out of the city about 10 years ago. Here, in the Horodok district, in the village of Milchytsi, they started producing cheese and planting special kinds of roses, which they use to make rose jam. Life in the countryside surrounded by the landscapes of Galicia turned out to be a paradise, and the name of the family business is Harbuzovyi Rai (Pumpkin Paradise).

"We make cheeses from cow's milk according to the author's procedures, trying to do something out of the ordinary. Depending on the season, the assortment may change, but we always have 10 types of cheeses," says Solomiia.

Distribution of responsibilities and delegation of tasks

She and her husband started this business together, and later began to hire employees to whom they could delegate some of their responsibilities. They also divided the work tasks among themselves, because it is difficult to do everything at once. For example, the woman is responsible for social media, marketing, product promotion, documentation, and finance, while the man is more in charge of production processes. Some employees help in production, take orders and communicate with customers.

Revolving fund: expanding opportunities

Solomiia participated in various training programs where the head of the It's Craft charity, Viktoriia Kulakova, was often a speaker and mentor, so she followed her on social media. That's how she found out about the Revolving Fund. The funds were needed to expand the number of seats. "At first, we opened only a production facility, but it so happened that we have a rather interesting history of the building where we are located. It is an old Austrian school from the nineteenth century. It's very atmospheric, so people started coming to us for excursions, and then we started offering workshops."

In the summer, we host quite a few people, and for the third year in a row, we have been especially happy to host school excursions and workshops. We are talking about a fairly large number of people at a time, which was difficult to accommodate for comfortable master classes. Therefore, it was necessary to quickly expand the number of seats. The couple built a gazebo, so they applied to the fund to purchase furniture: tables and chairs. Now they can accommodate and comfortably seat about 40 people.

Don't be afraid to apply!

Solomiia advises grabbing every opportunity: "When we started our business, there was no such support and we had to organize everything ourselves. If you don't have a financial cushion, it takes longer to develop, and your development takes longer. If you have such opportunities, you should always use them."  

Now they have the opportunity to receive more tourists, produce more cheese, and thus employ more people. "Everything is connected in this chain. Many people around the enterprise or business benefit from this. You just need to look for interesting ideas, directions and develop everything."

There are a lot of plans...

Currently, the main resources and attention are focused on switching to alternative sources of electricity. Due to the current extremely difficult situation in the country, they want to work completely without electricity. Entrepreneurs have almost implemented this, there is very little left. 

In general, they have an attic where they want to make a tasting room to welcome people all year round. For the winter, they have a small hall on the 1st floor, but the main groups still prevail in the warm season. "We really want to develop our activities in terms of tourism, excursions, and master classes, because it's useful, enjoyable, and people like it." 

From a production point of view, they try to improve the production technology to make it easier for employees, as they are mostly women. We want to simplify their workload. There are no plans to increase the range of products, as they believe that less is better, but stable and of high quality.

Order on our website!


After getting acquainted with the couple Solomiya and Ihor, their production, ideas and plans, we definitely invite you to taste their products! Check out the assortment here and discover the true taste of quality craft cheese and rose confiture: https://itscraft.com.ua/harbuzovyi-rai/