Veteran Artur Krasovsky is one of the winners of the #VARTO business financing competition from the Ukrainian Veteran Foundation of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs of Ukraine.
Artur will be developing the production of natural, ecologically clean honey and other useful bee products of the “Azov Bees” brand.
He will be engaged in cultivating bees of the “Ukrainian steppe” and the “Carpathian” breeds.
“I began beekeeping 5 years ago. It was a hobby after leaving the military service. Since 2012 I worked in the police, investigating economic crimes. With the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2014, I was involved in the defence along the demarcation line near Mariupol,” says Artur Krasovsky.
After leaving the service, the man decided to turn his beekeeping hobby into a source of income.
Artur lived in Melekine, near Mariupol. He had an apiary there. With the beginning of a full-scale invasion in 2022, he had to flee his home and move to Khmelnytskyi.
“We had to drive through dozens of roadblocks, through gray detours. That’s why I couldn’t take away his bees or his other property. Everything that remained in the temporarily occupied territory was destroyed. I had an open business. I thought about doing beekeeping, but it was too difficult financially. I saw on the Internet that the Ukrainian Veteran Foundation finances the development of veteran businesses. I applied and won, although I didn’t even expect it. I was pleasantly surprised,” the veteran shares.
According to the defender, their plans include the production of honey, packing it into sticks and making sweets. They will also provide apitherapy services.
These are special houses that stand on beehives for people to rest there. 20 minutes of rest in the “bee house” can replace a full sleep.
6 people will be involved in the work of the apiary and the enterprise: assistant beekeepers, packers, and a marketing specialist. Artur plans that the next spring the apiary will be expanded to 500-600 beehives.
