Russia’s military action on Ukraine has put the Russian Restaurants in New York City in trouble. Ironically, most of them are against the war and are owned by Ukrainian immigrants. The Russian restaurants have been receiving rude phone calls, negative reviews on online platforms and getting angry emails.
Popular Russian restaurants have reported reservations being cancelled, and even on peak days, they are struggling to fill the tables. Some restaurants have reported vandalism at their premises. Some restaurants have claimed their reservations dropped by up to 60% since Russia initiated a military attack on Ukraine.
New York Times quoted owners of Sveta, a small Russian restaurant in the West Village, saying they have been receiving hate mails. One of the emails they received only said, “Go Home.” The owner of the restaurant, 64-years-old Sveta Savchitz, is a Ukrainian who came to the US in 1993. She opened the restaurant in 2015 and promoted it as Russian as they thought it would bring more recognition for them. However, now the recognition as a Russian restaurant is attracting hate, so they have changed the online description from ‘Russian’ to ‘Eastern European’.
Russian Samovar, a family-owned Russian piano bar in Midtown, has received calls where the callers addressed the owners as Nazis. Vlada Von Shats, the matron of the restaurant, said, “People have kicked in our door at night.” She is a Russian, and her husband is from Ukraine. The restaurant hosted a fundraiser for Ukraine and posted a blue and yellow flag with a sign saying, “Stand with Ukraine. No War.” But the attacks still happened and continued. They claimed the reservations were down by 60%. Von Shots said, “These people don’t realize that we have nothing to do with Putin.”
Restaurants are not the only ones that are facing hate-filled attacks. Recently, it was reported that a restaurant in France, La Maison de la Poutine, that has the signature dish ‘poutine’ had to make a public statement on social media to clarify that Poutine is a Canadian dish and has no connection to Putin.
Another Restaurant, The Russian Tea Room in New York City, is under attack. The 100-year-old legacy of the restaurant has failed to save it from the haters. In an email statement to CNN, the owners of the restaurant said, “Founded by refugees with Kyiv in its blood, the heart of the Russian Tea Room is with the people of Ukraine, but we are not the story here. Russia has gotten away with mass murder for too long, and the focus should remain on those suffering and dying in Ukraine.”
While the Russian restaurants are facing the heat, the Ukrainian restaurants have seen a rise in sales by up to 75%. Veselka, a Ukrainian restaurant in the Lower East Side of New York, has seen customers lining up to try their cuisine. The owner Jason Birchard told CNN that he has been running a fundraiser for an NGO on a humanitarian mission in Ukraine and raised around $10,000 in the first week. He expected to send another $15,000 within a week to the NGO.
Anti-Russia sentiments
Since February 24, when Russia announced military action on Ukraine, anti-Russia sentiments have increased in the western world. Over a hundred companies have shut their shops in Russia, and outlets in western countries have removed Russian products from the shelves. Financial companies like Visa, Master Card and Paypal have stopped their operations in Russia. The US has announced it would no longer import oil from Russia, among other sanctions.