流行最先端レストラン、食事で支援 キエフ

【ＡＦＰ＝時事】ウクライナの首都キエフの流行最先端レストラン「チェルノモルカ」。ロシアによるウクライナ侵攻後、店は営業を停止し、今は無料で食事を配布している。（写真は「チェルノモルカ」で、食事を配布する従業員）
　水槽の中の多数のカキが、食文化がにぎわっていた時を思い出させる。
　チェルノモルカは、食料の入手が困難な人を支援するレストランの一つだ。
　「これが私たちにできることだ」と、チェルノモルカの開発部門責任者ドミトロ・コストルビンさん（４２）は話す。
　ロシアの侵攻により営業停止を余儀なくされるまで、パンケーキのイクラ添えやムール貝のテルミドールなどがメニューに並んでいた。
　今は温かいチキンとライスを、分厚いコートを着込んだ人々に無料で提供している。侵攻後、アルコールの販売が禁止されたため、飲み物はシャンパンではなくオレンジジュースだ。
　必要な人に配布できてはいるものの、ロシア軍がキエフを包囲しようとしているため、食料はますます不足し始めている。コストルビンさんによると、受け取りに来るのは高齢者がほとんどだ。
　今のところキエフは、マリウポリやハリコフのような窮状には陥っていない。ただ、外出禁止令が出されている間は店の商品は品薄になり、長蛇の列ができることもある。
　建設会社の元経理担当のミヌアル・バリスベコワさんは、無料配布の知らせをメールで受け取り、運動も兼ねて店に来たと話した。「そうでなければ、一日中家にいておびえていた」と語った。「ボランティアをやりたいと思ったけれど、断られるだろう。７４歳だから」
　チェルノモルカの食事の無料提供は、全国で飲食店を展開するアレックス・クーパー氏が経営するキエフ・フードマーケットと共同で行っている。
　市民だけではなく兵士にも食事の提供を行っている。
　フードマーケットに入店する「モロディスト」のマネジャー、パブロ・シェブツォフさんは、これまでに６０００食を提供したと話した。
「私たちは料理ができる」「戦闘や治療、武器の使い方は分からないかもしれないが、自分たちにできることをやっている」と語った。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/03/24-13:00）

Dozens of oysters lie uneaten in a tank at the trendy Chernomorka fish restaurant in Kyiv, a reminder of the city's booming gastronomic scene before Moscow's invasion.
Now this downtown eatery, housed in a fake blue and white lighthouse, is serving free meals to people in a capital being slowly encircled by Russian forces.
It's one of several restaurants helping those having difficulty accessing food, in what they say is their contribution to Ukraine's war effort.
This is what we can do, says Dmytro Kostrubin, 42, the development manager at Chernomorka, as elderly people sit at their tables with polystyrene lunchboxes.
The pancakes with red trout caviar, pike caviar with green onions and mussels with thermidor sauce have been off the menu since the February 24 invasion forced the restaurant to close.
Instead, the people shuffling into Chernomorka in their thick coats for a free meal are given a hearty mixture of chicken and rice.
Their lunch is washed down with a glass of orange juice instead of champagne, with all alcohol sales banned in Ukraine since the Russians came.
While the meals are available to anyone who needs food, which is becoming increasingly scarce as the Russians slowly try to encircle Kyiv, Kostrubin says most are elderly.
Some come and ask for food for their neighbours who cannot get out or are ill in bed, we of course trust them and give food for them, too, says Kostrubin, who finally managed to get back to Ukraine from abroad last week.
- 'Boiling in my fears' -
Kyiv has not so far endured the hardships of cities like Mariupol and Kharkiv, but shops are short of some produce and there can be long lines, especially during sporadic curfews imposed by military authorities.
One has to have strength to wait in the lines to buy food, said Minuar Barisbekova, a retired bookkeeper at a construction company, as she received her meal in a plastic bag to take away.
She said she had received an email with news of the meals so decided to come here and back home to stretch my legs. Otherwise, I?m staying at home day to night boiling in my fears.
I thought I?d volunteer, but they wouldn?t take me, I?m 74.
Mila Anderson brought her mother Ludmila, 83, saying it helped with the stress of living in a city which Russian forces are striking daily with missile strikes and shelling.
It's a good idea, the 57-year-old English teacher said.
I hadn't been before but I knew about it, it was a fish place... now they don't have all these things but hopefully this all will finish soon.
The free meals are a joint scheme with the Kyiv Food Market in the capital, founded by the Ukrainian restaurateur Alex Cooper, who owns a string of eateries around the country.
An army marches on its stomach, the old saying goes, and restaurants all over the capital are helping not just civilians but the military as well.
Pavlo Shevtsov, manager at the Molodist restaurant in Kyiv Food Market, said his kitchen had so far prepared 6,000 meals for our guys.
We know how to cook, he said. We may not know how to fight or bring medicine, arms or ammunition, but we stood up and started doing what we can.