A self-taught baker from Braslav delights the residents of the district center and guests from Latvia with fresh homemade pastries
By profession, Vladimir is a carpenter. He worked in his field for a long time and had no intention of mastering the art of baking. But, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining: he once broke his leg, and the cast imposed significant changes on his usual active lifestyle.
To keep busy, he started helping around the house. Discovering a bread maker in the kitchen, he decided to treat his family to fresh baked goods. Then he ventured into an experiment: baking bread in the oven, thinking everything would turn out right the first time. But it wasn't so simple – almost the entire batch turned out to be defective, both in taste and appearance, the baked goods vaguely resembled what we are used to buying in stores. The defective loaves had to be fed to the dog and other pets. In general, it took more than a year to master all the basics.
When Vladimir learned about Presidential Decree No. 337 on the regulation of activities of individuals (according to which baking and selling it by the same person is not considered entrepreneurship), he decided to start his own business. He purchased a special oven for 1800 rubles – and began professionally baking bread and pastries, six days a week. He rests only on Mondays.
Now, residents of the district center can tell by the wafting aroma on the central street that today Volodya has brought them not only fresh loaves of bread but also: cinnamon buns, condensed milk pastries, or a baguette with raisins. To delight them with hot baked goods, the baker has to work all night; for this purpose, he equipped a room in his house.
— I mix the dough in the evening, – says Vladimir. – And I finish baking at night, because by 12 PM I start delivering and selling bread. Perhaps, lack of sleep is the hardest part of my job, I really like everything else. I found professional and amateur bakers online, and they shared some recipes and techniques with me. At first, many acquaintances discouraged me, saying it wasn't a man's job at all. If only they knew that in European bakeries, it's mainly men who work there! And only my father believed in me, encouraged me as much as he could.
Vladimir remembers the day he first brought his homemade bread for sale as if it were yesterday. Back then, he baked and offered customers 30 buns and 30 loaves of bread.
– I was worried there wouldn't be demand, but people bought it, – notes the baker. – Now I have regular customers. While I'm driving the bread van to the city center, people stop me and buy bread, so I always load my cart with extra. Even Latvians, who are looking for organic products, come and buy 20 loaves for themselves and their friends and relatives.
Of course, many factors influence product demand: the weather, the day of the week, but Vladimir still manages to work profitably. Now, the young baker from Braslav dreams of finding a space for his own bakery to expand his product range.