In Uruguay, thousands of kilometers away from a war waged by the country of her nationality against the country of her birth, former Russian diplomat Ekarina Germanovich turned baker won the jackpot on a TV show.
After giving up her job as an economic adviser at the Russian Embassy in Montevideo to protest the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ekarina Germanović carved out a new path for herself and found solace in baking, which enabled her to win a national competition in Uruguay.
In an interview with AFP after she became a well-known figure in the small Latin American country, Germanovich called the war in Ukraine “a pain that will never go away”.
“The war created a rift that will take decades to mend,” she said at her home in Montevideo. “Families have been broken and separated.”
Born 40 years ago in Zaporizhia, then part of the Soviet Union but now a Ukrainian region, Germanovich later moved to Moscow where she grew up with her parents and siblings.
Germanovich holds only Russian citizenship, but she spent her childhood holidays in Ukraine and has relatives in both countries.
But she has been cut off from many of her relatives since the start of the war in Ukraine.
“In Ukraine, any contact with people in Russia is considered treason, and the same is true on the Russian side,” she told AFP.
“Some of our relatives in Ukraine have stopped communicating with us because we have Russian citizenship,” she added.
From depression to sweets
Germanovich resigned from her diplomatic post in March 2022, days after the start of the invasion, which Russian President Vladimir Putin described as a “special military operation”.
“I had a very promising career,” she said. “But I found it impossible to continue representing a government that bombed my home country.”
Germanovich, who speaks seven languages, said she struggled to find another job when she put an end to her 10-year diplomatic career and experienced “depression”.
Encouraged by friends, I took part in the Bake Off Uruguay TV show, with prizes of up to 600,000 pesos (approximately $16,000).
On July 12, Germanovich, among 14 competitors, won the competition.
She noted that her baked goods are largely inspired by her Ukrainian maternal grandmother, who passed away during the contest period.
Germanovich plans to open a dessert section in a sushi restaurant owned by one of her friends, and hopes to one day have her own coffee shop.
Germanovich, who is currently pregnant with her third child, confirmed that she is not afraid to express her views publicly, but does not intend to return to Russia “in the coming years.”
She considered that she did not want to risk the future of her two sons, especially the eldest, who is 16 years old, by taking them to a country where military service is compulsory for all citizens from the age of 18.
“I don’t know what would happen if I went to Russia,” she said.
“Some people say to me: ‘It’s not that important, nothing will happen to you’. But I have spoken out against the war.”
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2023-07-21 15:05:38
