Maryna Titarenko together with her daughter Maria founded the creative workshop “Strange Bird”. They make original and personalized prints on various souvenirs: cups, postcards, flash drives or notebooks.
T-shirts are also printed. With the help of voucher support for veterans and their wives from the Lviv City Council, Marina received 300,000 hryvnias to develop her own business.
Maryna Titarenko from the city of Lysychansk, Luhansk region. Her husband is a serviceman, he fought back in 2015. And from the first days of the full-scale invasion, he once again came to the defense of the state. On February 25, 2022, a woman with her daughter Maria left home, only taking a cat with her.
At first they lived with an acquaintance, later they lived in Dnipro for some time, and when Marina’s husband was sent on rotation to Lviv, she followed him with her daughter and decided to stay here.
“This place is familiar to us because we used to travel to the Carpathians and always stop by Lviv for a cup of coffee. This is such a place where it is impossible to sit. So we set about reviving our business,” says Marina.
Marina was engaged in her own business for 16 years in her native Lysychansk. However, the center in which she had her aerodesign and children’s goods departments burned down with all the property.
“My daughter and I started thinking about where to start. Maria’s knowledge became a support, because she is an illustrator, draws well and can create unusual things.
First, we had the idea of printing author’s prints. That is, creating an interesting print and applying it to the cup. That was where we started. We bought equipment and created an Instagram page. It was last year just in time for the New Year, and our sales started quite actively. It was inspiring and helped to move forward,” the woman says.
Marina was looking for support opportunities for entrepreneurs and learned about voucher assistance from the city for relocation, and later applied for a support program for veterans and their spouses.
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“We turned to the Lviv City Council, wrote a letter of motivation, then we were allocated some money, which we used to buy additional material. Then they started thinking about what else they could do and started drawing and printing postcards. We bought a printer and started working with different platforms.
And later they took part in another support program for veteran businesses. As the wife of a serviceman, I received a voucher of 300,000 hryvnias for the development of my own business. With this money, we bought computer equipment, because we were working on an old laptop and a graphic tablet, which had pixel expansion and constant malfunctions.
So, thanks to the support of the city, we now have a full-fledged computer with the programs we installed, and the picture quality has become even higher. We also bought a foil generator, which we will use to personalize products. This is our new idea. We will create personalized gift boxes and will apply special inscriptions on the boxes. That is, this is such an additional decoration of the gift.
So far we only have one Instagram page, but we are planning to create another one with our services that we can already provide. These can be printing services, creating invitations and applying images – this is what became possible thanks to the new equipment,” said Maryna Titarenko.
Currently, the “Strange Bird” workshop develops and creates prints that can be applied to a cup, puzzles or a T-shirt. They also print postcards with the design, personalize notebooks or flash drives here.
Thanks to the city’s voucher support, the workshop received a powerful tool for graphic design and new opportunities for quality work.
“This is a significant support for our business, because we would hardly be able to afford such serious equipment in the conditions we are in now. Because we were left with nothing, but when you leave home and take nothing at all, only a cat. And now we have a business, we got new equipment, I never even dreamed of such a thing. If I had been told about this when I was leaving Lysychansk, I would have been very surprised, but such opportunities exist and it is very good,” Marina added.
Marina’s husband is now continuing his service. He was in hot spots, and soon he will go to the East again. He received an award from the President for the defense of the country.
Marina says that every member of the family helps to develop the business, so she calls her workshop a family one.
“It’s really our family business: my daughter is an illustrator, I’m a marketer, and we involve my husband when he has a connection. This makes him very happy, because he understands that the matter is going on and when the war is over, we will deal with this matter even more powerfully together. The man is a very good logistician, he can calculate everything, and I really miss him in matters of logistics, funds and reports – this is his area. And we also have a warehouse manager – our cat, because he’s always there when we’re doing something,” Marina said.
As a reminder, thanks to the voucher support program from the city, 30 veterans and their wives received up to 300,000 hryvnias for starting or developing their own business. And in general, the Lviv City Council offers 12 vouchers to help entrepreneurs.
“These are vouchers for equipment, for renting premises, for some training