Ukrainian woman opens restaurant after years of seasonal farm work in Finland

A Ukrainian woman who once endured harsh conditions as a seasonal berry picker in Finland now runs her own restaurant in Raisio, Yle reports.

Myroslava Kovbel, 48, arrived in Finland in 2012 and spent years working on farms, first picking strawberries in eastern Finland under grueling conditions. Workers lived in barracks with 15 people per room, sleeping in triple bunk beds. With no running water, they washed clothes and bathed at a lakeside sauna. Rats infested the living quarters.

“We were transported by bus to a farm in eastern Finland. There were many workers. The manager gave each of us a number, and in the fields, we were called by numbers instead of names. I was number 133,” Kovbel said.

She left before the season ended and moved to another farm, where she harvested onions. There, shifts sometimes ran from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., with workers confined to the farm grounds. Pay initially stood at €5 per hour but later shifted to a piece-rate system, slashing earnings.

After a farmer reported her for breaking contract terms, authorities denied her a new seasonal work permit the following year. She successfully appealed, but the experience left her questioning why workers endure exploitation: “People tolerate it for years because they fear future problems with documents or losing work entirely.”

Kovbel eventually secured stable work at a pig farm, allowing her to bring her son, Oleksii Halushka, to Finland. The farm owners treated workers well, she said, and still visit her restaurant today.

In 2024, she opened Vanha mylly (Old Mill), a small eatery serving Ukrainian cuisine. The restaurant operates daily, with Kovbel working without breaks. Her son now helps run the business.

Kovbel noted that Ukrainians with temporary protection in Finland rarely seek seasonal farm work, partly due to childcare challenges. Many instead arrive on short-term visas, though employers often avoid covering the €200 seasonal work permit fee, pushing workers toward temporary protection status.