Canadian businesswoman donates 100 per cent of her profits to humanitarian aid in Ukraine.
The CEO of Zirkova Vodka is at her home.
The photo was taken by Peter J Thompson.
When the vehicle stopped, Vellinga was bumping through the streets of a Ukrainian city.
Her relative didn't panic. He did not call for a tow. Instead, he stepped from the vehicle with a piece of fabric, popped the hood, fiddled with a thingamajig, and continued onward.
The resourcefulness of the Ukrainian people is legendary.
Her point is that the images emerging from Ukraine today in news clips, social-media posts and written accounts aren't outliers, but evidence of what Ukrainians have always been made of. There is a man with a cigarette in his mouth who is removing a landmine from the road, a president telling the world that he is not going anywhere, and ordinary people shouldering arms.
During the Soviet Union times, everyone had to figure out how to get around things. It was something I saw when I landed there.
She founded Emergex Business Solutions with her husband, John, and a couple of other partners after climbing into a piece-of-fabric-powered Lada a quarter-century ago.
It was a work-life decision that immersed the then late-20-something-year-old in the country's dinner-table culture and the beverage at the heart of it: Ukrainian vodka.
Tasting notes for Zirkova Vodka show a variety of flavours.
The photo was taken by Peter J Thompson.
The founder and chief executive of Zirkova Vodka is a man who used to be a consultant.
Vellinga said that it sounds delicious, but it's irrelevant, as she has undergone a transformation from her business meaning everything to her, to it being the least of her concerns in the face of global events. The executive is now getting 500 messages a day from her contacts in a war zone, and it's not the subject line.
She said from her home in Oakville that nobody is thinking about their business.
His Ukrainian roots run much deeper than just dollars and cents. She was born in Canada and didn't speak English until she was five.
Nobody is thinking about their business right now
Katherine Vellinga
Her grandfather gave her a book filled with survivor accounts of the famine and genocide that took place in the early 1930s. The family took part in a demonstration outside the Soviet consulate in Toronto.
Vellinga said that her childhood was Canadian by day and Ukrainian by weekend.
She wasn't oblivious to the reality of Russian aggression.
Vellinga took note of the reports of irregular Russian troop movements in December and took steps to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
My childhood was Canadian by day, Ukrainian by weekend
Katherine Vellinga
Nicholas II of Russia commissioned a factory south of Kyiv more than 100 years ago to make whiskey. She said that the master distillers she works with are women. The ingredients used to make the alcoholic beverage are from all over the country.
Vellinga said that they were considering every scenario and that they thought it was an attempt to scare off foreign investment.
She began working with her Ukrainian partners to get more product out of the country, a process that bumped up against European Union import/export regulations and her Canadian vendors who ignored her pleas to frontload orders before it was too late.
In speaking with her relatives and employees on the ground, Vellinga became convinced of what was to come, and her idea wasn't to rescue the business, but to stockpile advance orders, pay off suppliers, use up raw materials and keep the money flowing into Ukrainian hands.
The trucks were ordered to deliver the booze, but they didn't show up. The Russians invaded the day they were to arrive.
Vellinga said that it doesn't matter, because the Ukrainian people are going through it.
She felt powerless last Thursday. She decided that it was time for action and that she would donate 100 per cent of her profits to humanitarian aid in Ukraine. There are over 5,000 bottles of Zirkova Vodka in stock at Ontario liquor store outlets.
The future of Vellinga's business is more important than ever. The people she has known as colleagues, business contacts and friends are putting up defences around buildings, buying jackets for territorial defence units, organizing a media centre and joining an IT army.
She said that the Ukrainians weren't saying to her, "Can you help me get out?"
As the bombs keep falling, legendary Ukrainian resourcefulness comes to the fore, such as fixing a Lada with a piece of fabric and believing that freedom is something worth fighting for.
Email: Joconnor@nationalpost.com
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