Ukrainian Baker Builds New Life in Bemidji, Launches Cottage Business

Liana Taradaiko has forged a new life in Bemidji since fleeing her native city of Dnipro shortly after Russia launched its full scale invasion in February 2022. She arrived in Minnesota in March 2022 after traveling by train through Poland and Amsterdam, and later reunited with her eldest daughter Olha Finnelly.

Locally Taradaiko has worked in Bemidji bakery departments, first at the former Marketplace Foods store and now at Lueken’s Village Foods North. Co workers at Sanford Bemidji helped raise funds to bring other family members to the area, and Taradaiko has added entrepreneurship to her list of accomplishments. Earlier this year she registered Liana's Cakes as a state cottage foods producer and began selling traditional Ukrainian treats.

Her product lineup includes Zefir, airy fruit based confections similar to marshmallows, Oreshki which are walnut shaped cookies filled with dulce de leche, and Kartoshka chocolate cake truffles. She also makes Medivnyk a multi layered honey cake, but cannot sell that through the cottage foods business because it requires refrigeration. Items from Liana's Cakes have sold out quickly at craft shows and through a Facebook page, demonstrating local demand for ethnic foods and the capacity for small home based businesses to reach customers directly.

Colleagues and customers note Taradaiko’s work ethic and personal resilience. Baking has also become a family practice and a way to cope with anxiety about relatives still in Ukraine. Olha said, "Maybe it’s a little bit of a coping mechanism ... we just decided to put this energy into baking and sharing Ukrainian treats with the Bemidji community." Taradaiko added, "Baking Ukrainian traditional treats helps me stay positive and gives me peace."

For Beltrami County residents the story is both human and economic. Liana's Cakes brings new flavors and cultural ties to local markets, supports part time employment alongside existing bakery work, and exemplifies how refugee entrepreneurship can add to the diversity of small scale commerce. As she prepared to marry the man she had met, her business and community connections reflected a broader trend of immigrants translating skills into local economic activity while helping neighbors sample new culinary traditions.