Vitali Sozanski maxed out his credit cards to fulfill his ambition of running a successful grocery store and party center.
Vitali Sozanski helps one of his regular customers, Nazar Klim of Seven Hills, on a recent afternoon at International Food & Deli. Sozanski, a symphony violinist from Ukraine, took a risk when he opened the store 10 years ago in Parmaâs Ukrainian Village. Today, he orchestrates a community hub.
When he played his violin late into the night at Cleveland nightclubs and Russian party centers, Vitali Sozanski performed with a hidden fervor. The modest pay and the dollars dropping into the tip jar were helping to support his grocery store, International Food & Deli, which he had opened with the slimmest of resources.
As he smiled through another Old World party song, Sozanski's mind raced with New World problems: bills to pay, coolers to be stocked, dreams to be realized.
Ten years later, those desperate gigs are a whimsical memory and the family business a successful if challenging symphony. Sozanski, a violinist who once played for the philharmonic orchestra of Lviv, Ukraine, runs one of the busiest enterprises in the Ukrainian Village section of Parma. His grocery store and adjacent party center attract a multilingual crowd to offerings of Ukrainian pastas, German sausages, Polish polkas and, occasionally, rousing Cossack dances.
The cheerful man no longer picks up his violin, which he credits with serenading him and his wife through difficult years, but he steps in time to a Cleveland tradition. Like immigrants of old, Sozanski arrived from a faraway land, took up a totally new craft, and added new flavors to the region's cultural mosaic.
The fact that he was able to succeed as an entrepreneur is a credit to more than pluck, he says. Sozanski, a brisk and compact 47-year-old, heaps praise on his adopted home.
"It's a much better life here than anywhere," he says assuredly. "I've traveled. Germany. Russia. Austria. America is the best country. And Cleveland is the best city.
"I know some areas are not so good," he added. "But it's a nice, quiet city by a lake. With a big downtown. I love it. I just love it."
Wanderlust struck in his mid-20s, when he visited an uncle in Cleveland and resolved to emigrate. Conditions were desperate in Ukraine, which was breaking away from a collapsing Soviet Union. Jobs were scarce. So was food.
In 1992, at age 27, Sozanski arrived on another visit he hoped to make permanent. He found an employer willing to sponsor a green card and went to work cleaning offices on the overnight shift, laboring from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., the anonymous janitor who spoke no English.
He moved on to machine shops, computer repair and jobs he supplemented playing his violin at places like the Russian Tea Room in Lyndhurst.
Most success stories include a partner or two, and Sozanski's is no exception. In 1995, at a Ukrainian music festival near Cincinnati, he spied Svitlana Kuleshova. A master of the bandura, Ukraine's national instrument, she had immigrated to Ohio two years before and was touring with an all-female Ukrainian folk band.
Sozanski won her heart and brought her to Cleveland, where they married in 2000. That same year, he opened a small video store off State Road in Parma, renting Ukrainian movies to a new immigrant wave drawn to the neighborhood's Ukrainian churches.
That's when his third partner emerged, the friendly but modest Victor Kalancha, who prefers to let Sozanski take the spotlight. An immigrant from Yakutsk, Russia, in the icy sweep of Siberia, Kalancha struck up a friendship with the video shop owner and suggested the pair go into the grocery business.
There was a market, both men knew. The new immigrants were hungry for Old World foods. But neither man had any capital, nor any local business contacts.
"I was scared," Sozanski said. "I know I can lose a lot."
He also felt he was running out of time. He was nearly 40. The late-night gigs were wearing thin and, well, he had come to America to do something special.
"I just always looked to have my own business," he said. "I wanted to try."
He shared the idea with his wife, who told him to forget it.
He opened the grocery store quietly in 2002, maxing out a wallet full of credit cards, and told her afterward. They were in debt $20,000. There was no turning back.
"I go to prison or I have successful business," Sozanski said with a shrug. "She was mad. Now, she works for herself."
Svitlana runs the handsome party center, called the Shynok, a name that evokes a roadside restaurant in Ukraine. She plans dinners and books bands and sometimes lends her singing voice to the show.
Her bandura, like her husband's violin, seldom gets played anymore.
"Music gave a lot to our lives," Svitlana Sozanski said, a bit wistfully. "We spend all our time on the business. But I'm glad. My home is Cleveland now. We have a lot of friends. And a lot of good customers."
The store struggled its first year, and both Vitali and Svitlana played gigs and gave lessons to cover expenses. But the second year was better and sales grew every year after, even through the Great Recession.
Four years ago, the three partners opened the party center. They now host weddings and dinner parties on weekend nights and run an international deli daily.
Regulars come in for the sausages and kielbasa draped from racks behind the counter, for the rich European-style cakes and tortes in the bakery case and for the mineral waters that spring from cherished fonts back home in eastern Europe.
Most members of the staff speak several languages, certainly Ukrainian. But English is common, too. Many of the customers are first- and second-generation Americans rediscovering the foods of their childhood.
Andy Futey, the honorary Ukrainian consul in Greater Cleveland, credits Sozanski with helping to bind and re-energize a venerable ethnic community.
"I used to only go to Giant Eagle. Now, I shop at Vitali's probably twice a week," he said and he laughed. "All of a sudden, my refrigerator is filled with juices and sausages from Ukraine."
As a successful 2012 draws to a close, Sozanski warily eyes the future. Ukrainian immigration has slowed to a trickle locally and the community is spreading out. He and his wife illustrate the pattern. They live in North Royalton, a neighboring suburb.
Sozanski thinks the business must broaden its clientele to survive.
"If we only sell to Ukrainians, 10 years from now, we won't be here," he said.
He hopes to begin marketing the grocery to a wider American audience in the new year. For now, though, he's happy to be a hub of food and culture in an immigrant community.
On a recent afternoon, Sozanski walked through a quiet party center set up for a weekend wedding -- "Polish and American," he explained. China glistened on white linen.
He was more excited about the next event, when one of the neighborhood's Ukrainian credit unions would host a holiday party. That meant Ukrainian food, Ukrainian music and Ukrainian Christmas traditions.
That meant someone might pick up the bandura.
Who knows, her husband might even put a bow to a violin.