Dmitry Frolov, Mansarda, St. Petersburg
I am involved in several educational projects and also thinking about an online project, but this is still at an early stage. Private clients and private sales help out, but this, of course, is not every day. People drank wine and will continue to do so; they don’t want to limit themselves to the supermarket selection. It’s more difficult to work for the mass consumer, direct sales are highly regulated. There are ideas for private dinners with wine, at people’s homes, but, again, it all depends on social interaction. Wine is not something that works offline.
It’s much more difficult for those who have recently worked in the industry: imagine how it hits the restaurant staff, the waiters, hundreds of thousands of people in the sector. The salaries of waiters are, mostly, tips. No guests — no tips, and their monthly pay is always very symbolic.
Of course, there are some personal savings, I don’t have to pay the rent, there is some investment into wines in my cellar. But the nature of our business is offline, here you need to think something, somehow try to change the approach. I don’t really know how to deal with the job situation, especially for younger people with less gravitas.
And yet, there is no reason to despair, one needs to keep developing and looking for new opportunities.
