'I would go to the market in Ukraine and spend it all on football shirts': The story behind the new Stunner vintage store
It was 4am in the morning when Polina Vynohradova and Serge Shcherbyna received the call that war between their native Ukraine and Russia had started. The pair had left Kyiv just merely hours before to meet up with a friend and exchange ideas about how they could run their vintage football shirt store with the threat of conflict on the horizon.
“We could feel that something was going to happen,” said 27-year-old Polina.
“We didn’t know what to do next with Stunner. We decided to close the doors and go to Brussels to meet a friend who was running the same business but online.
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"We went to exchange some ideas and find some inspiration. We left Kyiv on February 23rd and on February 24th at 4am our friend called us and said the war had started.
"The first reaction was shock and then I just kept crying.”
The pair are the brains behind Stunner, a new vintage football shirt store that opened on South King Street in Manchester city centre two weeks ago, but before that they operated from a unit in a renovated mansion in the Golden Gate neighbourhood of Kyiv. Once the news broke about the war, their first thought was safety and, with bombs falling on Kyiv, a return was off the cards.
With very little funds, the pair travelled around Europe for a short while, visiting places like Belgium and Italy. After a few months of travelling they reached out to a mate in Macclesfield who they met through trading football shirts.
With the help of the visa scheme for Ukrainians they were able to settle in the UK and they arrived in November 2022 and instantly fell in love with
