In Ukraine’s Lviv, owners of cat café refuse to leave because of their felines

Tribune Web Desk

Chandigarh, February 26

As bombs rain down and streets empty in Ukraine's western city of Lviv, there’s one place that still remains open.

For owners of a cat café, their choice is simple: what happens to their 20-odd cats if they choose to leave.

"Our cats are brave," the owners told CNN's Erin Burnett. Burnett ended up at the café after she and her team filmed the city’s empty streets and decided it was time for lunch. Everything was shuttered, and after half an hour of walking, the team came across the cat café.

"It is a dark and heavy day here. But I found something that couldn’t stop a smile. The only food I saw open - Cat Cafe. The owners are making food with what they have - they smiled: Our cats are brave," Erin tweeted. "A place is made up of so many tiny stories. And each one is big. The cat cafe is open because the owners say—there are 20 cats here to feed. 'This is our life'. They will not leave," the CNN journalist said.

"The streets here were almost deserted by early afternoon. Nothing was open. Restaurants that were busy last week were totally shuttered,” she writes.

There was a family inside with backpacks and blankets, she writes, clearly fleeing the Russian invasion.

“But they were smiling because they saw the cat wheel," Burnett wrote.

The owners told her they would never leave Ukraine because they would be no one to feed the cats if they did.

"They stay because they love their cats. It just made me realise at this moment that people stay for so many different reasons," the journalist said.

It is a dark and heavy day here. But I found something that couldn’t stop a smile. The only food I saw open - Cat Cafe. The owners are making food with what they have - they smiled: “Our cats are brave”. pic.twitter.com/wAGEF9oPfW

— Erin Burnett (@ErinBurnett) February 25, 2022

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