May 17, 2025, 1:15 p.m.
(Photo collage: Intent)
Zhanna Mandrychenko, a deputy of the Odesa City Council, complained to Taras Kremin, the Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language, about a violation of language legislation that she recorded in the Odesa hypermarket Epicenter K.
According to the deputy, the incident occurred on May 14, when she was standing in line at the cash register.
The deputy was talking with her friends and suddenly the cashier told them to go to the self-service checkout because she would not serve them. The deputy asked why and asked to be served in Ukrainian, to which she was refused in Russian.
"It's not for you to tell me what to do and how to speak, you're here to stay," the cashier cut me off," the MP said.
She emphasized to her opponent that by law, customers must be served in Ukrainian.
"The default language of service is Ukrainian. In short, Pandora's box was opened. I heard the classics - "you've come", "Odessans don't speak like that", "go back to where you came from", "I'm twice your age, girl!", said Zhanna Mandrychenko.
The deputy said she started filming the cashier, and she started shouting that she had not given permission.
"We called the administrator, but for some reason she was not at her workplace. Another cashier took the keys to the cash register from the cashier who actually made the payment, sending her colleague somewhere to the administrative office because the latter didn't want to serve the "newcomers," the deputy summarized.
The deputy told Intent that the incident occurred in a hypermarket on Ovidiopolska Road and that she had passed the video of the incident to the Commissioner for the Protection of the Ukrainian Language, but would not publish it on social media for ethical reasons. Intent contacted the store's administration for a comment, where they said that they had taken action against the cashier, but did not say what kind of action. The store also assured that such incidents rarely occur.
Кирило Бойко