When a young Enesh Mantyyeva was playing tennis with her sister Altyn in the backyards of their home in Turkmenistan, she had no idea that nearly two decades later, she would become the owner of a restaurant located in the heart of America’s third largest city.

Born in 1994, three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Enesh grew up witnessing how an ill-prepared Turkmenistan struggled with sovereignty after spending 66 years being a minor Soviet republic, and 110 under Russian influence. The Mantyyevas were unavoidably affected – financially, above all, a situation shared by most citizens in the old Soviet republics at the time. Their father, Oraz Mantyyev, took the sole responsibility of supporting the family; so much so that he was barely in their lives. The four siblings, including Enesh, used tennis as a way to distract themselves from the pang of their father’s constant absence.

To this day, Enesh, now 27, maintains her childhood habit of keeping herself busy. Sometimes with tennis, or other times with a book. “I can’t just lie there and do nothing,” she said, sitting in the backside of Russian Tea Time, the South Loop eatery she’s owned since 2018.

Originally founded by Klara Muchnik and her son Vadim in 1993, Russian Tea Time was, in every sense, a family business. Klara, the Ukrainian-born owner and chef, found her passion for cooking in old family recipes after she moved to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where she began her career as a surgical nurse. Later, when economic condition in Uzbekistan became too harsh, her family immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Chicago in 1990. Three years later, her dream of opening a restaurant that centered on Russian cuisines came to reality with the help of her son, as the grand opening of Russian Tea Time took place right beside DePaul University, which Enesh attended in 2012.

In 2018, when the Muchniks decided to retire and put the restaurant up for sale, Enesh—who’d graduated from community college and earned a business administration and finance degree from DePaul—seized the opportunity. “This place is perfect because it is exactly a business administration thing. I love managing it,” she said. She has re-modeled Russian Tea Time into what it is today: an exquisite venue, with mirrors, crimson velvet curtains, glittering chandeliers and Shostakovich’s symphonies. The restaurant is divided into two halves: the front-side being reminiscent of the Russian Empire and rear-side a throwback to the Soviet era. One can either stop to appreciate the traditional Russian самовары—literally “self-brewer”—that stand on the cabinet opposite to the front door, or take out their phones and try to translate the Cyrillic texts written on the Soviet posters.

What makes Russian Tea Time so special, however, is the familial aspect that’s been passed on since Muchnik. Enesh’s sister Altyn had moved to Chicago to help her, but it’s deeper than that. Enesh has befriended her employees, mostly Russian immigrants, to the extent that they go to each other’s birthdays and graduation ceremonies. “It is still a family business,” said Enesh.

Mark Cafin is among those employees.

Born in a post-Soviet Russia in 1996, Cafin spent his childhood in Saint Petersburg and most of his adult life under the reign of Vladimir Putin, who became the president of the Russian Federation in 2000 and has remained so. Back in his home country, Cafin had a career dedicated to fight against corruptions in the Russian government, until things tensed up with the arrest of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Cafin was granted political asylum and fled to the U.S. in August, 2021.

“In Russia, if you show up in more than three protests, they put you in jail,” said Cafin, now a waiter at Russian Tea House, “I enjoy working here. Enesh has become a good friend of mine.”

Speaking on the future of the restaurant, Enesh said she plans to hold onto the eatery’s heritage and authenticity. “We are not hungry for profits,” she said, “We don’t want to change it to a fast-food restaurant.” She wants to maintain the essence of Russian Tea Time—a place where people come and learn about Russian food, Russian tea service and, well, Russian. The venue has leaflets printed with short Russian words like Спасибо (“thank you”) and Здравствуйте (“hello”)”—to help those hoping to get their starts with the language; something that encourages Enesh, who loves seeing people bonding over Russian culture, whether it’s Dostoevsky or Nicholas II.

It’s a warm, inviting atmosphere; one that survived the pandemic, and one Enesh hopes can stand the test of time, come what may.