The hot dog statue wore tennis shoes and held a Ukrainian flag in its left hand and an American flag in its right. (The hot dog had hands.)
Standing outside the flagship store of the Ukrainian gas station chain Socar, the statue displayed a sign advertising “Nathan’s Famous” hot dogs in the same green curlicue script that promotes the chain at its original location in Brooklyn’s Coney Island and Nathan’s outlets everywhere.
On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Ivan Pozniak, a 35-year-old airline pilot, walked past the statue and into the store connected to the gas station. He was about to try his first Nathan’s Famous hot dog.
“Overall, it’s delicious,” Pozniak said after his first bite of the so-called New York hot dog, with mustard, ketchup and sweet pickle relish. “I usually prefer more classic sauces like Tabasco or the standard ketchup and mayonnaise — that’s what I’m used to. This pickle relish surprised me, but in a good way.”
Hot dogs are ubiquitous in Ukraine. But for a long time, the market has been dominated by a kind of hot dog encased in a tubular panini and described, for a reason no French person seems to know, as the “French” dog. The story of how Nathan’s dogs — settled in their open, messy buns — found a foothold in the country is in many ways a reflection of how much Ukraine has tilted towards the West in past decades.
There are now 27 Nathan’s Famous outlets in Socar gas stations in Ukraine. Despite the war, as much as possible, the lights have stayed on. Business is not booming, but it is okay.
More than almost anyone, Oleksiy Dronov, 48, is responsible for bringing Nathan’s to Ukraine.
The owners of Socar wanted a special kind of hot dog in their stores, which are a far cry from the typical American gas station establishment. Most importantly, the dog had to be all beef to meet the Muslim dietary requirements of the corporate headquarters in Azerbaijan.
Dronov, who worked on the project for Socar, looked at hot-dog chains in Denmark and Germany. One of Dronov’s bosses had been to New York and tasted Nathan’s Famous, which was founded by a Polish immigrant to New York and his wife in 1916.
“He was under the legend already,” Dronov explained.
In 2019, Dronov sent three emails to a generic Nathan’s address on the company website, but the company wasn’t interested.
Then, he sent another email with a picture of a new billboard near his house advertising hot dogs at KFC. He asked Nathan’s: If KFC was entering the market, why aren’t you?
Eventually, Dronov made contact with Oliver Powers, the vice-president of franchise operations at Nathan’s, and Socar signed a deal. Nathan’s also made big plans for Ukraine: franchises and eventually free-standing Nathan’s restaurants.
But the timing was not great. Socar opened its first Nathan’s Famous outlet during the pandemic, a time of masks and hyper-sanitariness, things that are terrible for hot dog sales.
Then, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Powers was in Florida. He sent a text to Dronov: “I hope you are okay.”
Dronov’s reply: “I’m in Kyiv, they’re shooting on the outskirts of the city, some small groups are invading and being stopped.” He added: “I wish I had a gun,” and appended the Ukrainian version of a smiley-face emoji.
Powers told him to stay safe. They continued to trade messages throughout the toughest part of the war in Kyiv. On February 28, Powers wrote: “Are you okay, are you hanging in?”
“Yep, boss,” Dronov said. “But since today, we can’t really sell Nathan’s.”
Eventually, Nathan’s resumed selling hot dogs, the war became a fact of life, and Dronov became a volunteer for the war effort.
As for Nathan’s in Ukraine, gone are the dreams of holding a hot-dog eating contest at the flagship store every Fourth of July like the one in Coney Island, which in 2021 featured a man who ate 76 Nathan’s Famous hot dogs in 10 minutes. In Ukraine, the government has discouraged big gatherings like that.
In 2023, Nathan’s in Ukraine tried to celebrate the Fourth with an online hot-dog eating contest. Only about 30 people entered, though, and the winner ate just five hot dogs in three minutes. For that celebration, the store ordered the hot-dog statue, along with a large American flag. Someone put the small Ukrainian and US flags in the hot dog’s hands.
The statue and the flags have endured, unlike the online hot-dog eating contest.