From accountant to 450‑ruble bread baker

Albina Islamova from Aktanysh (Tatarstan, Russia), also known as Almiga, has been baking cakes and bread for 10 years. The Tatarstan resident started small: making desserts to order, then opened a tiny shop that later grew into a large cafe in the very center of the village. Now Islamova teaches students from across the country and abroad to bake with heart.

How the confectioner left her accounting job, devised a sourdough bread recipe she now sells for 450 rubles (about $5 at current rates), and built a profitable business in a village of 10,000 people.

How a «crazy idea» turned into a big business

Albina is from the small village of Novoe Alimovo in Aktanyshsky District (Tatarstan, Russia). She went to school there and later in the district center. As a child, Islamova wasn’t drawn to baking; instead she made bracelets, embroidered, and knitted. From 7th grade she was sure she would become a financier or an economist. Later, the ability to work with numbers naturally came in handy.

«I understand that this knowledge helps me immensely now. I analyze whether a dish is profitable or not. This knowledge helps me stay afloat. Many people open a business on enthusiasm alone, on an idea, but they don’t know how to calculate cost price, how expenses add up, what remains after taxes. If I weren’t in baking, I would definitely have gone into finance,» Islamova says.

It’s worth noting that no one in Islamova’s family was seriously involved in cooking. In the 2000s her parents ran businesses: they sold goods at retail points and operated a cafe at a car wash. During that time, the household chores fell to the children. After finishing school, Albina headed to Kazan — «to conquer the capital», Islamova jokes.

There she enrolled at the Kazanskii finansovo‑ekonomicheskii institut (Kazan Financial and Economic Institute) to study economics. After graduating she married — in fact, her classmate from the village. Albina and her husband lived in the republic’s capital for about a year and then moved back to Aktanysh.

«I got a job as an accountant and within six months realized the work wasn’t for me because it was monotonous, boring, routine. I lacked creativity,» Islamova explains.

Albina’s path in confectionery began in 2015. On her birthday that year she received a special — one might even say fateful — gift: a cake from her mother. That very day the idea was born — to bake cakes to order.

«I had never even held a whisk in my hands, didn’t cook, I didn’t have that talent of baking and making cakes since childhood. Of course I cooked cutlets, mashed potatoes, baked for my dad. Mostly my sister and I made lunches and dinners for our parents. But I had no talent at all for baking or cooking. And that ‘crazy idea’ turned into a big business,» says the pastry technologist.

«You need to be ready to sleep there»

Albina started with sponge cakes. She made and sold them herself. But at the very start, our interlocutor says, many objections came from customers — including about the price of the finished products.

«They said it was more expensive than a cake in a store. In a store, say, a cake costs 200 rubles (about $2 at current rates), and I sell for 300–400 rubles (about $3–$4). That’s twice as much. People didn’t understand that at first and didn’t buy. I baked and wrote off, baked and wrote off, because cakes have a shelf life. I was very upset. My family supported me a lot then: what I baked, they bought from me and gave me money for it,» Islamova shares.

At some point, Islamova says, customers realized that cake quality differs: a confectioner uses fresh ingredients and bakes to individual order. The client base began to grow. Later Albina switched to mousse cakes, and in 2017 she opened a small shop selling desserts and baked goods. Some time after, the «Almiga» cafe appeared in the very center of Aktanysh.

«These are the first syllables of our parents’ children’s names: Albina, Milyausha, Gadel. It’s a brand my mother came up with when they opened their first little shop. <…> At the beginning you must always be ready for this — that you’ll be sleeping there (at the cafe), being there 24/7. The food business means you work when others are resting. During holidays I practically slept there; from 6 a.m. to 10–11 p.m. you’re there. You work, you eat, you rest a bit, you toil,» Islamova says.

The cafe, our interlocutor shares, paid for itself in 10 months; three months were spent transforming the small shop into an atmospheric venue. Over time, the confectioner managed to automate processes and organize work so that employees could be multifunctional. In this, Islamova says, lies the secret to such fast payback.

«Our team is about 10 people. Sales staff work in shifts; the production department has a 6–7‑hour workday. They come in the morning; production starts at 6 a.m.; by eight we already have fresh pastries and fresh cakes ready,» the confectioner describes the workflow.

Mousse cakes at «Almiga» cost 3,000 rubles (about $30 at current rates) per kilogram; sponge cakes start from 1,000 rubles (about $10). There are also various baked goods for sale, including traditional national items — and of course, bread.

Why do people buy 450‑ruble bread?

Alongside making cakes and running the business, Albina actively kept — and continues to keep — a blog. She has 153,000 followers on the banned social network, almost 25,000 on VKontakte, and more than half a million on YouTube. Thanks to social media, the confectioner’s bread became so popular.

«I baked bread for family and friends and began showing on my blog that I bake healthy bread from whole‑grain flour, with sourdough starter, without using industrial baker’s yeast. I simply showed it, I ate it on camera. Then people started writing: “Albina, please teach us.” I dodged for about six months to a year, but at some point I relented and gathered my first group. After that I started getting a lot of messages. People came from those girls who had trained with me. I shared their results — and the results were really impressive,» Islamova says.

But our heroine doesn’t just teach — she keeps baking and won’t literally let anyone take the bread‑making out of her hands. For Albina, working with dough is a kind of meditation.

Albina’s bread can be bought only at the cafe or by pre‑order. It costs 450 rubles (about $5 at current rates) for 900 grams. Many internet users are put off primarily by the price. Under Islamova’s viral videos with millions of views, one often finds comments from followers who, to put it mildly, are surprised by the cost.

But our heroine explains: if a person values their health and well‑being, they will be ready to pay a thousand or two thousand rubles (about $10–$20 at current rates). The important thing, the confectioner says, is to convey the product’s value and benefits and present it properly.

«Despite the fact that in our village, where the population is about 9,000 people and the average salary is 25,000–30,000 rubles (about $250–$300 at current rates), people still buy it — they come from 40 kilometers away, from Muslyumovo (Tatarstan) and from Chelny (Naberezhnye Chelny), buy 5–6 loaves and freeze them,» the confectioner says.

Almost two years ago Islamova told followers she had lost 8 kilograms (about 18 lb). Bread did not disappear from her diet. According to Albina, fat won’t settle on one’s sides if you don’t overdo baked goods — there is no need to give them up entirely.

«Everything should be in moderation. If we drink alcohol, we don’t drink half a bottle — then you’ll become an alcoholic. Same here. A slice in the morning, a slice in the afternoon of healthy sourdough bread without industrial yeast won’t stick to your waist. But if you eat half a loaf in the morning, half a loaf in the afternoon and in the evening with butter as well, it’s clear your weight will go up,» explains the founder of the cafe and the online school.

«For three years I worked without vacations, so burnout happened»

Running a blog, teaching, watching over the business, and still managing to raise a 14‑year‑old daughter — from the outside it can seem as if Albina had more than two hands. And of course, with such a pace of life she had to face burnout. Now, however, Islamova has learned to balance work and life.

«It happened several times that for months I couldn’t get out of bed. My family supported me again. It’s a rather tough business when you work from six in the morning to ten at night. For three years I worked without vacations, so burnout happened. Later I started planning: I work for half a year, then take a two‑week vacation,» Albina says.

Islamova has now managed to devote more time to teaching and blogging. Business is going well: revenue grows by 10% each year. Even so, the confectioner doesn’t want to stop there. Among her bold ideas is opening a venue in Kazan.

«I want to open a cafe in Kazan, but my husband is against moving for now. And just going there periodically isn’t an option for me, because if you’re not present there, nothing good will come of it. You need to be there 24/7, at least in the early days when you’re still setting up processes, until you put together the dream team. That takes time,» our interlocutor shares.

Earlier we wrote about brand‑chef Evgeny Sidorenko from Prague, who works at a Kazan venue. He spent most of his life in the Czech Republic, where he pursued cooking and art. He managed to travel the world, worked as a private chef in the family of Charlie Chaplin’s son, and appeared in a Hollywood film with Heath Ledger.