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Roman Bulanyi & Roman Mishchenko
Co-Founders
Two friends named Roman—one a bankruptcy lawyer, one a construction engineer—faced the question every passionate amateur confronts: quit everything or never try? They chose a third path. Eight years and one national award later, their nano-winery proves that deliberate constraint creates focus, not failure.
Transformation Arc
Two friends named Roman—one a bankruptcy lawyer, one a construction engineer—met over a shared wine obsession and made an unusual pact: plant vines together, learn winemaking formally, but never quit their day jobs. Eight years later, their “nano-winery” produces Russia’s #31-ranked white wine on weekends only.
The scale of the project predetermined its concept: maximum personal involvement in all processes. It's difficult, but that's exactly what we strive for.
The Partnership That Shouldn’t Work #
Roman Mishchenko spends weekdays guiding companies through corporate insolvency. Roman Bulanyi spends his designing and managing construction projects. Neither had agricultural backgrounds. Neither had winemaking training. What they shared was a dangerous obsession—the kind where two friends could spend entire weekends debating fermentation temperatures, soil composition, and the proper height of grapevine trellises.
In 2016, rather than choosing between their careers and their passion, they chose both. The Wine Village cooperative near Gostageevskaya in Krasnodar Krai had opened two years earlier, offering infrastructure for exactly their kind of dreamer: successful professionals who wanted to make wine without betting their financial stability on it.
Learning While Earning #
The decision to pursue formal winemaking education while maintaining demanding careers reveals their methodical approach. From 2016 to 2018, both Romans attended Kuban State Agrarian University’s winemaking program—weekends and evenings, squeezed between client meetings and construction site visits.
The combination of their professional backgrounds proved unexpectedly complementary. Mishchenko’s legal expertise handled licensing, contracts, and comprehensive regulatory compliance. Bulanyi’s engineering mindset optimized production systems and vineyard layout. When Russian wine licensing rules proved labyrinthine, the bankruptcy lawyer’s familiarity with bureaucratic complexity became an asset rather than a burden.
Their first vintages between 2017 and 2019 produced between 120 and 1,500 bottles—tiny quantities that taught them more through mistakes than any textbook could. Cold maceration techniques, stainless steel aging protocols, six months on fine lees with regular bâtonnage—each decision refined through trial and observation.
The Constraint Becomes the Strategy #
By 2020, when they secured their farmer’s license allowing production of up to 65,000 bottles, an interesting discovery emerged: they had no intention of scaling to that capacity. The weekend-only model had evolved from limitation to deliberate choice.
At roughly 5,000 bottles annually, every grape passes through their hands. Every bottle is hand-filled and sealed with wax they press themselves. Every label is designed, printed, and applied by the founders. The constraint that began as necessity became their competitive moat.
“Масштабы проекта предопределили его концепцию: максимальное личное участие во всех процессах,” they explain on their website—“The scale of the project predetermined its concept: maximum personal involvement in all processes.”
The economics only work because they’re not trying to make them work conventionally. Their primary careers fund their winemaking passion. The winery doesn’t need to cover mortgages or salaries. It needs only to justify itself—and at ₽2,000-2,690 per bottle, the margins support continued experimentation without commercial pressure.
Validation Arrives Unexpectedly #
In 2023, when their Sauvignon Blanc 2022 ranked #31 in Russia’s Top 100 Wines competition with a score of 90.2 points, the recognition confirmed what their customers already knew: scale and quality have no necessary relationship. The following year brought finalist status again, plus inclusion in Russia’s first professional restaurant wine guide.
The 2025 rebrand to В2Р (an abbreviation of “Винодельня Двух Романов”—Winery of Two Romans) turned a trademark setback into a naming gift. The new logo features two Cyrillic Р’s forming vine tendrils—a visual pun on their shared first initial and profession.
That same year, their rosé won Best Semi-Dry Rosé in Roskachestvo’s national wine guide. For two men who deliberately chose not to scale, the accumulating accolades proved a counterintuitive point: some ventures succeed precisely because they refuse to grow.
Complementary Expertise at Work #
The partnership succeeds partly because the two Romans bring genuinely different skills to a shared obsession. Mishchenko, the bankruptcy lawyer, understands exactly how businesses fail—and structures their venture to avoid the common traps: over-leveraging, premature scaling, dependence on external capital. His daily work involves dissecting corporate failures; at the vineyard, he applies that knowledge in reverse.
Bulanyi, the construction engineer, brings systems thinking and project management discipline. Vineyard layout, equipment placement, production flow optimization—these are engineering problems dressed in agricultural clothes. When harvest season demands that two weekend workers process thousands of kilograms of grapes “practically around the clock,” engineering efficiency makes the difference between chaos and craft.
Neither founder dominates the public face of the winery. Their website and social media present them as a unit—“we” rather than “I,” shared decisions rather than individual vision. This deliberate parity extends to their production philosophy: no winemaker is hired, no consultant retained. The wines reflect two minds reaching consensus, not a single palate.
“Практически нет особых секретов производства у нас,” Mishchenko has noted—“We have practically no special production secrets.” The main secret, he explains, is simply high-quality grapes and careful vineyard cultivation techniques. The statement reflects their methodical approach: substance over mystique, craft over marketing, consistency over drama.
The Parallel Career Model #
Most business advice says commit fully or don’t bother. The Romans demonstrate an alternative: the structured passion project that draws strength from constraint rather than despite it.
Their model requires specific conditions—professional incomes that fund wine losses, cooperative infrastructure that reduces capital requirements, a premium market that values story as much as product. But within those conditions, they’ve proven that the choice between career and passion is sometimes a false binary.
What makes their story compelling beyond wine circles is the implicit rejection of startup mythology. They didn’t take a leap of faith. They didn’t burn their ships. They didn’t “follow their passion” in the way business culture celebrates. Instead, they engineered a structure where passion could flourish without requiring faith—where success was pleasant but failure would have been survivable.
The expansion plans they’ve discussed—possible additional land near Krasnodar for wines of “different stylistics”—notably include no timeline for leaving their day jobs. The weekend commitment that started as compromise has become conviction. For entrepreneurs in any field wrestling with the all-or-nothing narrative, the two Romans offer proof that a third path exists—and sometimes leads further than the road more commonly taken.