When-You-Have-to-Run-BecauseWar
00:00:00.000 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with
00:00:03.220 | knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich
00:00:06.540 | and meaningful life now, while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years
00:00:10.560 | or less. My name is Josh Rasheeds and today I am here with Olena Livermore. Is
00:00:15.420 | that right? Yeah. How do you say it? Yeah, that's right.
00:00:18.160 | Exactly right. Olena Livermore. Yeah, you were good at it. Perfect, perfect.
00:00:21.800 | Olena and I were on a panel together, a panel discussion on how to choose where
00:00:26.140 | to live here at Nomad Capitalist Live. And Olena, I thought you just had such
00:00:29.940 | an interesting story that I wanted to just share it with my audience and talk
00:00:33.960 | briefly a little bit about your story. So you were born and raised in Ukraine, is
00:00:39.180 | that right? Yes, that's right. I was born in Ukraine and basically I grew up there
00:00:43.440 | and went to university there in eastern part of Ukraine, Donetsk region. But yet
00:00:48.640 | you left Ukraine unexpectedly. What happened? Well, now I've been moving
00:00:54.880 | around but I had never planned that. I always wanted to settle down in Ukraine,
00:00:58.960 | in Donetsk, but in 2014 this conflict started, like the war started and I had
00:01:04.640 | no choice but to leave. Okay, so 2014 there was a war. Who was the war with?
00:01:09.080 | Well, at first it was like really vague and no one could understand what's
00:01:13.880 | going on because, you know, in Ukraine they passed this law about the language
00:01:18.760 | because in eastern part of Ukraine people speak Russian mostly. And well, I
00:01:24.120 | say that most people speak Russian in Ukraine and west of Ukraine they speak
00:01:27.440 | Ukrainian and then they pass the language that you have to speak Ukrainian.
00:01:30.640 | But in eastern part of Ukraine lots of people were really angry about that and
00:01:35.720 | we're so used in speaking Russian and using Russian everywhere at universities,
00:01:39.800 | schools and stuff like that and people were already a bit angry and then they
00:01:43.240 | decided to organize this referendum and how they explained it, it's like, okay
00:01:47.520 | let's just become like an independent state, right? Like part of Ukraine but
00:01:52.320 | just with our own language and maybe our own rules, that's what people were told.
00:01:56.280 | But in referendum actually the question was like if you want to be independent
00:02:00.520 | and some people, like a lot of people participated in that referendum because
00:02:04.680 | they were angry about the language and things like that and then basically like
00:02:09.360 | in a couple of days all of this news about separatism and a lot of tanks came
00:02:14.840 | in like to our region and they started like shooting at the airport. So they
00:02:19.480 | started from the airport area, like they started destroying infrastructure and
00:02:22.840 | things like that and I can't tell for sure like what really happened. Lots of
00:02:28.000 | people say that Russian troops were involved, like they showed in the news.
00:02:31.520 | Like personally at that point I was there and I was leaving to another
00:02:36.880 | country, yeah, on holiday because I didn't know that, like I didn't expect it
00:02:41.040 | would start and I left but when I was leaving there were already a lot of
00:02:45.240 | military and like tanks there and they stopped me and checked my passport and
00:02:48.960 | things like that and while I was on holiday it was getting worse and worse
00:02:53.480 | and my parents called me and they said like you can't come back home, you just
00:02:57.840 | go somewhere and wait. But I didn't know where to wait because at that point I
00:03:01.920 | was like just a young graduate. I had a job but my employer didn't pay me money
00:03:07.480 | because of the war and I ran out of money and then my parents kind of sorted
00:03:12.760 | out, they called my friends' parents and they found out that there is like my
00:03:17.160 | friend's aunt who can like host me for a while and she was in St. Petersburg and
00:03:21.920 | we came from Spain from our holiday to St. Petersburg just to wait and we had
00:03:26.920 | no money after holiday, my employer didn't pay me money and we just were
00:03:31.600 | kind of stuck in St. Petersburg and we were like okay we'll wait for a month,
00:03:34.480 | just go back to Donetsk and continue our job. We were like English teachers and
00:03:39.080 | yeah just time, time just was going by and it was quite stressful like when
00:03:44.760 | people ask me if I like St. Petersburg, I like it as a city but it was a
00:03:48.440 | stressful period of my life and I remember I was calling my
00:03:53.480 | parents but the internet was like sometimes down, sometimes they answered
00:03:57.920 | their phone and like they just disappeared like or they started
00:04:01.720 | shooting again and yeah it was the most stressful time in my life and then we
00:04:06.440 | decided like to stay in Russia for a bit and start looking for a job because
00:04:09.480 | there is no way we could come back and started our life from scratch basically
00:04:13.360 | with my family. Did your parents stay in Ukraine where the war was happening but you were
00:04:18.360 | in St. Petersburg or did they also flee to St. Petersburg with you? Right, my
00:04:23.000 | parents stayed there, yeah they were there and my grandparents but they
00:04:27.920 | already were planning kind of to leave somewhere else. My grandparents just
00:04:31.960 | didn't want to leave, it's hard for them to move and they're kind of no we're
00:04:35.800 | gonna just stay and die there whatever happens but you can't help those who
00:04:39.880 | don't want to help you know. I tried to convince my grandparents but they didn't
00:04:42.960 | want to leave but my parents did move eventually to another region in Ukraine
00:04:47.360 | because their company moved where they worked and yeah they stayed there but
00:04:51.960 | they had to rent apartments again, start all over again, they lost all their jobs
00:04:56.600 | because my mom for example she worked on a train but everything was shut, airport
00:05:02.480 | destroyed, like train infrastructure was all shut down like you don't have any
00:05:07.760 | connection like with the rest of Ukraine even with Russia and yeah she lost her
00:05:13.160 | job, my dad lost his job and they had to move and start everything all over and I
00:05:17.240 | was helping them for a while and right now we bought a house in another region
00:05:21.840 | and my parents are living in that house. Wow, so you decided to stay in Russia, you
00:05:27.520 | had graduated from school but here you were no money, a new place, can't go home
00:05:32.960 | because of the war, how did you stay in Russia? Are you a Russian citizen? No I'm
00:05:38.800 | not a Russian citizen, well because I have a Ukrainian passport I can stay in
00:05:42.840 | Russia for three months but when the war started they let us extend that stay
00:05:48.760 | because we were refugees so I had like every three months I had to go to the
00:05:52.840 | immigration office and to extend my stay but it's like it's always like you never
00:05:57.600 | know what's gonna happen because sometimes they extend it, sometimes they
00:06:00.640 | can say just go back everything is fine there and it's like unstable you're kind
00:06:04.880 | of trying to build your new life like you have a job you already have like
00:06:08.880 | friends and maybe some some connections and you extend it every time and you
00:06:12.560 | don't know okay maybe one day they'll say okay you cannot be a refugee anymore
00:06:16.920 | you have to go back because they stopped shooting and it was like you know
00:06:20.680 | unstable and I was looking for other options and that's when I decided to go
00:06:26.680 | to another country to start looking for a job in another country. Of course, of course.
00:06:29.800 | Okay so what I'm really interested about is this is a modern-day story right so
00:06:34.240 | much and what I talk about sometimes you feel like you're just talking about
00:06:38.080 | things 75 years ago and yet this is this is less than this is seven years ago.
00:06:43.880 | Yeah exactly and it's going on now just from time to time. Is there still sporadic violence?
00:06:48.280 | Yeah you can hear shooting on the border and people are so used to it it's like at
00:06:53.160 | first we were all nervous yeah like we cried all the time when I called my
00:06:57.520 | parents, grandparents but now you know it became like oh hey how are you going?
00:07:02.400 | No it's fine they started shooting again we heard it today. It's like you know
00:07:06.360 | like they call it like shock shock vaccine or something like when people see
00:07:10.760 | like all and hear all of this they just got like they're getting used to it and
00:07:15.200 | it's just like part of their life and they're like yeah that's fine and I kind
00:07:20.920 | of got used to it as well like from now and then you can hear and maybe see in
00:07:26.400 | the news Ukraine again and the Netsk region and Russian troops are there now
00:07:30.120 | at the border so people a bit worried now that it will start in summer and
00:07:35.200 | today when we were listening to Sergei Shvili he mentioned that it might
00:07:38.880 | start at summer all over again I hope it won't be that extreme like it was in
00:07:42.920 | 2014 but yeah I can say that it's still in the conflict zone and I still can't
00:07:49.640 | go home as I used to because I have to go through a lot of military checkpoints
00:07:54.200 | and I have to apply for special pass to get home. Wow so you were Ukrainian a
00:07:59.160 | young fresh out of college graduate Ukrainian citizen living as a refugee in
00:08:03.960 | Russia no money your parents are not able to help very much what did you do
00:08:08.840 | then? Well yeah in Russia well at first you know I'm gonna say the good thing
00:08:15.320 | about Slavic countries is that when you're a friend you're like part of a
00:08:18.840 | family yeah like Russians and Slavics they might be a bit cold and rude it's
00:08:23.840 | like seem to be rude it's part of our culture but when you become a friend
00:08:27.120 | you're literally a part of a family and I lived in my friend's aunt's house for
00:08:31.440 | several months like she fed me she gave me lunch boxes she even gave me money
00:08:35.720 | like for a bus when I started working when I got my first salary me and my
00:08:41.960 | friend we decided like to rent an apartment together and share like the
00:08:44.920 | cost of rent and then I found another job so like I worked from Monday to
00:08:49.880 | Friday at one company like was teaching in the language center and at the
00:08:53.160 | weekend in the other and helping parents a bit so yeah it was pretty stressful
00:08:56.760 | time but just because of help of these people who are not even related to me
00:09:01.600 | and when I tell the story like to my husband who is from New Zealand he is
00:09:04.800 | like amazed like how people just can help like that and I'm really grateful
00:09:08.320 | yeah for this part and I'm grateful that yeah there are some people who helped
00:09:13.720 | I'm pretty sure it's not only about Russia or Ukraine even if two countries
00:09:17.360 | are in a conflict people are still you can always find this kind people who can
00:09:21.920 | help but you were able to get a job teaching English because of your
00:09:24.720 | excellent English skills yeah right well my education is an English teacher so
00:09:29.760 | yeah I have masters in linguistics great well yeah I thought it would be
00:09:34.640 | challenging right I don't know because like in many language centers like in
00:09:38.220 | st. Petersburg they prefer native speakers and they usually employ native
00:09:42.080 | speakers and especially big cities like St. Petersburg and Moscow everyone wants
00:09:45.720 | to go there it's like an experience but yeah I easily found one but the problem
00:09:50.400 | was with my work permit like I was trying to apply for one and it took so
00:09:55.320 | long eventually I even didn't get it in Russia yeah okay yeah because if you're
00:10:00.680 | like a foreigner like a proper foreigner from another country because like
00:10:04.000 | Ukrainians are not really like considered their foreigners here you're
00:10:06.280 | a foreigner but you speak Russian and you have the same culture and things
00:10:10.120 | like that so for foreigners they take care of your documents but for Ukrainians
00:10:13.840 | there were so many refugees at that point and they were like processing it
00:10:17.200 | so long I yeah I didn't get it we left and we found a job in another country
00:10:21.400 | where did you go well I met my husband in St. Petersburg Blake and he was New
00:10:26.160 | Zealand yeah he's a New Zealander but he was living in St. Petersburg he was an
00:10:29.640 | English teacher as well yeah we met at the same school like we worked in the
00:10:33.800 | same company we were teaching adults in St. Petersburg and then we decided to
00:10:37.920 | apply for a new job and we got a job in East Timor well it was a funny story
00:10:42.400 | because I was looking for a well-paid job because I wanted to help my parents
00:10:47.000 | and get like stable with finance and everything and East Timor was like
00:10:51.840 | really highly paid and we couldn't understand why but when we arrived we
00:10:55.560 | understood because that country was just after the war there were a lot of
00:10:59.560 | peacekeepers and we were working for a company helping out people learn English
00:11:04.840 | like we were teaching the government basically like university professors
00:11:09.400 | and ministries like so they get stable with their language skills and they can
00:11:14.040 | like build their relationship with other countries but yeah that experience was
00:11:18.880 | the most interesting one because it was like coming from a big city to a small
00:11:24.560 | island with no infrastructure I had to learn like how to drive a motorbike and
00:11:28.120 | things like that but I'm really grateful that I grew a lot as a person like a lot
00:11:32.680 | I learned a lot from this experience and how long were you there in East Timor
00:11:37.400 | we were about a year like we were yeah we were there for a year and money was
00:11:43.880 | great like you fulfilled your contract yes yeah yeah we signed the contract we
00:11:48.200 | were we were considering to stay longer to save money but it was getting more
00:11:53.280 | dangerous because it was this conflict between Australians and East Timorese
00:11:57.840 | because well if you follow up the news I guess like at that point if I remember
00:12:04.280 | it was 2016 and they were unhappy that Australians take their oil and there
00:12:10.000 | were some local people like tribes they didn't like it and they started taking
00:12:12.720 | foreigners and we decided like yeah it's quite dangerous so we left to Kuala
00:12:16.240 | Lumpur Malaysia so then from East Timor you and your husband both moved to
00:12:20.920 | Kuala Lumpur Malaysia and you worked there as English teachers again yeah we
00:12:24.880 | were growing with that yeah then we started being like what it's called like
00:12:29.560 | director of studies managing schools training other teachers yeah so
00:12:34.200 | basically building career in this area and after that we moved to China and
00:12:37.720 | then after that to China yeah and where are you living now well it's a funny
00:12:42.560 | story after China we went back to Malaysia again yeah but because of the
00:12:47.800 | pandemic like coronavirus situation our company we're working for I've got
00:12:51.800 | shut down and they cancelled our work visas in Malaysia and we had to go back
00:12:56.840 | to one country where both of us could go back so we had two options Ukraine or
00:13:01.720 | New Zealand and I started collecting documents for New Zealand but I was
00:13:06.120 | missing one paper which is police check from China and China doesn't issue police
00:13:10.520 | check outside the country and I couldn't go back because of coronavirus so the
00:13:14.560 | only option was Ukraine so we got back now my husband is applying for a
00:13:18.320 | permanent residency and we started our own online company and we're teaching
00:13:22.280 | business English to other companies who need English great great so the reason I
00:13:28.120 | invited you on to radical personal finance was that this is a very current
00:13:32.680 | story I teach a class called how to survive and thrive during the coming
00:13:36.000 | economic crisis and you faced an economic crisis caused by a military
00:13:41.520 | crisis and you know it can happen in many places faster than you would
00:13:46.640 | imagine you go on holiday and all of a sudden you can't come back from holiday
00:13:49.640 | so we're here of course at Nomad Capitalist live talking about
00:13:53.600 | international strategies citizenship residency etc and you've lived through a
00:13:58.280 | very disconcerting period so you're doing fine you and your husband are
00:14:03.560 | settling in Ukraine in Ukraine because that's where where you have
00:14:09.560 | residency rights looking back if you could go back and do some points of
00:14:15.760 | preparation that would have made things easier for you what would you have done
00:14:20.320 | knowing what you know now if you could talk to a 20 year old and imagine money
00:14:23.440 | is no object obviously it is but money is no object times no object what what
00:14:27.320 | advice would you give to someone to prepare for such a thing to get through
00:14:30.120 | it faster if you have time to yeah assume somebody's living in a peaceful
00:14:34.120 | place but they would they would want to have a plan in case all of a sudden they
00:14:37.480 | had to flee what would you do well I think everyone should already get ready
00:14:41.320 | for this kind of case and always have a backup plan that situation taught me on
00:14:45.080 | that you need to have a backup plan and I mean by that like a second citizenship
00:14:49.920 | or a house somewhere else or some something where you can fly to and you
00:14:54.960 | can easily stay there and I can't like if you ask me about countries where
00:15:00.880 | would I go instead like instead of Russia or somewhere else yeah there are
00:15:04.920 | many options like I would maybe plan to go to Mexico like right now we're in
00:15:10.000 | Mexico and I really like it and it's really easy for Ukrainian citizens just
00:15:13.440 | to come here and you can stay here three months without any problem you can go to
00:15:17.360 | Argentina any way you want but again just right now at this point of my life
00:15:22.920 | I realized I want to have several passports I want to have property which
00:15:28.320 | I can call home at least in several countries so in case this happens I can
00:15:32.520 | take all my family and go there and yeah I guess that's that's advice don't wait
00:15:37.680 | until it happens just think about it right now because I didn't expect it at
00:15:42.360 | all like it's Europe it's 21st century and like you see the tank like in the
00:15:46.800 | street and people can like hear like missiles and like the house opposite
00:15:52.720 | mine got destroyed and it's just like it's unbelievable so yeah don't wait
00:15:58.360 | until it happens and what I would point out just what I observe is you've been
00:16:03.080 | able to survive and even thrive during this time because of your educational
00:16:07.280 | background you have strong academic credentials a master's degree in
00:16:10.880 | linguistics you have strong language skills your English is world-class and
00:16:15.880 | that's allowed you employment security and even though you started with nothing
00:16:20.080 | you and your husband have been able to earn money I'm sure save enough that you
00:16:23.560 | can go from position to position and that allows you to stabilize yourself
00:16:27.680 | and so you did a lot of things really well that allowed you to get through
00:16:31.360 | this time probably better than some of your friends because of that proper
00:16:35.320 | planning and then yes it would be easier if you had multiple residencies a house
00:16:39.480 | another place and multiple citizenships I've got also add like networking you
00:16:43.560 | know like when when you've got a chance to go to other countries to go to
00:16:47.520 | conferences like that always like make connection get to know people so in this
00:16:51.880 | kind of cases like there will be someone to help like even if you have no options
00:16:55.680 | at all no one can your family can't help you people are nice like if you have
00:17:00.160 | friends if you have someone like just yeah I keep in touch yeah well you know
00:17:04.480 | thank you for sharing your story I really appreciate it what is the name of
00:17:06.920 | your and your husband's business that you have now corporate English online
00:17:10.080 | corporate English online yeah okay corporate English online.com yes and
00:17:14.680 | you're teaching business English to non-native speakers who want to improve
00:17:18.600 | their their language skills do you have digital classes for people or is it all
00:17:22.560 | in person online online yeah we have classes on zoom and we have some online
00:17:26.920 | products like online video lessons and things right so corporate English online
00:17:30.760 | calm thank you Alina thank you very much