Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now, while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less. My name is Josh Rasheeds and today I am here with Olena Livermore.

Is that right? Yeah. How do you say it? Yeah, that's right. Exactly right. Olena Livermore. Yeah, you were good at it. Perfect, perfect. Olena and I were on a panel together, a panel discussion on how to choose where to live here at Nomad Capitalist Live. And Olena, I thought you just had such an interesting story that I wanted to just share it with my audience and talk briefly a little bit about your story.

So you were born and raised in Ukraine, is that right? Yes, that's right. I was born in Ukraine and basically I grew up there and went to university there in eastern part of Ukraine, Donetsk region. But yet you left Ukraine unexpectedly. What happened? Well, now I've been moving around but I had never planned that.

I always wanted to settle down in Ukraine, in Donetsk, but in 2014 this conflict started, like the war started and I had no choice but to leave. Okay, so 2014 there was a war. Who was the war with? Well, at first it was like really vague and no one could understand what's going on because, you know, in Ukraine they passed this law about the language because in eastern part of Ukraine people speak Russian mostly.

And well, I say that most people speak Russian in Ukraine and west of Ukraine they speak Ukrainian and then they pass the language that you have to speak Ukrainian. But in eastern part of Ukraine lots of people were really angry about that and we're so used in speaking Russian and using Russian everywhere at universities, schools and stuff like that and people were already a bit angry and then they decided to organize this referendum and how they explained it, it's like, okay let's just become like an independent state, right?

Like part of Ukraine but just with our own language and maybe our own rules, that's what people were told. But in referendum actually the question was like if you want to be independent and some people, like a lot of people participated in that referendum because they were angry about the language and things like that and then basically like in a couple of days all of this news about separatism and a lot of tanks came in like to our region and they started like shooting at the airport.

So they started from the airport area, like they started destroying infrastructure and things like that and I can't tell for sure like what really happened. Lots of people say that Russian troops were involved, like they showed in the news. Like personally at that point I was there and I was leaving to another country, yeah, on holiday because I didn't know that, like I didn't expect it would start and I left but when I was leaving there were already a lot of military and like tanks there and they stopped me and checked my passport and things like that and while I was on holiday it was getting worse and worse and my parents called me and they said like you can't come back home, you just go somewhere and wait.

But I didn't know where to wait because at that point I was like just a young graduate. I had a job but my employer didn't pay me money because of the war and I ran out of money and then my parents kind of sorted out, they called my friends' parents and they found out that there is like my friend's aunt who can like host me for a while and she was in St.

Petersburg and we came from Spain from our holiday to St. Petersburg just to wait and we had no money after holiday, my employer didn't pay me money and we just were kind of stuck in St. Petersburg and we were like okay we'll wait for a month, just go back to Donetsk and continue our job.

We were like English teachers and yeah just time, time just was going by and it was quite stressful like when people ask me if I like St. Petersburg, I like it as a city but it was a stressful period of my life and I remember I was calling my parents but the internet was like sometimes down, sometimes they answered their phone and like they just disappeared like or they started shooting again and yeah it was the most stressful time in my life and then we decided like to stay in Russia for a bit and start looking for a job because there is no way we could come back and started our life from scratch basically with my family.

Did your parents stay in Ukraine where the war was happening but you were in St. Petersburg or did they also flee to St. Petersburg with you? Right, my parents stayed there, yeah they were there and my grandparents but they already were planning kind of to leave somewhere else. My grandparents just didn't want to leave, it's hard for them to move and they're kind of no we're gonna just stay and die there whatever happens but you can't help those who don't want to help you know.

I tried to convince my grandparents but they didn't want to leave but my parents did move eventually to another region in Ukraine because their company moved where they worked and yeah they stayed there but they had to rent apartments again, start all over again, they lost all their jobs because my mom for example she worked on a train but everything was shut, airport destroyed, like train infrastructure was all shut down like you don't have any connection like with the rest of Ukraine even with Russia and yeah she lost her job, my dad lost his job and they had to move and start everything all over and I was helping them for a while and right now we bought a house in another region and my parents are living in that house.

Wow, so you decided to stay in Russia, you had graduated from school but here you were no money, a new place, can't go home because of the war, how did you stay in Russia? Are you a Russian citizen? No I'm not a Russian citizen, well because I have a Ukrainian passport I can stay in Russia for three months but when the war started they let us extend that stay because we were refugees so I had like every three months I had to go to the immigration office and to extend my stay but it's like it's always like you never know what's gonna happen because sometimes they extend it, sometimes they can say just go back everything is fine there and it's like unstable you're kind of trying to build your new life like you have a job you already have like friends and maybe some some connections and you extend it every time and you don't know okay maybe one day they'll say okay you cannot be a refugee anymore you have to go back because they stopped shooting and it was like you know unstable and I was looking for other options and that's when I decided to go to another country to start looking for a job in another country.

Of course, of course. Okay so what I'm really interested about is this is a modern-day story right so much and what I talk about sometimes you feel like you're just talking about things 75 years ago and yet this is this is less than this is seven years ago. Yeah exactly and it's going on now just from time to time.

Is there still sporadic violence? Yeah you can hear shooting on the border and people are so used to it it's like at first we were all nervous yeah like we cried all the time when I called my parents, grandparents but now you know it became like oh hey how are you going?

No it's fine they started shooting again we heard it today. It's like you know like they call it like shock shock vaccine or something like when people see like all and hear all of this they just got like they're getting used to it and it's just like part of their life and they're like yeah that's fine and I kind of got used to it as well like from now and then you can hear and maybe see in the news Ukraine again and the Netsk region and Russian troops are there now at the border so people a bit worried now that it will start in summer and today when we were listening to Sergei Shvili he mentioned that it might start at summer all over again I hope it won't be that extreme like it was in 2014 but yeah I can say that it's still in the conflict zone and I still can't go home as I used to because I have to go through a lot of military checkpoints and I have to apply for special pass to get home.

Wow so you were Ukrainian a young fresh out of college graduate Ukrainian citizen living as a refugee in Russia no money your parents are not able to help very much what did you do then? Well yeah in Russia well at first you know I'm gonna say the good thing about Slavic countries is that when you're a friend you're like part of a family yeah like Russians and Slavics they might be a bit cold and rude it's like seem to be rude it's part of our culture but when you become a friend you're literally a part of a family and I lived in my friend's aunt's house for several months like she fed me she gave me lunch boxes she even gave me money like for a bus when I started working when I got my first salary me and my friend we decided like to rent an apartment together and share like the cost of rent and then I found another job so like I worked from Monday to Friday at one company like was teaching in the language center and at the weekend in the other and helping parents a bit so yeah it was pretty stressful time but just because of help of these people who are not even related to me and when I tell the story like to my husband who is from New Zealand he is like amazed like how people just can help like that and I'm really grateful yeah for this part and I'm grateful that yeah there are some people who helped I'm pretty sure it's not only about Russia or Ukraine even if two countries are in a conflict people are still you can always find this kind people who can help but you were able to get a job teaching English because of your excellent English skills yeah right well my education is an English teacher so yeah I have masters in linguistics great well yeah I thought it would be challenging right I don't know because like in many language centers like in st.

Petersburg they prefer native speakers and they usually employ native speakers and especially big cities like St. Petersburg and Moscow everyone wants to go there it's like an experience but yeah I easily found one but the problem was with my work permit like I was trying to apply for one and it took so long eventually I even didn't get it in Russia yeah okay yeah because if you're like a foreigner like a proper foreigner from another country because like Ukrainians are not really like considered their foreigners here you're a foreigner but you speak Russian and you have the same culture and things like that so for foreigners they take care of your documents but for Ukrainians there were so many refugees at that point and they were like processing it so long I yeah I didn't get it we left and we found a job in another country where did you go well I met my husband in St.

Petersburg Blake and he was New Zealand yeah he's a New Zealander but he was living in St. Petersburg he was an English teacher as well yeah we met at the same school like we worked in the same company we were teaching adults in St. Petersburg and then we decided to apply for a new job and we got a job in East Timor well it was a funny story because I was looking for a well-paid job because I wanted to help my parents and get like stable with finance and everything and East Timor was like really highly paid and we couldn't understand why but when we arrived we understood because that country was just after the war there were a lot of peacekeepers and we were working for a company helping out people learn English like we were teaching the government basically like university professors and ministries like so they get stable with their language skills and they can like build their relationship with other countries but yeah that experience was the most interesting one because it was like coming from a big city to a small island with no infrastructure I had to learn like how to drive a motorbike and things like that but I'm really grateful that I grew a lot as a person like a lot I learned a lot from this experience and how long were you there in East Timor we were about a year like we were yeah we were there for a year and money was great like you fulfilled your contract yes yeah yeah we signed the contract we were we were considering to stay longer to save money but it was getting more dangerous because it was this conflict between Australians and East Timorese because well if you follow up the news I guess like at that point if I remember it was 2016 and they were unhappy that Australians take their oil and there were some local people like tribes they didn't like it and they started taking foreigners and we decided like yeah it's quite dangerous so we left to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia so then from East Timor you and your husband both moved to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia and you worked there as English teachers again yeah we were growing with that yeah then we started being like what it's called like director of studies managing schools training other teachers yeah so basically building career in this area and after that we moved to China and then after that to China yeah and where are you living now well it's a funny story after China we went back to Malaysia again yeah but because of the pandemic like coronavirus situation our company we're working for I've got shut down and they cancelled our work visas in Malaysia and we had to go back to one country where both of us could go back so we had two options Ukraine or New Zealand and I started collecting documents for New Zealand but I was missing one paper which is police check from China and China doesn't issue police check outside the country and I couldn't go back because of coronavirus so the only option was Ukraine so we got back now my husband is applying for a permanent residency and we started our own online company and we're teaching business English to other companies who need English great great so the reason I invited you on to radical personal finance was that this is a very current story I teach a class called how to survive and thrive during the coming economic crisis and you faced an economic crisis caused by a military crisis and you know it can happen in many places faster than you would imagine you go on holiday and all of a sudden you can't come back from holiday so we're here of course at Nomad Capitalist live talking about international strategies citizenship residency etc and you've lived through a very disconcerting period so you're doing fine you and your husband are settling in Ukraine in Ukraine because that's where where you have residency rights looking back if you could go back and do some points of preparation that would have made things easier for you what would you have done knowing what you know now if you could talk to a 20 year old and imagine money is no object obviously it is but money is no object times no object what what advice would you give to someone to prepare for such a thing to get through it faster if you have time to yeah assume somebody's living in a peaceful place but they would they would want to have a plan in case all of a sudden they had to flee what would you do well I think everyone should already get ready for this kind of case and always have a backup plan that situation taught me on that you need to have a backup plan and I mean by that like a second citizenship or a house somewhere else or some something where you can fly to and you can easily stay there and I can't like if you ask me about countries where would I go instead like instead of Russia or somewhere else yeah there are many options like I would maybe plan to go to Mexico like right now we're in Mexico and I really like it and it's really easy for Ukrainian citizens just to come here and you can stay here three months without any problem you can go to Argentina any way you want but again just right now at this point of my life I realized I want to have several passports I want to have property which I can call home at least in several countries so in case this happens I can take all my family and go there and yeah I guess that's that's advice don't wait until it happens just think about it right now because I didn't expect it at all like it's Europe it's 21st century and like you see the tank like in the street and people can like hear like missiles and like the house opposite mine got destroyed and it's just like it's unbelievable so yeah don't wait until it happens and what I would point out just what I observe is you've been able to survive and even thrive during this time because of your educational background you have strong academic credentials a master's degree in linguistics you have strong language skills your English is world-class and that's allowed you employment security and even though you started with nothing you and your husband have been able to earn money I'm sure save enough that you can go from position to position and that allows you to stabilize yourself and so you did a lot of things really well that allowed you to get through this time probably better than some of your friends because of that proper planning and then yes it would be easier if you had multiple residencies a house another place and multiple citizenships I've got also add like networking you know like when when you've got a chance to go to other countries to go to conferences like that always like make connection get to know people so in this kind of cases like there will be someone to help like even if you have no options at all no one can your family can't help you people are nice like if you have friends if you have someone like just yeah I keep in touch yeah well you know thank you for sharing your story I really appreciate it what is the name of your and your husband's business that you have now corporate English online corporate English online yeah okay corporate English online.com yes and you're teaching business English to non-native speakers who want to improve their their language skills do you have digital classes for people or is it all in person online online yeah we have classes on zoom and we have some online products like online video lessons and things right so corporate English online calm thank you Alina thank you very much