My guest is Alla Bondarenko. She’s an art historian and gemologist from St. Petersburg, Russia. She works remotely for a Russian company in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. Her two passions are psychology & travel.

Lucky for us, I'm not interested in gemology, so we mostly discuss travel & psychology. No applause please—it's my job to ensure each episode is worth listening to. But this one, especially, you'll want to copy the link and share with friend(s).

Why?

Because Alla is the smart & opinionated friend, who, if you got her in a room to "pick her brain" (like many people say they want with you over coffee sometime—but you never hear from again), you'd be like: "Holy moley—this girl's been holding out on me."

She doesn't volunteer what she knows, but with a little prodding, you realize the wealth of information in her noggin. In Texas, we'd say, "Look at the big 'ol brain on Alla."

Enter Man O. Perhaps the brightest Christmas light on the tree—at least during the USSR years when Christmas was largely erased from the calendar thanks to anti-religious policies during the Soviet Union years. But we're back! Notice the picture at the bottom of the show notes.

For this episode, I reserved a private room in a co-working space. And the two of us dive-deep into:

• Alla growing up in Russia

• Russia-Ukraine conflict

• masculinity / femininity

• fake Covid vaccine cards

• the years following Soviet Union's implosion

• Alla's opinion of Putin

For those of you with no patience—you're either a bad doctor or lack self-regulation—at around 30:00 minutes in you'll hear a unique opinion of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Or maybe you have a 27-minute commute tomorrow morning and want to hear a fearless Russian's take on Putin that'll fire you up for the day. If so, you've come to the right place.

You can catch the rest of this podcast episode on your way home, on a walk, or at the gym. Aren't podcasts the greatest invention since drip coffee? You can listen anytime, anywhere.

When I start asking Alla about the first time she'd heard about "the conflict," she says she didn’t believe it at first. When friends told her the news—she thought she was hearing the product of mass-media manipulation. It took several days for her to finally believe it was in fact true.

We also talk about her troubles working remotely as a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. For example, since Visa, Mastercard, and all other money-transferring services are now blocked for Russians like her, she says she must be paid in a Russian account—but then she immediately turns her rubles into cryptocurrency.

Since the war began in February 2022, she says the exchange rate of Russian rubles (RUB) has plummeted. Right now, she's taking a 20% pay cut at work. But for many weeks—immediately following the conflict—she suffered what amounted to a 50% pay cut, almost overnight.

We also share our thoughts on topics such as: travel, dating, meditation, and much more.

Having Alla on the podcast was my biggest "score" of '22. Suffice it to say, you'll learn something new. You'll also nearly guaranteed to hear an opinion you haven't heard before.

She's incredibly bright, well-read and possesses that singular trait I value most in a podcast guest—she speaks candidly & without reservation.