What foreign companies get wrong about trust, presence, and the Ukrainian market.

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Photo from my personal archive: I’m somewhere on a rooftop in Kyiv, Ukraine

Risk tolerance, threat normalization, and the logic of personal safety decisions.

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Image: A screenshot from a video of the underground parking in the residential complex TrIIInity, May 2026

How small daily changes unlock performance gains in business and life.

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Photo by Piotr Pękala on Unsplash

How curfews, ride-hailing and technology reshape life in Kyiv after dark.

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Photo by Alin Gavriliuc on Unsplash

Ukrainian real estate market: not an investment pitch but a window into how a country at war adapts.

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Image: bunker project on stroimdom.com.ua

Ukrainians spend 84% of their monthly budgets on essentials. In Germany and the Netherlands, that number is 56-59%. Only 1% goes to leisure in Ukraine, while in France it’s 19%.

One important caveat — this data has its limits.

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Kyiv has a kind of small business you won’t find in most cities. But rising energy costs and inflation are not helping those who miscalculated. This week’s episode is about MAFs.

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Image: MAF by skymax

I am, fortunately, a pleasant enough person that people keep inviting me to their weddings. I have been to enough weddings, in places like Paris, Istanbul, Slovakia, across Ukraine, and in other cultures, to have opinions.

Last weekend, I was at one again. We celebrated love, as one does.

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Image: Return from the Wedding, Ivan Ayvazovskyy, 1891

Ukrainian stand-up didn’t start in a club with a brick wall and a microphone. It began in the post-Soviet 90s, shared on audiocassettes.

At the center of it all was someone most people know from Eurovision: Verka Serduchka. She took second place at Eurovision 2007, with her sequins, silver star, and the song that got Europeans dancing in their chairs.

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This episode was originally published on April 17, 2026.

Image: Verka Serducka, photo by telekritika.ua

While the world watches gas prices, I stand on the black prize.

All eyes are on the Middle East and the surging price of oil, the “black gold.” We know its price will eventually dictate the cost of your commute and heating. But there is another black gold that doesn’t burn but feeds.

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This episode was originally published on April 10, 2026.

Photo by Andrii Motygullin on Unsplash