Afleveringen
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Notes from an expat gathering in Kyiv, and the kinds of people and businesses that chose to stay.
Highlights are: Best food in the worst conditions and "Pottery in the Dark".
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Image: at the rooftop of InterContinental Kyiv, view of St.Andrewās Church, 26 June 2026
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On growing up near a place the world calls heritage and a night of strikes in Kyiv.
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Domes of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra in winter 2021, photo by Ganna Aibetova on Unsplash
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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What foreign companies get wrong about trust, presence, and the Ukrainian market.
Enjoy the episode or read a 2-minute reflection ā ā hereā ā .
You can support my work ā ā hereā ā .
Photo from my personal archive: Iām somewhere on a rooftop in Kyiv, Ukraine
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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
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How curfews, ride-hailing and technology reshape life in Kyiv after dark.
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You can support my work here.
Photo by Alin Gavriliuc on Unsplash
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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
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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 itās 19%.
One important caveat ā this data has its limits.
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Kyiv has a kind of small business you wonāt find in most cities. But rising energy costs and inflation are not helping those who miscalculated. This weekās episode is about MAFs.
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Image: MAF by skymax
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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
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Ukrainian stand-up didnāt 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
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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 āblack gold.ā We know its price will eventually dictate the cost of your commute and heating. But there is another black gold that doesnāt burn but feeds.
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This episode was originally published on April 10, 2026.
Photo by Andrii Motygullin on Unsplash
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Talking from exoerience living in multiple countries, Ukrainian service culture has a special quality that you might not notice until you leave. Itās not just about being available, though that stands out. Itās the attitude ā the feeling that you are truly welcome, not just tolerated.
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This episode was originally published on April 3, 2026.
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
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Everyone in their place. Not everywhere at once. Not helping with everything because the guilt of not doing enough feels louder than the question of where you actually belong.
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This episode was originally published on March 27, 2026.
Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on Unsplash
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When the whole world was searching āWorld War Three,ā Ukraineās top search was āWhen is Easter in 2026.ā
I noticed that and laughed. Then I thought about it for a while.
That is not indifference.
Dark humor from inside a war zone is not the same thing as dark humor from outside it. Psychologists call it a coping mechanism.
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This episode was originally published on March 20, 2026.
Image: Democritus, Hendrick ter Brugghen, 1628
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A foreigner who shows up, who understands, who acts, who holds the same values, feels closer than a relative who hedges despite having a Ukrainian passport. That line used to be invisible. Four years of war drew it in permanent marker.
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This episode was originally published on March 13, 2026.
Image: Motherland in Kyiv, 102 m (335 ft), 2022. Photo by Glib Albovsky on Unsplash
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I havenāt heard a certain sound in a while that wakes me up at night. The one between a broken lawnmower and an old car that refuses to start. A Shahed ā an Iranian drone Russia buys to hit Ukrainian cities. An Iranian drone that costs $30,000 and announces itself like a bad joke before it kills someone.
Now Iām reading that the Pentagon and Gulf states want to buy Ukrainian interceptors to shoot down those same drones. A few thousand dollars each versus $13.5 million per Patriot missile born in the US. The math writes itself.
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This episode was originally published on March 6, 2026.
Image: Shahed-136 debris after being shot down, Kyiv region, 2023. Source dduvs.com
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Spring in Kyiv doesnāt start with blooming trees. It starts with the asphalt ābloomingā into craters. This week navigating my usual route felt like a high-stakes game of Tetris. I watched drivers performing a synchronized ballet of desperate swerves.
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This episode was originally published on February 27, 2026.
Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash
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When I was fourteen, we had a school poetry evening. We dressed up, rehearsed for weeks and tried to sound much older than we actually were.
Growing up in Ukraine, we were exposed to the literary density early. Long-form novels and poems (e.g. Master and Margarita, Iliad), metaphysics and symbolism before we had the life experience to metabolize them. At the time, it felt abstract.
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This episode was originally published on February 20, 2026.
Image: Tenderness, Ivan Marchuk, 1984
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Today is the first Friday the 13th of 2026. This year decided not to hold back, giving us a triple dose in February, March, and November. The superstition reaches all the way back to the Last Supper.
In Ukraine, this ancient anxiety finds its own rhythm.
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This episode was originally published on February 13, 2026.
Image: Le Chat Noir (The Black Cat), ThƩophile Steinlen, 1896
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