#002 How did I end up living in Ukraine? 1/2

Dec 16

Hello, everybody, First I would like to thank each, every one of you for the remarkable response to the first episode of the Podcast (even the trailer went pretty well, all things considered), and the blog post.

In general, the website launch was appreciated across countries, since we have visitors from Italy, Ukraine, and all over the US and Canada (probably also Italian immigrants).

It was curious to see such considerable feedback despite my protracted absence from the public scene, here on the internet, especially considering I was not too big of a public figure in the first place.

That being said, I would like to introduce the topic of the day: How did I end up living in Ukraine? Well, explain what brought me to Ukraine in August 2016 we have to dive back to 2014 when I move to London.

As I anticipated in my previous blog post titled “A new beginning”, I moved to London in 2014 to try to improve my quality of life.

I also needed to have some dignity in the workplace, even though it would probably have meant that at the very beginning I would have had to wash dishes. I was sick and tired of the Italian mentality back then, and I wanted a change of scenery, especially considering I had a girlfriend who, at the time, was also working a lot and earning not even remotely enough.

My ex-girlfriend was living near Pavia, south of Milan, and considering we weren't coming from rich families, we both didn't inherit any house or apartments.

The place where I used to live in Seveso consisted of a common yard, surrounded by small buildings.

Outside my building, in the very next one, I met Max. Max is a Ukrainian guy, still one of my closest friends (even though I don't see him often now). Back then, we were all short on money, him included. It wasn't easy to pay full rent for the small 2 rooms apartment, and we couldn't afford anything at all just by ourselves.

We decided to help each other, so we took the last floor and helped him by splitting the rent 50-50. It was a win-win for everybody, as I could live together with my ex, and he could pay much cheaper rent.

Fast-forward 3 months, me and my ex-girlfriend decide to move to London, seeking a better life. To make it short because I'm sure at this point I'm boring you already, we moved to London in 2014, and we started straight away a better life. Work was… decent.

The pay was more than fine, and we could afford… well just a room because that's how it goes in London. However, the problems between me and her started long before moving.

The competitive environment that is London, only increased the tensions in our relationship, until I finally decided around May 2016, to dump her for good. After a month of back and forth, I started feeling much better.

I quit my job as a Video Editor to try my luck with another possibility, and I finally started working as a freelancer for big brands and Governmental entities. I also started working out, not in the gym, just plain dedication and commitment inside my small double room in Charlton, London.

Life was wonderful, I thought I couldn't feel better! My body was super fit, I was starting to socialize, I had interesting work every day and more money in my pockets. After 3 months of working like a donkey and after losing something like 8 kilos, I decided it was time to go on a small vacation, especially considering the last one was in 2013.

Considering nobody liked my ex-girlfriend, firstly my friend Max that tried to open my eyes about her countless times, I was back in touch with numerous friends, especially him. I wanted to have a unique experience and go on vacation with my friend, considering that Max is a super cool and chilled guy, and considering we liked more or less the same kind of stuff.

After teasing me and asking me what took me so long to dump her, he congratulated me and accepted my proposal to go on holiday together. We started to search for places that we could both enjoy and one day, out of the blue, he came out with the idea of going to his hometown in Ukraine.

I was very intrigued by the idea of spending my holidays in a place that was cheap, still amazing, and where I could live like a king. Moreover, the deciding factor for me was that I had him with me, a local. You see, there is no better holiday than one spent outside the classic tourist tour, at least in my opinion. Plus, I always wanted to see Eastern European countries.

Well, besides Romania, at least for a while, lol.

Everything was decided, tickets were bought. In July, I started working out like crazy, I wanted to look good for my vacation. London was a very breathtaking place for me.

However, it can get lonely, very lonely every so often. I decided to install Tinder that, despite what most people think (especially in Italy). It's not made only for one-night stands but also to find people in big cities to have a chat with, to go to grab a drink, or even to meet people with similar interests.

Now, I don't want to say that I wasn't looking at all for one-night stands, but still, even meeting somebody who spoke the same language (I mean videography, not Italian) was very intriguing.

So, I noticed a pattern: every time a girl was coming to London just for a certain period (i.e., on vacation or for seasonal work, or studying abroad), they usually put the geo-localization in London.

They then specified in the profile info which dates they were going to be there. The result was that people were able to find them easily, and they could have company for those dates, might that be going for a drink, sightseeing, or sex.

So, I decided to do the same.

I was going to spend most of my time in Ukraine in Chernivtsi, a small city comparable to Monza.

The plan was to land in Lviv, take a taxi to Chernivtsi the same evening, then stay there until the day before the flight back. That day we would have gone to Kyiv and taken our flight back, Max to Italy and me to London.

For some reason, God knows why, I decided to put the geo-localization in Lviv, instead of Chernivtsi or Kyiv.

I didn't know, back then, that this small detail was going to change my life forever.

The rest of the story is in the next part.

Thanks for reading or listening to me.

I'm Fabio Pansera, A happy Italian Immigrant, see you next time!