Alex

All right. Hey, we have Nikita here with us today. Welcome Nikita. Thank you for talking with me today.

Nikita

Thank you. Happy to be here.

Alex

All right. Awesome. So you were born in Leviev?

Nikita

Yes, I’ve been, I was born in Viva and I have lived in Vive as my main hometown for my entire life. That’s in the west of Ukraine.

Alex

And what would you say about Levine? How would you describe it to Americans who don’t know anything outside of the United States?

Nikita

I’d say, imagine the pictures you think about when you think old medieval Europe with narrow streets, high church, high churches, a couple of stone, like Victorian age stuff. That’s how our downtown looks like. So the city is 700 years old and obviously all around it. The suburbs are modern, but the downtown area is very beautiful and very old. And I love it here.

Alex

Fantastic. So being in Leviev in Western Ukraine, you have more distance from Russia then, you know, the Eastern side, what was, yeah. Yeah. So what, what was the level of concern that something would happen, you know, in early 22, among yourself, your friends, peers, family,

Nikita

I’d say until the very morning of February 24th, we didn’t really believe that that an invasion would happen. That a real war would happen because on one thing, we, I am following the news often like a daily checkup on the BBC. So I’m not only listening to local news, but international as well. And even though the us intelligence in the villages were saying that the war might happen, sorry, we’ve seen buildup of Russian troops on the border the year before for that. And then the year before that. So we it’s like, they’ve just threatening us again. They will, they won’t do anything, but we were wrong.

Alex

Hmm. Right. And so, oh, go ahead.

Nikita

I, the only thing that changed was the day before the 23rd, that that was when I really felt that something might happen because we, we were working on our creative project with my wife and we had an event scheduled for early March. And we were discussing whether or not we should move it or, or cancel it because of the news. And she, she is a volunteer aid worker in her spare time. And then she’s also an, a political activist and she has people she knows in parliament. And on the, the day before the invasion, the parliament started discussing putting a state of emergency throughout the country. And this is when, when she told me, I don’t know what, but I have a feeling that that’s something that we should cancel the event. I don’t, I can’t explain it for the reasons. I just feel it. We need to cancel our event or at least move it. And that’s what we did on the evening. On the 23rd, we, we wrote the messages that were delaying the project that we’re working on.

Alex

Okay. And then the 24th arrived.

Nikita

Yeah. And then five in the morning, she woke me up with the words the war has begun.

Alex

Oh, and what, what came next for you guys after that?

Nikita

So two things happened if we talk about the family in, in general, me, myself, and, and children, we, we were in confusion for the first day or two. I think it was shock and confusion. And we were just trying to understand what’s going on? How bad is it? Do we need to do anything about it? So we were following the news. We took out, we got an old radio out of, out of storage so that we could listen to the radio, not just internet because official announcements were coming over the radio as well. And we were just

Nikita

Confused, shocked and holding our breath. In the meantime, my wife, however, started driving all around town. So I know she has friends in the, in the military. She had friends in, in, in, in different political establishments among volunteer aid workers. So from the very morning, she got into the car and started driving around, trying to get supplies, help people. And then one, one sometime on the first or second day, it’s hard to remember this. She came back and says, I’m going to the enlistment office. I will, I am going to join the military. And we, we kind of talked about this many years ago, first when Russia invaded in 2014 when the index year and when they assisted the rebellion, the uprising in the east, on, in Donbass. And we talked about that. We love Ukraine and we especially love key of, because we have so many friends in the Capitol and we, and office of doxyme obviously is in the capital. And one of, one of the things that we’ve talked about this, if, if they go further than the east, if they try to threaten key here for Western Ukraine, we will fight. So that’s like a pledge we made many years ago and got demo time tearing up talking about this. And on this first or second day of the invasion, she came and said, it’s time.

Nikita

So now she has enlisted. She is serving with a platoon of soldiers. She is a combat medic with them right now. And she is now in the east.

Alex

Right. Wow. And I’m sure that’s, that’s very tough. And so I’ll go back a little bit with Leviev being in Western Ukraine. That is where, that is where many of our doxyme colleagues actually fled to from east, the Eastern side of Ukraine.

Nikita

Exactly.

Alex

Yeah. Did you or your family, your kids have any thoughts of like getting out of the country at any point?

Nikita

Sure. We definitely had to consider this and we thought about it and we talked about this and we that’s a doxyme I work as a scrum master. So I am responsible for making sure that our software development process and our policies are agile, that we can pivot and then change gear when we need to. And so this is the same principle. I applied to many, many areas of my own life. So we were a Jayla about it. We said, okay, for now it seems like they’re not, no ground invasion force is threatening Western Ukrainian and Livy at this time. So on the key of, so north, east, and south, not west, and we had several cruise missile strikes in, in Vive, but nowhere near our house. And we, we were following the protocol if there is an error that arm. So we are going down to the basement. Well, that’s a separate topic, but we are taking measures to protect from, from, from airstrikes. So we consider this is safe enough for me. And we have two children. So I stayed behind here with two children and it’s safe enough for now. And we still have several other doxyme please here in Viva as well. So we decided to stay and it is safe, safe enough for now.

Alex

Alright. And what have, what have things been like in your home with you and your children since your wife enlisted?

Nikita

You know, we are trying to follow the best advice we found on line, which is try to be aware of the dangers and prepare for them, but still try to have as much of a normal life as possible to protect us or sell from nervous breakdowns and from depression. So we are still, the children are still attending

Nikita

That’s. So, so it looks to me you’re still the medicine, what’s the, what’s the term for tele education. So they still have lessons online with their, with their teachers. We have, some of them are going still to their sporting events and sport clubs. And obviously, again, these go down to shelters, if there’s an air raid alarm, but it’s not often in the week. So they still get their training. We we’re trying to keep up as much as a normal life as we can. And we try to be in touch with Erin, with my wife daily on, on video or on phones. And we’re obviously worried. I’m more worried than most because I, I am adult and I understand the dangerous more than the children do, but still we, we, we are very proud of her and we, we wouldn’t change what we did. It’s where we think we’re doing the right thing. And we’re like, yeah, we’re trying to do the best thing we can.

Alex

Absolutely. What, what sports do your kids play?

Nikita

So my older son is training in soccer and in jujitsu and my daughter, the younger child has just picked up something like Eric robotics. I don’t know how to explain. Describe it better.

Alex

Okay. So kinda like gymnastics, but yeah. Okay. Okay. Cool. Very cool. Awesome. I soccer football, smart favorite sport. So I hope I hope your son loves it.

Nikita

Oh yes, he does. He, he, he made us find a club that would accept and trains children and made us let him go there.

Alex

All right. Sounds like he’s a, a ambitious little guy or stubborn. Awesome. Awesome. All right. And so it’s excellent that you guys still get to talk with Irene every day. How, how does she seem to be doing when you talk with her?

Nikita

She seems to be okay. It’s, it’s a hard life because sometimes they, they, they have the delivery in the normal conditions. Sometimes they have to live in trenches for days. So the it’s just physically and mentally more difficult than the normal life. But the, the guys she, she is serving with are supporting her. There obviously are still issues with female service men, the service people, but she still has to prove that, that she is worth it more than, than others. But in general, she she’s happy with the choices she made. She is, I’d say she sounds more stable and, and healthy and emotionally strong than, than she was even before the, the events. So she, it gives her strength and there were some problems with supplies at the beginning. There were not enough body armor, not enough helmets, not enough, anything, but now both with the government and with so many, so much aid coming in, both from people inside Ukraine and from international help, the help is phenomenal. And they have now they’ve got almost everything they want.

Alex

Yeah. I’ve heard in some of the other stories, people have talked about volunteer organizations had to turn down, volunteer, help because too many people were signing up, you know, from city locations, which is just, I mean, such an amazing response.

Nikita

And what also inspires me and I I’m I’m awed by this is that the enlistment centers, where there are mobilizing people for the military, they have like lines standing there for people who want to join. And my wife, she, she stood in that line for like two or three days to get her turn, to be, to be, to be mobilized.

Alex

Wow. She sounds incredible.

Nikita

Oh, she is.

Alex

I know, you know that. Wow. So a few of our colleagues have talked about the strangeness of how normal life in LaFave seems like. I mean, your kids are playing sports. Restaurants are open and I’ve talked about the strangest strangeness of knowing what’s going on for other people. And I imagine you see that in, in zoom with, with your wife. Could you describe, could you describe a little bit what that feeling has been like?

Nikita

I think it’s a very good question, but doesn’t have a simple answer. I can try my best to cover several points of view on this. On, on one hand, it wasn’t the same on every day in the first days, everything stopped. So even here in the even Western Ukraine, all the restaurants were closed for a week or two, everything was closed, nobody was working, nobody was understanding what’s going on. So everybody was afraid. Everybody was deciding, should we stay with flee? What should we do? And then gradually week by week, when we realized how great a job our military is doing, protecting us in that there really isn’t, at least is not in the direct path of the invasion. And we are relatively safe for now here, week by week, life started to return and business started opening up, open, opening back up. So this is how it was for us. But then I can also imagine that the shock and the difference is probably much worse for people who fled the areas of active fighting people who had to leave their homeless people who have seen explosions up close for them. This is the, the, the contrast is probably much greater. So, but I cannot attest to it. I can only imagine.

Alex

Yeah, absolutely. So have you gone to the, the doxyme <inaudible>

Nikita

Oh, yes. Yeah. I have to mention that the doxyme management was thoughtful enough and proactive enough that several weeks before the invasion, our, our HR people found an office, an office space with bedrooms in VF, just, just for this specific eventuality. And it did help. And many people stayed over for, for a while. Some people still live and work there. I’ve been, I visited it several times. I don’t really need to, because I I’m still living in my home. And I’m talking to you from my apartment, from my working desk. So I’m more, I, I feel like my family, like everyone here in Western Ukraine is kind of more fortunate and privileged to be, to have most of our life intact. So I’m not using up space reserved for people who, who, who have to go, who have to come, who have to flee, but I’ve been there, I’ve visited and we we’ve had pizza with our coworkers and it was great.

Alex

All right. And so what, what does working been like for you with all of this going on? Have you been able to work? Do you feel like, do you, do you feel like you’re bringing your best work forward?

Nikita

Oh, that’s an interesting question. Again, multi-faceted answer on one hand, especially even in the first weeks when everything was much less clear and we were much more nervous about everything. I found stability and certainty, and I felt calm when they came back to work. When I joined online calls with the colleagues when I was working with our task tracking system. So just usual routine, usual conversations, usual rituals that we do just the, the scrum events. It, it helped bring a measure of, of safety normalcy to the life. On the other hand, I realized that we are not working at a hundred percent. So I am personally not working at 100% because some of the time is take, is eaten up by, by, by the anxiety and reading the news. Some of the time is eaten up by air raid alarms, and then we have to move to a safer place, but, but still we, we are working, we are still producing. So our, our software developers are producing code. We are helping to manage the work it’s, it’s ongoing. And the doxyme platform is still improving and new features are coming online. So even though we are not at 100%, we are

Nikita

Adding value as much as we can.

Alex

All right. And I know, I know we appreciate that, but hopefully, hopefully the healthcare professionals appreciate it too. That rely on us. But I w I want to ask, do you, do you more extended family and Ukraine, and are they all safe?

Nikita

Yes. When I have more extended family and friends, I have a lot of friends as well, all over your clean, mostly can give, but in others, it is as well. But for now, as far as I know everyone that I count close and dear to my heart, everyone is alive and safe.

Alex

That’s, that’s wonderful to hear Nikita. I’d like to open the floor to you a little bit. Is there something you’d like to add something you’d like to say that you feel like we haven’t really touched on or that our audience should know?

Nikita

I, I might. The first thing I just wanted to mention is how great the support from the doxyme management and other coworkers has been. So I’ve, I don’t, I, I know many people working in, in tech, in Ukraine, not all companies have been as helpful as doxyme has been. We, we are free. So our jobs are secure. We are free to work even more flexible hours than we, than we were before. And we, if, if any, one of us needs help with transportation, housing, anything that’s that, that, that the people maybe in need of our recall workers and their management that don’t see me are helping. And this is just great. This is such a great atmosphere, such a great, such a great culture in the company. I think it stems from how it was founded from the people at the top, from the culture that we’ve been building through the years. And it, it, it works.

Alex

Yeah. I think we’re all glad that they had the foresight and the organization to make this plan ahead of time. And that now at this point, it has gone so well and gotten, I think almost the entirety of the team out of yellows zones and red zones to,

Nikita

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s, that’s wonderful. And one more thing that I might want to mention is my personal experience, this unrelated to the company, unrelated to even my family, to a larger extent is the fact that I am half Russian by blood. So my father and all of his ancestors come from Russia. So I still consider myself Ukrainian. And I do have a Ukrainian passport. And,

Nikita

But before 2014, I really shared this view that that many, even the Russian media are still pushing that, that we are like friendly nations, very close related nations, Russia, and Ukraine. And I was part of the people who actually believed that I was, I was proud to have Russian heritage. And the fact that I’ve, I’ve gone to a school in living in Western Ukraine, which was Russia, which had Russian speaking lessons. And we, we learned all the Russian culture and the great poets and the great writers and everything. And it felt so in 2014, when Russian next premier and incited, the separate is surprising in Donbass, I felt betrayed. I personally felt like my own people struck me in the back. And since then, I’m not proud anymore. I’m kind of ashamed. It’s, It’s like I had to, they, they, they themselves destroyed, destroyed my good relationship to them. And I don’t know, you, you may hear, at least we’ve heard a dolphin, especially in 2014, but now with this invasion, as well as well, that part of the reason for the Russian forces coming in is to protect Russian speaking people from Ukrainian nationalists. This is they’ve done more damage than, than, than help they’ve done. They’ve made,

Nikita

It’s hard to pick up words. The invasion actually proved that the Ukrainian Patriots were correct, that we have to fear them that, that they are not friendly. And I know a lot of people who, so I was I’ve, I’ve been using Russian language in my home with my parents all my life. And I use it sometimes in my home with my children as well. And I know so many people who are like that who have either Russian heritage or are they just used to using Russian language in, in, in Ukraine after February 24th, 2022, they are switching to Ukrainian language and they are distancing themselves as far as they can from, from the Russian government. And even the Russian culture, because this is, this is not who we are. Wow. So that, Wow, there you go.

Alex

Yeah. Do you have family that is in Russia right now?

Nikita

I know I have extended family, like third cousins. And so on, my parents are in, in contact with some of them. I personally just haven’t been in contact with them for years. So it doesn’t hit me so, so hard now. But yeah, they, I, I probably, so I know I do, but I don’t know how they feel and what they know. Right. And even on a related note, I have several very close friends, childhood friends who are now in Russia, and some of them have gotten Russian passports. And it’s strange. It’s a very strange experience talking to them because they don’t say anything specific. Like they said, they can say we are, what has happened in the Ukraine is a tragic, it’s all full. And then they will not elaborate. They will not elaborate why they wouldn’t deliberate. Who, who, who is at fault or what’s to be done about it. I don’t know why either they’re afraid or they don’t, or they think differently. They’re just, they are very reserved in what they tell us.

Alex

Right. Yeah. Wow. If you’ll just give me a second, I want to, I want to think about it. You’ve, you’ve shared a lot with me. Wow. So, so this, this kind of thing that you’ve experienced you believe is a sweeping notion kind of across Ukraine right now, which is of people of partially Russian, partially Ukrainian descent are denouncing kind of part of themselves.

Nikita

I think. So I cannot speak for everybody, but like the people that I know, and I know many Russian speaking, speaking people in Ukraine or peoples with partial Russian descent, they are either completely distancing themselves from, from everything Russian altogether or at the minimum, they are supporting very clearly supporting Ukraine, Ukrainian government, Ukrainian military in defending our independence. And they are helping, and they are collecting aid and they donating money both to refugee organizations, but also to organizations that support the military. And if, if any of you are watching footage online from, from the firefights and from the war itself, half, maybe even more of the soldiers of Ukrainian military soldiers who are protecting us right now, they’re speaking Russian, but they are still defending Ukraine.

Alex

Right. And I don’t think you need to say anything more about to show how proud you are of the Ukrainian people and the response of the people to the situation Nikita. It has been an absolute pleasure. It’s been amazing talking with you.

Nikita

Yeah. Thank you very much for having me and you are absolutely correct. I am very proud to be born in this place in this time, even though it’s very scary and the events and the losses are very tragic, but I am still proud to be a Ukrainian. I’m still proud of my, of the Korean government and country. I am proud of my family. I’m proud of my wife. I’m proud of the company I work for them of doxyme. I, I th I’m, I’m fortunate to be in such good hands

Alex

And we’re, we’re fortunate at doxyme to have you. So thank you so much for chatting with me today.

Nikita

Thank you very much for your time.