We sat in my mother’s favorite café and drank a latte macchiato with lactose-free milk. She looked deeply into my essence with all the love and tenderness she had. She gently took my hand, and with tears glistening, she met my gaze and told me.

I came to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, one of the most amazing and beautiful places in Bayern, and in Germany in general. This is my second time visiting this magical city for a day. Last time I promised myself to buy a ticket and have a full visual experience. Two years have passed and I did it….

I ultimately found an apartment in Karlsruhe….

It is acceptable to tell success stories, but very few people dare to tell painful stories of rejection, despair, and failure. I saw only 3 posts on LinkedIn from Ukrainian women who shared openly the uncomfortable truth - they cannot find a job. Living in Germany for me the fact of unfair and challenging experiences to find a job as an immigrant or a refugee is vivid; especially for women. I know a lot of Ukrainian women who were in top positions in Ukrainian and internation

I should confess that my first meeting with the city in June 2025 was bad, that day was my first appointment for the apartment viewing. I did not like the city at all at that time; even more, I was returning from the apartment to the train station and weeping: “I do not like this city, this is the ugliest city in Germany, my tiny Hof is even better.” After months of searching for apartments in all nearby cities near Ettlingen, I began to shift my mindset: “Maybe Karlsruhe is

The first thing I was recommended to do in Karlsruhe was to go to ZKM (Center for Art and Media), one of the biggest media art venues in the world. One quiet Sunday morning, I walked into ZKM, I paid 14 euros and spent about three hours wandering through different halls and floors, exploring various exhibitions.

I am obsessed with the UK and particularly London. I fell in love with it from the phrase “London is the capital of Great Britain”, which is one of the few phrases an ordinary child remembers from post-Soviet school. For many such children, London became a dream, or, like for me, even an obsession. When I first came to London in 2020, just before global isolation, I came together with anxiety disorder and diverse panic attacks, it accepted me as I was and healed in the way it

Going out from the apartment, I saw a tiny cafe with huge letters PAUL, a well-known sign for a French bakery. My nose caught the pleasant aroma of coffee, while my eyes took in the kaleidoscope of colors and shapes in the visitors' clothing.

Keep your balance…. But what does it mean?!? To meditate? To make yoga? To do breathing techniques? To smile?

The Ukrainian vyshyvanka is our heritage, our cultural DNA, and part of our identity. It is a manuscript of stories, memories, history, fights, identity, and resilience. I did not understand it before the full-scale invasion. Each stitch holds a story, obviously a painful and difficult story; each pattern reflects the history whispered by our ancestors. Honestly, Ukrainians are great storytellers, not because we were taught how to do it, but because we fought for our freedom

When we are small children, we are who we are, not pretending to be someone else, not thinking about what others will think of us or how they will evaluate us, whether they like us or dislike us. At this period in our lives, we are truly authentic with our vulnerabilities, "unbeauties", weirdness, and differences. The more adult and mature we become, the more societal rules, norms, obligations, and trends influence us and force us to change ourselves unconsciously. The more w

I finished the first module of resilience and adaptability at McKinsey Forward Program. The most important insight is I lived through an exclusive traumatic life experience that forced me to become resilient and adaptable and through the life-learning process I made almost all the conclusions on my own that I studied in this module. I am very thankful that my chaotic experience now is structured and framed with business words and categories. So, I studied adaptability and res

I live in a small city in Germany, Germans used to live in cities with 9.000, 20.000, 40.000 people,

Today I am 30 months in Germany and I would like to share some insights about the most important question of all time and all nations "Who

That morning I looked at the mirror to braid my hair and suddenly realized that I was almost completely gray.

Unexpectedly, I found myself in the National Gallery of London and this event brought up old hidden pain and the feeling of a life

My first London was in February 2020, just before all airports were closed and a global pandemic was declared with complete isolation

I lived in London in the Pimlico district, which is considered the center, and it took me twenty minutes to walk to Westminster Abbey.

Today is the 23rd of February and all my life this day was associated with my mom's Birthday, but since 2022 it has become the

In turbulent times, in times of change and loss, it is very important to regain your inner wholeness and allow integration to take place.