Stories From Ukraine: Vlad Turchyn

Preply has united a community in learning for 10 years. During this past year, we have learned so much from our own team members, many withstanding indescribable challenges in #Ukraine and many doing the extraordinary to help them. As a Ukrainian-founded company, we’re honored to share unfiltered stories from our employees and are proud to support their unique voices.

For our first story, we share the story and experience of our Regional SEO Manager, Vlad Turchyn, who has been part of our team at Preply since 2019.

“The funny thing I did on the evening of February 23rd is create a budget for my personal expenses for the following year. The next day, it was irrelevant. I could have deleted it and forgotten about it for at least a few years. I was among those people who didn’t believe that Russia would attack us. My mom called me the night before and told me to pack my stuff and move to my hometown, which is close to the Polish border. In response, I accused her of being too anxious and dramatic.

In the end, I spent almost two weeks under the Russian occupation without electricity, water, heating, and supplies. The temperature in our house was around 9 degrees Celsius. We cooked food outside on the fire under the sounds of the artillery. Now I can distinguish between different artillery sounds.

Once two Russians pointed a gun at me to check my phone. It was scary. One woman was killed in our village at that time by occupiers because she helped the Ukrainian Army target Russians. In such moments, you just get hope that they let you out, and they eventually did. On our way, we saw destroyed houses, marks from Russian tank tracks on the road, and destroyed civilian cars.

You have to stay resilient and human. Today, you can see Ukrainians leaving emergency kits in the elevators and parking lots for those who might get stuck during an electricity outage there for a few hours. This is all that humanity is about for me.

If you want to help Ukraine, donate to the @savelife.in.ua fund. History tends to repeat itself. Wars happen and will happen. You can’t deny that or isolate yourself. During World War II, we had to stop the aggressor. The same should happen now. Your donation is not about “feeding” the war. This world is so interconnected that you can feel the effect of what’s happening in Ukraine, Syria, and Iran right now. There’s no place for pacifism at this moment. Ukraine will fight.”