A Few Facts About Ukraine
If you cannot visit a country, the next best thing is to meet somebody from that country who is living in your country and to ask them about their homeland.
I have been wanting to visit Ukraine for a long time. I had a great grandparent from Ukraine.
Lviv / Lvov / Lemberg
My ancestor came from what is now called Lviv. That city is in the west of Ukraine, near the border. Going back a few generations, to the time of my grandfather's grandfather, the city once was invaded by two different armies. As the battle to control the city raged on, in one day the citizens changed nationality twice, so that in one day they had three different nationalities.
When my great grandfather reached London, he was known as a Lemberger, meaning somebody from Lemberg. He would not have been called Lemberger when he was in Lemberg, only when he reached London, I had learned this at a meeting about tracing your ancestors.
Surnames in the English and Ukrainian
The Ukrainian lady I met had no idea that Lviv was once called Lemberg. She speaks good English, which she learned at school, as well as Russian, which she said is similar to Ukrainian.
I overheard her talking on the phone to her family. She kept saying Da which I recognized as Russian for yes. It sounds almost the same in Ukrainian. I should have looked up the Ukrainian language again, immediately before going to the meeting.
I asked her to tell me the numbers one to three in Ukrainian. You need to be able to roll the letter r. (I must practise rolling the letter r. I need this skill for other languages, including Indonesian.)
Wikipedia explains that the city now called Lviv in Ukrainian was named after the founder's son, Leo, meaning Lion. Here's more information from Wiipedia, which gives links to sources, on the variations of the city's name.
Lviv ( Ukrainian : Львів , L'viv ; Polish : Lwów ; German : Lemberg or Leopoldstadt ( archaic ); Yiddish : לעמבערג ; Russian : Львов , Romanized : Lvov ) is an administrative center in western Ukraine
with more than a millennium of history as a settlement, and over seven centuries as a city. Prior to the creation of the modern state of Ukraine, Lviv had been part of numerous states and empires, including, under the name Lwów, Poland and later the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; under the name Lemberg, the Austrian and later Austro-Hungarian Empires; the short-lived West Ukrainian People's Republic after World War I; Poland again; and the Soviet Union. In addition, both the Swedes and the Ottoman Turks made unsuccessful attempts to conquer the city.
I was invited to lunch by somebody who was entertaining a Ukrainian lady, who was living with one of his employers. In Ukraine she lived about 100 miles from Kiev, in a city I had not heard of. I asked her, 'What is your home like? What wort of building? What does it view?'
She replied, 'I live in a flat. On the 12th floor of a thirteen floor building. We used to have a view of the river. Until another building got in the way.'
She has been in the UK about 2 months. My host who previously had a C.V writing business was going to meet her before lunch to discuss her CV which he was helping her write, then decided to invite her to lunch.
The British government is supposedly giving a sum to people who are housing the refugees, for the use of the accommodation as well as food and so on. It saves the government having to build or adapt property, admin. It also gives the refugees a support system, friends, a new 'family'.
The refugees don't like to consider themselves as 'refugees'.
The lady I shall call 'O', to protect her privacy, and because I did not ask her permission, said, "I don't like that word. I consider I am here temporarily until I go home. I have a job in the Ukraine, but it pays very poorly, enough for me to have a three bedroom flat for me and my son in Ukraine, a room for each of us and a spare room, but not enough for the two bedrooms we need in the UK, because he is over ten years old." (That is a legal requirement, a child who is beyond puberty cannot share a room with a parent of the opposite sex.)
I can imagine that if the reports in the UK papers are to be believed, red tape or other delays mean some of the people who are giving the 'refugees' shelter for up to six months have not yet, after two or three months, seen any money. How long would you be prepared to have a stranger living in your home? Would you expect them to start looking for work? I imagine that the host are anxious that their guests are starting to look for work in the UK, as they have permission to work.
Unfortunately, two things in the immigrant's mind might cause them to procrastinate about job-hunting. One is the hope that this is just a temporary fix, that things will come right soon and the war will end and they will be able to go back home.
The other is general stress and depression from the upheaval of going to live in another country and find work when you don't speak the language.
Our Ukrainian contact can work from home, now overseas in the UK, at her job in the Ukraine. But the money she earns is not enough to pay rent in the UK. Why not seek work in the UK instead? She is afraid that when she goes back to the Ukraine, no only will she have lost her job, but she will be unable to find another, because employers want to employ people under the age of 40.
(I can envisage two solutions. One is that the government gives a subsidy to employers, rather than paying people dole money, meaning unemployment benefits. Alternatively, either the government or private industry can set up businesses designed to employ older people, either exclusively, or to give them equal opportunities.)
Could she keep her 9 to 5 job in the Ukraine, and supplement her income with part time work in the UK? For example, on a Saturday? Or an hour each evening?
My experience, as an English teacher, is that if you take a lowly paid job in the industry in which you are interested, it gives you confidence to apply for a better paid job. You can then talk your way through the interview. You can talk about your experiences.
Your boss might move on, creating a vacancy. You get to hear about it first. You can save your company the cost of advertising or paying an agency to find a replacement.
Another possibility is that a colleague moves to a better paid job. They find another vacancy in their new workplace. At very least, they can tell you which newspapers or magazines or websites are useful for you. Either because employers advertise there. Your new colleagues can also tell you about training courses, and sell you, or lend you or give you the course books.
C.V. Opportunities
Meanwhile, what are her prospects here and now in the UK? However, if 'O' speaks good English, as well as Russian and Ukrainian, and a little Polish, that is a skill she can mention on her C.V. She can say that she is bilingual, or trilingual, can translate, can deal with correspondence.
Language Skills
I found employment in Singapore as a teacher of English.
Employers might find your home language skill useful. That could be that useful, teaching languages, translation services, business correspondence and phone calls. A few firms may dealing with refugees in this country.
But especially if they are dealing with business in other countries. (For example, export, import, services, IT, contracts, employment, finance, pricing, timing).
Selling Yourself On Your CV - In Numbers
The employer is interested in what the potential employee can do for the company, and what they did before. If the numbers are small, because it is the past or because the currency sounds much less, then express it in percentages or multiples or buying power. For example, I was able to save my employer half the cost of ..., or the equivalent of ... or what would be so much in today's money. 'I am looking for a starting salary of ... and hope to be gaining x by the end of the year.
CV and LinkedIn
A potential employer will look at your c.v. (which Americans call a resume) on LinkedIn. If they are English speaking, they will look at the English version - not the Ukrainian).
If your CV on LinkedIn is in English, or the language of the country where you are seeking employment, such as China, you might not need to send a CV because the potential employer can see all they need to know already.
My experience of job-hunting in Singapore, was that you should not wait for your ideal job or a job paying the amount you want to earn. You could sit around for years, like I did in the USA and Singapore. I found jobs I wanted when I decided to just take any job. I took a poorly paid teaching job. It was better than doing nothing earning nothing or going shopping and spending money. Somebody where I started working told me about another company which was looking for teachers. When I applied for the next job, after less than a month I had enough confidence and knowledge of the lingo to talk my way through the interview.
Family Names
I asked the Ukrainian woman I met, 'What\s the name of your son? What does it mean?'
She told me, "Many Ukrainian names end in enko, and skyy, like our president, Zelenskyy.'
Russian surnames or family names when translated from Cyrillic into or written in the English (Latin or Roman) alphabet can end in ski as well as ev/ov/off and en/in/an/on, as in Putin.
Buying UK Clothes in Ukraine
The Ukrainian lady was wearing clothes bought from UK shops, especially Aldi. To get around the problem of high postage, private companies ship collectively. The price is standard for a shipment to a particular address. So the more you buy, the cheaper the postage cost per item.
Travelling from Ukraine to the UK is done via the same companies. They run a minivan and sell off seats and take boxes of goods.
Useful Websites
Ukrainian Surnames
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Surnames_of_Ukrainian_origin
Shipping Aldi goods to the Ukraine
https://www.u-buy.com.ua/en/brand/aldi
Learn Ukrainian and/or Russian
https://www.duolingo.com/learn
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