During a year of living in Warsaw, Alexey Podorozhny, a young businessman from Kyiv, managed to become co-founder of three companies
As reported by Polskie Radio, at 26 he managed to gain experience in Ukraine and, after moving to Poland, become co-founder of three companies in a year, two of which are involved in importing Ukrainian alcohol. But Alexey's biggest brainchild is Post International, which deals with transport logistics.
“Initially, when we moved, we faced a problem: many of our things remained in Ukraine. We also wanted to send something to Ukraine and please our relatives and friends. We faced the problem that it was very difficult to do. There are no guarantees that your things will arrive safely, and you wait for a very long time. After we encountered this several times, we decided that there should be a good quality service and people should receive their things, parcels within three days. We are working towards that. Unfortunately, at the moment we have encountered that the legislation of Poland and Ukraine differ greatly, and we are working at the intersection of these two systems.”
Alexey speaks about the colossal difference in doing business in Ukraine and Poland: “Everything here is completely different than in Ukraine. The first thing that was hard to accept is that absolutely everything must be done officially. You tell the state every month how much you earn, what you spend that money on. You fear that the tax office will come and throw a wrench in the works. But that doesn’t happen, and we are satisfied so far. Everything is very fast and smooth. And, in fact, now I don’t even know how to work any other way.”
It turns out that paying taxes can be a very pleasant activity. Especially when you see where the money goes: “It is very pleasant to pay taxes here: when you walk on smooth roads, enjoy public transport or a smooth highway, or get to any city in Poland in two hours by high-speed train, or fly for 20 euros. That is, you understand what you are paying for, you see changes around you, when literally every month, every day something new appears, something is being built, double-decker trains, new art objects appear. I am sure that not only I will continue to do something here, and not only I will pay taxes and enjoy this beautiful country.”
Despite the fact that Alexey is simultaneously engaged in three fairly large business projects, he also manages to find time for university studies. “The university is called 'Vistula', and my major is programming. The education in Ukraine and Poland, or in the EU in general, is very different. If in Ukraine they try to overload a person, and even a first-year student faces 15-20 subjects per year, here it is much simpler. You have four or five main subjects. Everything else is left for self-study. You don't have to attend lectures if you don't want to. You can study the subject from different sources, draw your own conclusions, and build on that in the future.”
With students, teachers, and his business partners, Alexey Podorozhny communicates mainly in Polish. How did he manage to master it in just one year? It's all about the language environment: “I understood the most important thing – you will never learn to speak Polish properly if you don't communicate with Poles. You can read a lot of books, watch movies, but there is slang – also an important factor. I advise you – communicate with Poles, look for Polish friends.”
Finding a Polish friend, it turns out, is not so easy. And this is one of the few difficulties our hero had to face: “Not all residents of Warsaw appreciate the arrival of such a large number of Ukrainians. I understand them, of course. Different people come here. And I think they have encountered both good and bad Ukrainians. But unfortunately, I see that so far they have met not the best representatives of our country and have a negative residue. Consequently, they have some fear, anxiety, and they do not always make contact, they do not always take us seriously. But I hope this will change in the near future.”
In the end, Alexey managed to find an approach to Poles, which, as it turned out, lies in the history of this people: “I can say that I got to know Poles. They are still Slavs and in principle not difficult to understand. Of course, at first some things make you think. When arriving in a country, I recommend starting with studying its history. Then you will understand a lot of what is happening around you and why it is happening that way.”
Now Lesha has many Polish friends, but he brought his closest ones with him: “I live with my girlfriend Valeria. Her brother, who is studying to become a programmer, also lives with us. Lera is into clothing design, she creates models, makes clothes from them, selects fabrics, travels all over Poland, buys them, negotiates with sewing factories. She wants to launch her own clothing line here.”
Lera plans to conquer the Polish fashion market, and Lesha, when he finishes his studies, plans to open an IT company that will provide computer software for Polish farmers. And something tells me that they will succeed.