"I'm experiencing this war together with everyone." A developer moved to Lviv even before everything started - and stays there.

— Before moving to Ukraine, I worked in a bank, according to my education [Viktoryia's background includes studying at BSEU]. But after moving in 2018, I decided to change my field of activity because I didn't see myself in the banking sector in the future.

You could say I'm self-taught. In 2018, I completed a short basic course in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It only gave me an idea of how a website works and what it consists of. Later, I accumulated knowledge through online courses and practice on my own.

In the first years, I worked with Ukrainian friends in a small web studio and did freelancing in parallel.

Back then, I didn't consider myself a professional programmer yet. In my free time, I delved deeper into JavaScript, React, and improved my English. Combining all this with work and personal life was quite difficult, so progress was slower than I would have liked.

In the autumn of 2021, a few months before the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I started working in the Ukrainian office of an international company. And I still work here.

"In Lviv, I feel at home"

Since 2017, I have been living permanently in Lviv. When I was freelancing, I traveled a lot around Ukraine, but I didn't find a better place than Lviv. Although I wasn't looking — I traveled out of curiosity about the country. I love this city very much and feel at home here. And this is extremely valuable in emigration, especially when there is no opportunity to return to your homeland.

In our team, besides me, there are no Belarusians. Overall, the Ukrainian division of the company is quite small — about 30 people. I know that from time to time, Belarusians living in Ukraine came for interviews. And citizenship itself has never been an obstacle to employment in our company.

I cannot recall any problems with working in Ukraine before the war. And I have no experience working in Belarusian IT, so it's hard to compare. After the start of the war, nothing changed for me in this context. The company management is not in Ukraine, they supported me after the start of the war just like my Ukrainian colleagues. I am unaware of cases where cooperation with Belarusians was stopped specifically because of citizenship.

Not once have I encountered a negative attitude towards me as a Belarusian, neither from the management nor from colleagues. On the contrary, I felt support both from them and from others during the period when I had to deal with Belarusian documents.

I met the beginning of the war here. I decided to live and work in Ukraine. I am experiencing this war together with everyone. It seems to me that if a person respects people, their language, culture, and the country they live in, if the values of Ukrainian society are close to them, then they don't have problems with relationships.

In general, I don't feel any tension in the relations between Belarusians and Ukrainians in IT. But I haven't had the experience of looking for a job after 2022.

"You try not to put off tasks, but to do everything while there's light and connection."

During the war, the atmosphere at work, as in other areas of life, changes. The demand for loud entertainment corporate parties has significantly decreased. We meet less often in the office, but we can meet to solder drones together. Collecting birthday gifts has turned into collecting aid for loved ones in the army, etc.

It seems to me that the attitude towards work has become more responsible. I remember the words of one of my team leads during planning: "What if a rocket hits my house tomorrow, what will you do?" During periods of mass power outages, you try not to postpone tasks, but to complete them all while there's light and connection.

In Lviv, the situation with power outages is now perceived more easily than in the first year. Everyone has adapted, organized themselves to work without interruptions, and generally, it's easier for us here than in Kyiv.

I am amazed at how Ukrainians manage to cope with constant stress and adapt to circumstances. I was especially impressed by the beginning of the full-scale war, when my colleague from Kharkiv continued to work, despite what was happening in the city. He sent videos of hostilities, filmed literally from the window of his house, to the work chat, but work did not stop at the same time.

In the first weeks of the war, I took a vacation to adapt psychologically. Later, the company counted these days as additional sick leave days. Therefore, my main vacation was not affected.

Of course, there is constant background stress and anxiety. They seem to hide, but I feel them in the fact that it has become harder to learn new things. The psyche works in survival mode and tries not to waste energy on what can be saved.

Future

I moved to Lviv to be with my husband, but now I live alone.

Currently, I have a residence permit. I don't have citizenship and it's not on the horizon yet; at least not until Ukrainian legislation changes. During the war, Belarusians are almost never granted citizenship.

There have been a few cases, but it seems all of them are related to obtaining it through ancestry. In any case, I am not an expert on this issue. And with an expired passport, like mine, you can't do anything at all now.

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