Welcome to the new OdessaFX web site! OdessaFX provides translator support for English-speaking visitors in Odessa. We can assist you in finding a short-term apartment, long-term apartment, tours in Odessa, transportation and a wide range of other interests you may have. Ukraine is not known for being an easy country to live in and sometimes even vacationing can be rough for the uninformed. We can help you and provide you with just about anything you would like to know.

Two Week Stays – to Meet Women

* It would be best if you plan on meeting several women. Don’t fall in love with a picture or a letter that has gone through a translator until after you have met the individual face to face. Why? An awful long way to travel to be stood up, find out you’ve been scammed, or discover there’s simply no chemistry.

* Don’t buy expensive gifts – just be prepared to pay for any and all entertainment and a taxi home in the evenings. Flowers, always an odd number, are okay. Small souvenirs from your home are okay. Computers, jewelry, expensive clothes, or things like that. Why? Hopefully, you want your future wife to be interested more in you than your money.

* Not 100% necessary, but strongly recommend finding a lady who can already speak some English. Why? Russian is very difficult to learn for the average westerner. The less time you are dependent upon a translator, the better. It is highly unlikely that you will find a translator willing to go to bed with both of you.

* Do not expect to get married during a two week visit, or even two visits. Possible, but not likely – the registration itself can take that long. Research and talk to others about how difficult it is to get a fiance visa from Ukraine to your home country.

* In terms of costs – you will be looking at air fare, hotel/apartment, local transportation, food, entertainment and possibly souveniers. Apartments are the best way to go – and range from about $50 to $150 per night, and it will beat the hell out of the hotels, unless you are going for deluxe suites… and even then, most apartments will beat the hotels. Only a few exceptions. Expenses can vary widely depending upon your tastes, budget and entertainment. It is possible to get by on $20 a day – a bit boring, very basic, but every day need not be a party. It is also pretty easy to blow through several hundred dollars if you start talking about the best restaurants, drinks, cover charges, etc.

* Safety – avoid going out alone, getting drunk, flashing money and leaving late at night by yourself to walk back to your apartment in the dark. Make sure you have or rent a cell phone and have the number of a translator or a local contact in case you find yourself in trouble. Avoid using Internet cafe’s for accessing any personal information online. Do your best to use ATM’s at banks. It is generally best to avoid petting the stray dogs – most likely nothing will happen to you if you do. Avoid getting into fights. Mind your own business, don’t pick up anything you might see on the street even if you see someone drop something. Around the center of town, avoid giving money to the panhandlers. If you will be cooking in your apartment, it is recommended for you to cook things a little longer or at a slightly higher temperature than you might at home.

Three Month Visits to Ukraine (Plus or Minus)

* All of the above applies, plus –

* Probably the most important thing to understand is that most Ukrainian landlords are either into the short-term daily rental market or the long-term – family who plans to live in the apartment for years market. The 3 – 6 month apartment market is significantly more difficult. Landlords will not reserve apartments and most expect to hear a yes or no on the apartment they’ve shown within a matter of hours. Important to remember it is first paid, first served. A lot more information is included in the long-term living section.

You will likely be expected to pay for the first month upfront along with a one month security deposit that you get back at the end of your stay, provided the apartment is in the same condition as provided to you. For a single, good quality bedroom apartment near the middle of town – you will likely be looking at something in the range of $550 – $650 per month. The closer it is to the center and the bigger it is will obviously mean a significantly higher rent.

* Not all apartments have an Internet connection and very few have Satellite TV. Both require landlord approval to install and in most cases these will need to be installed at your expense. Internet varies by company, the biggest issue tends to be that there is frequently a two week waiting period. However, that can be accelerated via “gifts”. Satellite television is going to run a couple hundred bucks at the least, plus monthly service fee.

* Transportation should rarely be a problem unless you are going to frequently travel to other cities. Around town, it’s just as easy to take a taxi or gypsy taxi – as long as you know how to pronounce your destination. Negotiating price is a little trickier – but should take you all of about 5 – 10 minutes to learn. Or you can brave public transportation. Just avoid the peak hours.

Long Term Stays in Ukraine – 6 months plus

* Biggest issue is going to come down to your Visa and the regular quarterly visits to OVIR (equivalent to immigrations). Depending upon how long you stay, it may be necessary for you to leave the country for a couple days and come back in. It is a hassle, it is a pain in the ass – but this is about the only issue that creates any real problems for anyone. We’ve done this for nearly five years… every three months…

* Don’t expect to find a job here, even trying to teach English or another language. You could get lucky, but unless you speak Russian fluently that is about the only job available and there are quite a few people vying for those positions.

* Your first year in Ukraine will be your most expensive as you will incur costs getting settled in. As well, almost everyone here has changed apartments two or three times if they’ve been here any length of time, and that adds to the costs, too.

* Ideally, if you wish to live here on a prolonged basis, you should have either a solid nest egg and some source of continuous income. Everything depends upon your expectations and standards. I’ve known a few people to blow through a couple hundred thousand in 1-2 years…. but it is distinctly possible to live reasonably comfortably while renting an apartment for less than $1,000 monthly.

* If the only reason you are coming here for a long-term stay is to meet women – I can only encourage you to come up with some additional activities to pursue while you are here – a hobby, some side-work that you can do online, trying to meet others of your profession here – there is a lot that you can do, but you will need to be creative. As well, these activities can be used to meet women here, too.

* If you are coming here mostly to retire and get away from the West – it will take a little bit of adaptation, maybe even a lot. If you can do it though… you will be in heaven. I regret living in Ukraine only about 3% of the time, 2 or 3 days every 3 months or so.

Finally – there’s the little things in life… like food. Be able to cook at least basic things for yourself. The only thing I miss about the United States is simply the variety of foods at the supermarket – which is not that hard to get over… and the sheer number and variety of good restaurants. Especially if you are going to be here for a couple years – it’s natural that one day you just won’t want to cook and just want something different. The only way to really get past that is to try making it for yourself.

For the most part, I’ve managed to make just about everything I have a taste for… it’s possible to get close on almost everything, except…

Maple syrup.

So, if you like breakfasts with maple syrup – bring a bottle with you. The other thing I’ve not been able to find, but is possible to make… but if you eat them in any quantity… you will probably want to bring a jar of pickled jalapeno peppers. Which means you will probably want some Mexican food to go with them… and while there is some of that here… it is only kinda-sorta- sorta-kinda Mexican food. Unless you stick with the fajitas.

I’ve been pretty vocal about the BP Oil Spill on ExpatUA – and think it is appropriate to add this here. Before everything is over – I believe there will be massive evacuations along the Gulf Coast.

This is sickening. I’m not religious – we have enough hell on earth as it is without needing to worry about eternal damnation.

So… angry and sad, feeling a bit helpless as to how to help those on the Gulf or simply to go after BP and the complicit pieces of shit in the government. Suggestions are most welcome.

Meanwhile, if you work for BP directly or indirectly, feel free to pass along any information you would like – especially to a place like Wikileaks.org. BP is betraying its employees, shareholders, its country, the world and humanity – BP stands for Betraying People…. my take anyway.

Sadder than anything is that BP will likely cease to exist as a company, it – mainly its people and policies, will simply be absorbed by other big oil companies. On that matter, all of the oil companies gave Congress essentially the same “contingency plan” for disasters such as this – i.e. same wording even down to “saving the walruses” – in the Gulf… That speaks quite a bit for “peer review” – the oil companies were not called the Seven Sisters for nothing.

I’d rant forever on this, but – feels just that micro-spec better just to voice my frustrations for the day.

Congressman Bob Etheridge – North Carolina – watch for yourself. Did this guy actually get elected or bully North Carolina into submission? He’s up for re-election in the fall.

Here, while it is possible to live illegally in Ukraine – if you are caught, you will be expelled unless you have a lot of money. Certainly, if you came to Ukraine and started waving a US Flag around outside the capitol protesting anything, you would not be there very long.

Countries have borders, countries have laws. Abiding by them is not always easy. That accounts for the 2% of the time that I’ve been here; about 2 days in every 100; that are nerve wracking. Every 90 days means either a trip to the OVIR Office for registration or a trip to the border – preferably to a different country. That can make the average daily cost of living here a bit higher. Still, we go through with it – it is the law.

The hard part, however – is that the laws change frequently in Ukraine. It is, as well, often a matter of who you ask and when you ask them. If you come back a couple hours later, odds are you will get a totally different answer. That’s what makes it hard – but the immigration laws in the United States do not change that frequently. So, even if you think you have gotten it right – it is difficult to be 100% certain. That is about the only grief I have with all of Ukraine.

Okay – well, that and there’s no maple syrup at the grocery store. Aside from that – no grief. That’s not to say that you might not find some grief in Ukraine. Ukraine requires flexibility and patience – with the understanding that nothing is ever easy, but then… very few things are ever very urgent.

To make a long story short, I spent 16 months working in Iraq – back in 2004-2005. It chanced that someone would ask a question, Where would you live if you could live anywhere you wanted? When you are sitting in a desert, surrounded by barbed wire, with virtually no entertainment aside from being able to have your socks custom embroidered… it is not unnatural for your mind to wander. Where would I live if I could live anywhere?

The answer was not really a specific place, per se. It rather concerned a lot of the aspects of living like…

* A place where one can afford to live,
* A place where you can have a higher quality of life – but with a lower cost of living,
* A place where Americans are not typically shot at. That immediately disqualified most of the Middle-East, large portions of Africa and Asia, South America, and for that matter, some portions of the United States.
* A place that is basically as “free” as the United States – or “as free as it used to be” – which sort of precluded a lot of countries like China, Iran, large parts of the Middle East… parts of the United States and England.
* A place that is mostly temperate – where the summers are not too hot and the summers are not terribly cold, but more willing to tolerate colder winters than hotter summers…
* A place where if you had the money, you can get pretty much find and get everything you would want – like high quality internet access,
* A place where most people are generally friendly – and preferably speak the same language (i.e. English)
* A place near at least an airport, or other major transportation hub – seaport, trains, etc.
* A place where you are not taxed to death.
* A place where you can get reasonable medical services.

Well, the list did go on – and included a number of things relevant to my line of work (in logistics). I set about to find such a place. Being surrounded by military and civilian contractors with military experience, there was someone who had been to just about any place one could ask about.

So, I set about doing what research I could to devise a short list. What I came up with then… in the heart of the Sunni Triangle (Al Taqaddum – just slightly beyond eyeshot to Fallujah) was the following list:

1. Hungary
2. Republic of Georgia
3. Ukraine
4. Costa Rica
5. Thailand

There were a few others like Moldovia, but for the most part – Eastern Europe, or certain parts of the Far East. My first visit to Budapest indicated that “the Market” had already been there – pretty expensive – and given its problems now… a good choice to not have gone there. Republic of Georgia… very good to not have gone there. The whole Northern Caucasus history is was what dissuaded me on that issue – otherwise at the time was a higher risk but viable option. Costa Rica – just seemed too close to a lot of regional problems, and a bit hotter than my liking. Same for Thailand. And military coups…

My second vacation from Iraq was to Odessa. It seemed to me a combination of the two places I liked most – northern “small town New England” with the kind of international and festival attitude of New Orleans – before Katrina and BP. I considered it perfect then, visited again – and it stuck with me. Now, almost five years later, I still regard Odessa as close to a perfect place to live. Certainly things can change – indeed – some things can change quite radically in a very short time.

Odessa and Ukraine have its problems and complications just like everywhere else, but overall – I have no intention of leaving Odessa or Ukraine. About the worst that most people can say about Ukraine is that it is corrupt. It is – but it about $12 Trillion less corrupt than… well… Washington, DC.