“What’s really frustrating is a client who works with a Russian company and doesn’t want to change,” Hameliac said. “I try to be polite.”
Corruption problem
Last year, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Ukraine as the second most corrupt country in Europe after Russia. For years, small groups of oligarchs owned vast areas of the economy, and bribes were commonplace. Worse, the shadow economy of unreported transactions has long eroded the tax base. Four years ago, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology estimated that 47% of Ukraine’s gross domestic product was essentially invisible to the government.
The situation is improving as more companies vie for contracts in the international economy, where integrity is more valued, many executives here say. But young entrepreneurs understand that it had image problems before the war turned the country into a symbol of resistance. And it didn’t make sense to wait for the government to fix it, or even provide basic social services like safety nets. People here live on what they earn, they don’t retire, or they live a miserable life.
Staff knew that companies were at risk of bleeding their customers and would disappear if they couldn’t prove that they were as viable as the day before the hostilities began. In addition, focusing on work was a good way to ignore the fear of unfolding.
Illia Shevchenko, Ukrainian manager of EPAM Systems, a digital product design company based in Pennsylvania and with offices in Ukraine, said: “The best way to distract from these emotions is to work. There is a specific task. You sit down and think about it.”
Shevchenko was speaking on a video call from a small bedroom in a Kremenchuk apartment. There, his wife and two children moved shortly after his former hometown of Kharkiv was attacked. He wore a red T-shirt with Einstein’s illustrations and toured his new office, which lasted about six seconds. He lifted his laptop and aimed it at the small table and chairs he is currently working on.
