Italian restaurants and weather extremes invigorate German Beate Schober, the former head of Austrian Airlines’ office in Dnipropetrovsk and currently a partner in the go2kiev.com tourism Web site. She laughs to consider that, at 56, she can call herself a “young entrepreneur” when other women her age are retiring, but the title and her current surroundings fit her well. The former remind her of time spent in Italy 30 years ago, and the latter Ukraine over the last 10 years.
And at Mille Miglia Italian restaurant, in the Radisson SAS Hotel, Schober feels excited; the place strikes her as “very Italian,” she says. In Italy, where she worked for Austrian, the people seemed to her very energetic and vivacious, a complete change from the southern German state of Bavaria where she grew up. There she was teased for having curly blonde hair and for not speaking in dialect. Her parents were originally from Silesia, now part of western Poland.
“I was living behind a wall,” Schober says of her childhood. “But Italy started to change me. Then Ukraine totally changed me.” Still, she looks around the restaurant and says that, “as much as I like Ukraine, this [place] gives me a touch of ‘away.'”
Reason for staying
Schober appears confident sitting across from me wearing a green jacket that she herself designed and had sewn by a Ukrainian seamstress. That same confidence allowed her to sit behind her desk and deal with the egos of some of the city’s biggest and most notorious business and political figures after she opened Austrian Airlines’ Dnipropetrovsk office in 1996.
Austrian was the first foreign airline in the country, and such customers often tried to intimidate or impress Schober with their wealth and power, but in the end they were just paying customers to her.
“I’m too German to allow myself to treat passengers differently from one another,” she says glibly from across the table at Mille Miglia. “I simply had to resist [such displays] with politeness and professionalism.”
Schober’s strength stems from years spent being an outsider; someone who was different and forced to accept herself. She didn’t marry until 14 years ago, and even when she did, she accepted that she would not always live with her husband.
“I’ve always been an individual, even though my parents didn’t appreciate it,” Schober says. “But individual thinking makes life easier – no one takes responsibility for my actions except me.”
Schober orders the tagliatelle al pesto (Hr 56) and a bottle of Sprite (Hr 8) before she goes into how she first came to Ukraine.
At work in the airline industry since the age of 20, Schober made her way up through the ranks at Austrian, and by 1989 she was one of only two female station managers in the company. Top-level managers back then doubted the suitability of women for management positions.
In 1996 the airline told her that if she wanted to avoid a desk job, she would have to find a new place within the company. Dnipropetrovsk was open, and she decided to take the job heading the office despite never having heard of the city and only vaguely knowing where Kyiv was.
“On my first night in the Hotel Rus I was shocked by the room. I wondered if I could stay,” says Schober. “But the next day was beautiful and sunny!” She flew to Dnipropetrovsk and, despite her first hotel not having running water – and the second only cold water – she stayed “because it was warm in the evening.”
In general, Schober likes both cold and hot weather, saying it gives “an adventurous touch to life,” and her first year in Ukraine gave her experience with extremes of both: temperatures that summer reached 40 degrees Celsius, and that winter plunged to -20 C. “I have no problem with the cold, but it dries out my skin,” she says.
New horizons
Schober officially left Austrian in autumn 2003 and resolved to stay in Ukraine. She filled in briefly at an insurance company, bought an apartment that she remodeled herself and had so much fun with it that she would have continued in it if not for her limited resources. Her flat even appeared in a local interior design magazine once she finished it.
As fate would have it, Schober took interest in the go2kiev Web site (www.go2kiev.com) after reading about its Czech founder, Anna Rambouskova, in an October 2004 “Lunch with…” interview.
“I thought at once this is a girl I’d like to do business with,” she says, but adds that Rambouskova was at first reluctant to meet. When they did meet, Schober says she was “impressed by her strength” and adds that they’re both Virgos. After several discussions they eventually became partners.
Schober brings to the venture advertisers whom she’s long known thanks to her time spent in Ukraine, and she continually networks to find others. Right now the site covers its costs, but doesn’t yet turn a profit. She points out the irony that two foreigners are working to promote Ukraine, and she’s not concerned that their work isn’t yet profitable.
“Never hunt for money. If you’re the best in your field, money will always find you,” Schober says, recalling a mantra on money she once read.
“The older I’ve gotten, the more comfortable I’ve become with myself,” she says.
“I have more than 30 years to live,” she adds. “Do I sit at home alone and do nothing?”
Mille Miglia
(at the Radisson SAS) 22 Yaroslaviv Val, 492-2255.
Open daily from noon to 11 p.m.
English menu: Yes.
English-speaking staff: Yes.
Average price of main dish: Hr 65.
