With a snowstorm raging outside, Olha draws a stack of banknotes from her bag and starts inserting them in the ATM. By the end of a lengthy operation, she has banked some 1200 hryvnia. Yet with the hryvnia devalued over 300 percent since 2013, it amounts to just 40 euro.

In her mid-30s, Olha belongs to the new generation and the professional class behind reformist forces in Ukraine. Despite a decent monthly salary of over 500 euro (the minimum wage stands at some 1,600 hryvnia or 55 euro), she struggles to have anything resembling the life of a young European, while real estate property or even savings are well beyond her reach.

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