Business Lockdown: For language school owner Ksenia Golubytska, uncertainty prevails

Editor’s Note: Ukraine’s businesses are struggling after the country introduced nationwide restrictions on movement and travel starting on March 12. The restrictions have been toughened since then and are set to last until at least April 24. Most businesses are closed with employees working remotely or not working at all. The exceptions include supermarkets, pharmacies, banks, parcel delivery services. The borders are closed to most forms of traffic, except Ukrainians returning by foot or by car. Most domestic transportation is closed or heavily restricted. Estimates range on how deeply the ensuing recession will harm Ukraine. The Kyiv Post talked with entrepreneurs about their daily struggles, asking how the quarantine has affected their ventures and what they are planning to do once it’s lifted.

We want to hear your personal story of survival during this national lockdown. Please contact us at [email protected]

Ksenia Golubytska
Owner of Language Lab, a small language school teaching English, Ukrainian, Russian and Chinese. Founded three years ago, it operates in Kyiv

“The quarantine has affected us like everyone else, I guess, but we’re quite lucky that we can work online. Of course, we had to stop all our new projects; we stopped implementing new ideas and getting new clients as well.

Ukrainian entrepreneur Ksenia Golubytska (front R) runs Language Lab, a language school in the center of Kyiv.

“The most difficult decision we have to make is to decide if we should continue renting the office. The landlord hasn’t agreed to give us a discount yet, and it’s been almost a month since the beginning of the shutdown now.

“I don’t know what will happen to our business. What’s happening is pretty scary. I think we can keep going for a couple of months, but then, if the quarantine doesn’t stop, I am not sure what will be the right thing to do.

“We are operating online right now. If the quarantine is extended, we’re very actively thinking of doing more online courses and projects. But it is not easy to do.

“We are optimists and hard workers, it makes us keep going despite the difficulties.

Ukrainian entrepreneur Ksenia Golubytska runs Language Lab, a language school in the center of Kyiv.

“We don’t receive any help from the government, but we’re not really expecting anything either, really. If we had one message to the government, we (would express our) hope for them to find a way to support local businesses, but I don’t think that will happen any time soon.”