Episode Transcript
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 0:08
femininity is powerful in all its forms exceptional women, rare girls must be appreciated in every way for their perspectives, actions, shots, and their unique ways of being. Such rare girls are inspiring. And this is what this podcast is all about. Hello, my name is Aziz and my guest today is Veronica Kovalenko. Veronica is a certified pole dance coach with 14 years of experience and also an architecture student in the west of Ukraine. She is now in the fourth year of studying, and she has a task to develop a hotel project. Veronica has a lot of hobbies, she loves doing makeup, hairstyles and to learn foreign languages. And since her childhood, she enjoys cooking, especially baking desserts. Veronica, how are you today?
Veronika Kovalenko 1:14
Hello, I am fine. So today, we were speaking about my hobbies and my lifestyle,
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 1:25
of course, and I'm really curious about you. So I'll begin with this. If your friends could describe your personality, what would they say about you,
Veronika Kovalenko 1:35
they will say that I'm really good person. And I'm really funny person. I can give them advices and support them in every time they will need my support.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 1:58
Great. So do you have a lot of friends? Is it easy for you to make new friends? Or do you have a few but for many, many years,
Veronika Kovalenko 2:09
I think it's easy for me to make new friends. But I have several friends from my childhood. For example, I have my friend, her name's nice to him. And it's this year. And we are friends from from first form of school. So from six years, I make a friend with her. So we are 12 year friends. She's very important person for me, because she also support me. And we spend a lot of time you Sure. We make. We were on a lot of we traveled a lot. So in Ukraine, we were in the city even from gifts, and how people say that your friendship checks in travels. So when I was when I was here, I think we are good friends, because it was all of our travels were perfect.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 3:28
I like that yes to test your friends by traveling with them. And I know you're studying in college architecture. Why did you choose this subject? And how did you begin to be interested?
Veronika Kovalenko 3:45
When I was on there, nine nines form in school, my father needs to go to another city in communist produce key to work. He is a military. So our family needs to move in that city in Cummins puginsky. And we started to sink in about where I need to go to school or to college. So we decided to choose the college. And we were thinking about what subject I want. So Commons produce Keith has a lot of universities, colleges, and we understand that this is a good decision. So I started to thinking about where I want to go. I saw that I'm great creative person. So I need creative subjects. So it's a funny story because I started to think that Oh mom, when I was a child, the other I don't like to play wizard adults, but I love I like to make them houses. So we decided to go on architect specific. So here I am on architect college.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 5:16
I like that story. It's really felt like full of emotions and good connections to family and support. And about being a certified ball dance coach and doing this kind of dance for so many years even. How did you start being interested in dance? What is the story of that? How did you fall in love with it? And when did you decide to have the certification?
Veronika Kovalenko 5:46
So, my story became from that guy when I was a five year girl I was on, I was going to bathroom dancing. And then after five years, I were doing that dances, my knees started started to be to pain. And I decided to change the sport. So the next sport I so the next sport I try was fly yoga. And I like it really much but I understood that I can be without music without different moves, dancing moves. So in one day, I saw a promotion of pole dance studio. And I decided to go to the studio. And from that time I am doing pole dance. So firstly, firstly, I took a part in those championships. And then when I won, my teacher offered me to be Weldon's Instructure prudence coach. So when I started to do my trainings, I really liked them. And I understand that I wanted to have a diploma. Because it's really important, because I need to show people that I'm pulled in some structure, and I have this diploma. So in 2019, when I was 15, I went to Vinnitsa. And I best my axioms from this bull dance. From Poland's accent, I pass them. And then I have of course, I'm after that I have a lot of certificated from master classes from another poll coaches, because our improvement is really important. What what's more about my job, I really like to work with children. It's take me pleasure of also, I prepare my children for competition for competitions, for example, on 15th of October of into on 15th of October, we will go in to championships in a wave. So with luck for my students,
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 8:51
I wish them as well. Very, very good luck. And it's great, because you know how it is to learn and you know how it is to teach. And right now, can you tell me about February 24, the day when the invasion began when the big war started? How did you hear about it? Your father, you said is in the army what happened? Tell me the story of that day for you.
Veronika Kovalenko 9:21
At that time. I was in comments produce, keep on studying. And I remember how on the 23rd of February, I agreed to go to confer with my friends and how you understand we were going to go on this confirm because on 24th of February, the garbage cans and in the morning of the day at 7am My father called me and said daughter you will now check the phone and and you will see the news, those are the bar has become. And he said to be called, just collect my sings and wait for his thinking about how to get home. Because the boss is very running. And it were there were also problems with gasline. But I was lucky because my group mate was picked up by relatives, and I went with them. Of course, I was worried. It was really scary. It, it was really scary. But I tried to be called later, of course, the air alarms began, and we were hiding with things in the basement. And all of these things are very scary. And we need to support our army. Because they worked a lot when we need to donate to them, because they need our help. And we need help from another countries, we are really glad that so this session, many countries helped us with this with work with Russians, we understand that we need to understand that this is really important. Because as they killed us, they killed our children's they killed other people in our country. We lose our homes, our relatives, and it's really awful. So support our army.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 11:51
I agree. 100%. And all I can say is Love all Korea uni Iran, Slava. Thank you. And can you tell me now that you're finishing the fourth year? What is your plan for the future? Do you think you will go to some European country to continue some years to live abroad or go to Q or VI or something like that? What is your ambition and goals for the future?
Veronika Kovalenko 12:22
I have a plan to study, firstly in give after college, but I'm learning German language also. And I think that I can learn it. I can study in Germany, we have friends there. And I think it will be a good idea. But I don't know exactly how it will be. So it's only my plans are like my, my studying, I like to do these are Houdek projects. So now I do a hotel project. Also, I do a project of our of my dream home. We have such a task. And I understand that this really makes me happy. So I hope my future will be okay. And I will be an architect.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 13:24
Thank you. And nowadays, are your friends mostly in Ukraine? Did they go to some European countries? Do you think they have plans to return to Ukraine or to stay there? How are your friends as well as you as a person? How did you change in the seven months of the war?
Veronika Kovalenko 13:47
We all change our thoughts about what's happened and especially about our language, because after Soviet Union, they were a lot of countries in which in which people speaks Russian and Ukraine and, and people from Ukraine, mostly of them takes a lot Russian. And after the war, a lot of people understand that language is very important. Because when I went when I went abroad, I were going for on the streets, and I hear Russian language and I don't understand who is it Ukrainians or Russians. And it's really scary because how, how you need to understand who is it so people need to speak the native language because it's a really important part of our life. Our language,
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 14:58
I agree 100 are sent. It's your culture and your identity. Yes. Thank you, Veronica. And so now, How did life really change in the city where you are the education? Do you study online or offline? Is the city busy with people? Or is it more empty? Tell me everything.
Veronika Kovalenko 15:21
Firstly, firstly, a lot of people went abroad, and the city was, like empty, but not in our city because it was mostly of people went to on the best of Ukraine. So I'm in the west of Ukraine. And we have a lot of we have a lot of shelters for people. And I volunteered a lot. We gave food clothes for people. And what about studying now we have mixed studying, like two weeks Isler, I study at home on online studying and two weeks, I went to college in another city. So now we have mixed studying in college. We now we have a basement in which we can hide when it will be a liar, or alarms. Because our our safety is important. So our College gives us a basement.
Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 16:41
Thank you so much, Veronica, I wish you safety. I wish your success in becoming an architect and I wish for Ukraine peace. Thank you for participating. Thank you for sharing about your life and stories. And I wish you a good week.
Veronika Kovalenko 17:00
Thank you so much. I was really glad to speak with you and to tell people more about me and about my country. You are really thankful for your help and support
