Episode Transcript
Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother.
She is really my superhero.
That's why it's important for me to support women, to share their uniqueness, their personalities,
perspectives and emotions about this world.
In these difficult times in human history, we need to bring the cultures of the world
together.
And when we listen to real lives of people, of women from all other countries, we connect
our humanity without our differences or stereotypes.
And we get inspired by their stories to live a better life.
That's what this podcast is all about.
My guest today is Vlada Kostoglodova.
Vlada is a high school student of finance and law at a Lyceum in Kyiv, Ukraine, graduating
in 2023.
Her hobbies are reading, baking and studying foreign languages.
Currently, in addition to English, she studies German and plans to move to Germany to receive
her bachelor's degree.
Vlada is participating in a nonprofit organization as an English tutor for Ukrainian kids and
teenagers who want to improve their English knowledge.
She is also a mentee in a mentorship program for Ukrainian teens and a participant of a
nonprofit organization called NGIN that matches Ukrainians with a speaking body from the U.S.,
which is a wonderful intercultural experience.
Vlada, how are you today?
Hello, I'm fine.
Thank you for inviting me here.
So it's an honor to be here.
Thank you.
It's my honor as well, my privilege and my great luck to discover more about you and
to share who you are with the world.
And I'm curious to know, and this is my first question, if your friends and the people who
know you could describe your personality, what would they say about you?
Okay, they would describe me as a serious person, hardworking person, reliable, open-minded,
but shy.
I'm curious about that.
And I'll begin with this.
When you go to Germany to continue your education as a shy person, do you think it will be easy
or difficult for you to make friends?
And do you have plans for how you'll make new friendships?
Will you go to maybe like acting clubs and hobby clubs or something like that?
Or how would you go about building new friendships in a totally new country?
It's actually an interesting question because I thought about it.
And I can say that it won't be a big problem because I'm shy, yes, but I'm really into
meeting new people and getting to know more about, for example, new society.
It's great.
I love that.
You're very curious about different cultures, different societies, and you're part of ENGINE.
What do you notice or how could you describe the culture of Ukrainian people and how they
are as people compared to maybe the bodies you have encountered from the US or any foreigners
you might know?
I can say that US people are more laid back, but they're friendly as Ukrainians.
And actually, Ukrainian people are the biggest thing I'm proud of.
So I'm proud that I'm Ukrainian because of people that are the communities, that are
people of Ukraine.
And yeah, we have a lot of potential, I guess.
I love that.
I like what you're saying and I love your eloquence.
Does this come from your law studies?
Do you have dreams of becoming a big lawyer or politician or the future president of Ukraine?
Actually, I like it.
I like this question.
To be honest, I consider it a law degree to receive a law degree in future.
But a few months ago, I decided that maybe it's not what I want to do in life.
And well, actually, to become a president of Ukraine is pretty interesting and maybe
I'll think about it.
But now I'm more into international relationships and I guess that's what I want to do.
But I guess with international relationships, you can also be a president of Ukraine, right?
I think that will be the next best way in these times for any person to become an important
politician or in the government or the president.
And so I will ask you, is your personality a lot more logical?
And that's why you focus on law and finance in your studies or are you an emotional artistic
girl who in your free time, you bake some things that you make them look like a symphony
from Mozart or a painting from Van Gogh, really beautiful, and you express all those emotions
and you love new emotions?
Or do you think emotions are chaotic and you prefer to keep yourself in a logical perspective?
I can say that I'm a mix of both things, illogical and emotional.
And I guess it's all about balance.
Yeah, we have to experience emotions to feel something because it's a human thing and
you can't deny your emotions.
But I guess with emotions, you have to control them and don't make emotions control you.
That's why I choose to experience both logic and emotions.
I love that balanced attitude and pathway to life.
And I will ask you as well about your nonprofit and volunteering experience.
I'm aware that maybe, I don't know, three or four years ago or maybe five, volunteering
was not so popular in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
It was not something many people know about or participated in.
And then over time, the creative and wonderful Ukrainian people created more associations,
nonprofits and opportunities for volunteering.
What motivated you to become someone involved in those nonprofit organizations?
What's the story?
Or what's the idea or the reason why you began to be involved in more nonprofits, mentorships
and other volunteering opportunities?
So the story begins from summer and specifically August when I was in Latvia because of the
war and I was isolated from people and I felt stressed.
I felt a little bit depressed, to be honest.
And I realized I wanted to do something that will make an impact in society.
And that's why I decided that I should do some kind of volunteering.
And I realized that I'm pretty good at English and I could be useful in it.
I passed my IELTS test in Latvia and decided that I should try English tutoring and one
day an opportunity of participating in a nonprofit organization as an English tutor turned out
to me.
I immediately signed for this program.
That's wonderful.
And you mentioned that you felt isolated from people because of the war and you wanted to
feel useful.
To you, what's the most interesting or fascinating thing about other people?
Is it that really to you the feeling of being useful is so necessary?
It's something you want to have all the time?
Or is it that you love to be around other volunteers who have passion and fire in their
eyes because they love to do things that are motivated and inspiring?
Or when you speak to people, you can learn to develop as a personality because of their
stories and their attitudes?
Or what is for you the most nourishing thing about being around people, being useful and
interacting with many others?
For me, it's all about communicating and it can include a lot of things.
On one side, it's definitely experience of other volunteers and not only volunteers,
actually it's experience of people that we help.
For example, for me, it's students that I teach.
And also, just speaking and communicating in general makes me feel better and I have
a feeling of self-development, I guess.
As a person with a natural low social battery, it's amazing that I feel great in a community
of not people that I know.
So I guess it's the sign of my development and I'm very grateful for this.
I agree and I encourage this development.
It's very important and life as a team, you can be a lot more useful and create a bigger
impact in this world.
And you spoke about being someone with a low social battery and about how you love communicating
and it makes you feel better, especially around people who are not your friends from years.
They're somehow strangers even if you have similar goals.
When you meet those new people, are you shy like you said at first and describe yourself
as more closed and you need many meetings and observations to open up to people?
Or do you feel with other people when you communicate, instant connection and you open
and you're warm and you feel like you know them all your life?
So yes, I do need time to get to know people and I wasn't a sociable person before at all.
I would rather stay alone and be pleased with it.
It would be my natural state and I wouldn't want to change it.
But recently I realized that communicating and speaking to people, listening to people
is really important and I try to change my sociability a little bit and become more outgoing.
So yeah.
I like that and I want to understand two things.
Did the war change you as a person because you spoke about August and how you felt depressed
and that motivated you to join volunteering organizations?
Did the war make you appreciate the day more, want to take advantage of all opportunities
and make every day special because we never know what will happen?
And tell me about February 24th.
The war started actually 10 years ago or so, but it became a full invasion on February
24th.
Did you hear the bombs?
How did you discover the news?
Did you feel it?
Did you believe it?
And what's the story of that day and then your experience going, evacuating to Latvia
and returning back home?
Oh gosh, February 24th.
Okay, I was supposed to stay at home this day and didn't go to school, but in the morning
changed immediately, everything changed suddenly.
All my previous life just ended and I know that's the same for a lot of people in Ukraine
and there's cases of much worse situations, but for me it was that my mom came to my room,
I was sleeping still and she just said, wake up, the war started.
I didn't hear any bombs and any explosions while I was sleeping, but she said she heard.
I was terrified because what war, why?
And before the day, I guess not a lot of people talked about it.
There was news that it can possibly become real, the war can become real, but I personally
didn't really pay a lot of attention to it.
When I'm talking about the occupation of Crimea and Donbass in 2014, I wasn't really aware
of it at all.
I was a kid when it all started and when it all happened and I didn't really realize how
the situation is like bad.
Now I'm more aware of it.
I understand what happened in 2014, I understand that it's horrible and a lot of people suffered
from it and a lot of people still suffer.
I don't know, I still can't describe my feelings because I just don't really realize my situation
on February 24.
It was hard times, it was stress, it was, yeah, it was like terrified, I was terrified
and we didn't realize what to do, what will be next.
So we packed all our things and our first stop was my brother's home, which is out of
the Kiev and there was pretty much safer than in Kiev.
But we still heard explosions, we still were scared of what is happening, frightened and
I don't know, I'm talking right now and I'm a little bit shaken because it's strong feelings
that I can't really explain actually.
I've never experienced anything like this before, obviously, and it was very, very unexpectedly.
I didn't want to experience it and I think I won't want to experience it anymore.
And I hope that Ukraine will, of course, I don't hope Ukraine will win, it's a fact.
And yeah, I hope that we'll return Donbass to Ukraine, it will be de-occupied, everyone
will be saved and all this horror will end.
I agree with you.
And all I can say is Slava Ukrainyi.
Heroin Slava.
Thank you, Vlada.
And I know you're now more interested in international relations.
Can you speak a bit more about that?
Like is the war the biggest motivation for you to learn more about international relations?
And did you learn any new ideas you didn't know that opened your eyes about some situations
or possibilities for this war or anything like that?
Well, I'm still not sure if I really want to study it, but it's one of the options
that I have.
And yeah, recently, I become more interested into this, like you can say major, if I will
take it as my major in university.
And yeah, I guess I've heard about this sphere before, but now with the war, I really looked
at it from another angle.
Now I guess that international relations, relationships can be my opportunity to represent
Ukraine and to help Ukraine, for example, in this war, to rebuild it, to fix our economy
and in general to help her.
Thank you.
And can you tell me about how did life, other than the war, change in Kiev after you returned
from Latvia?
I know the situation with the electricity is difficult, but I mean, are the people trying
to keep their mental health and be okay?
Did life change in big ways?
Do you go to school or you study online?
How is life there and do you still feel it's good enough or sometimes you wish you stayed
a bit longer in Latvia?
Talking about Ukrainians and specifically in Kiev, people in Kiev are very optimistic
and in general, Ukrainians are very optimistic and whatever happens, doesn't matter.
We'll still find bright sides of the situation and we'll survive.
That's the thing.
That's the reason why we survive, why we will win and yeah.
But for me personally, electricity is a huge problem because a lot of my projects, a lot
of my activities now are online and it's hard to manage to do everything, but it's good
that school is offline and I can educate myself offline.
Thank you.
I wish peace and victory for Ukraine.
I wish for you success and infinite electricity for you to do everything you need and to live
in peace.
I wish you to study in the university you desire in Germany and thank you so much for
being part of this project.
Thank you so much too.
I'm very honored to be here.
So grateful.
Thank you.
