My name is Olga Kyrychenko. I was born, grew up and lived all my life in the beautiful sunny city of Odesa, Ukraine. I have the best parents in the world, who are both retired now.  I also have an older sister who is married and has a beautiful little daughter. My dad graduated from high school with distinction and has two higher degrees. He has always told my sister and me how important education was and how it would help us in the future. I followed the advice, studied hard and eventually graduated from school with distinction. Thanks to this, I entered university without entry exams.

I studied at the Odesa State Ecological University, Department of Ecology and Environmental Protection, at which time this department was highly popular. My specialisation was the ecology of recreational and resort economy. After studying for 10 years at school and 5 years at university, I thought – thank God! I will never study again! But never say never!

Family and work

After graduating from the university, I got happily married to a fellow student. He is an economist and works as a lecturer. I started working for a company that made scale models of sea vessels. I was involved in managing paperwork, logistics and communication with clients. Due to the crises in Ukraine and all over the world, the demand for scale models gradually decreased. I started to work remotely, and after almost 10 years in this company, I gave birth to our wonderful son Vitalii.

Then unexpected global challenges emerged: the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns, quarantines. I quit my previous job, as the topic of models became completely irrelevant and I took up a position as a senior laboratory assistant at the Department of International Economic Relations at Odesa Mechnikov National University. During the summer, I also worked in the selection committee and I made the final decision to enter the university as a PhD student (never say never!).

Back at the university!

Having successfully passed the entrance exams in two different areas, I became a 1st year student of the correspondence master’s programme in psychology and a 1st year postgraduate student of the Department of International Economic Relations.

Here an interesting stage began, called “the topic of the dissertation project”. I changed topics about three times until my supervisor and I came to an agreement. And I am very grateful to him that he rejected my topics several times. Once he told me some excellent advice, which was crucial in choosing a topic – “Olga, do not listen to anyone, listen to yourself. And remember, you can always change the subject.” That day, while I was driving home, I thought about what he said.

Yes, here it is! Eureka! I want to write about international tourism. Moreover, my basic education also connected with this direction. And I remember how I liked tourism-related subjects at university. I wrote a final version of the topic for my dissertation and, with a little correction, my supervisor approved it. As a result, the topic of my PhD work is “The impact of international tourism on the socio-economic development of the EU countries.”

At the moment I have several articles in monographs, and I am now working on another article. The first year of study was hard. First, in the midst of studying, I got sick with coronavirus. My husband was in the hospital, under oxygen therapy, while my son and I endured it easier, staying at home. One upside was that studying was moved online. Closer to the new year, everything began to improve and return to normal… It seemed like life had become fine again, like there was strength and a desire to move on, to work on my scientific projects. But then, one morning…

On 24th February 2022, on my sister’s birthday, our life was sharply divided into BEFORE and AFTER.