I was born in Khmelnitskyi city in Ukraine in what was then a regional center of a Soviet republic in the 70s. I was growing up in the typical Ukrainian family: father was a plant worker, mother was a teacher at grade school. We spoke Ukrainian language at home and with relatives, but were forced to use Russian at the state institutions or during education.

Our household consisted of six members: beside me and my parents, there were my little sister and paternal grandparents all living in a small 3-bedroom cottage located at the outskirts of Khmelnitskyi city. The area was a former village Lezneve (it's name was Hlezniv up to beginning of XX century, with several spellings used in various sources).

I graduated from high school in 1993, when we were in independent Ukraine already, and in the same year started to attend Vinnytsia State Technical university in the neighboring city of Vinnytsia. During the study I lived in the dorm room with 3 other students who became my friends.

After graduating with honors in 1998 as IT software engineer, I returned to Khmelnitskyi and started my career there. I designed and coded telco software for Electronic Systems Ltd. from 1998 to 2004.

Several major events happened to me in the year 2004: first I married my wife, then my daughter was born at Dec, 14. Also, I changed employers and started working for TerraTel Ltd. in Kmelnitskiy.

In the year 2006, I was approached by a friends working for Strom Telecom a.s. in Prague with an offer of work there at the position of Product Manager of telco systems. I accepted the offer and after absolving the lengthy process of obtaining the work permit for the Czech Republic and getting the work visa, I finally moved to Prague at the Oct, 1. My wife and daughter waited until I was secure at my job, and then, after even longer process of getting residence permits, joined me in Czech Republic in September, 2008.

From the end of 2006 until June, 2011 we were living in Benesov town, which is located 40 km from Prague. I was commuting daily to Prague office, either by car sharing with friends, or by the train. In Benesov, we were renting one-bedroom apartment for very reasonable price. My daughter was accepted into kindergarten there, and being among other kids, quickly learned spoken Czech at native speaker level. Me and my wife took courses in Czech in order to get fluent in it, but we'd have an accent for the rest of our lives.

In 2011, we moved to Prague, and my daughter started grade school there. In June 2012, my second daughter was born in Prague.