I want to give a little bit of background so actually why I spend so
much time in Ukraine and why I spend so much time in this city in particular
because there are beautiful women in lots of different countries and definitely
that is one of the big attractions but it's not the only attraction to come
here so I want to give you a little bit of overview now about exactly why I
chose to spend so much time here so
Всем привет! Welcome back to another episode of the vodka vodcast with
me Conor Clyne and speaking to you from Odessa in Ukraine the Black Sea I'm
actually at a place that's known as a kind of old corner Odessa
gonna just confirm that's actually the name where I am - Уголок старой Одессы
just written there so I learned that when I came here but basically it's a
place where a lot of people come right in the city center it's beautiful
weather at the end of September can you imagine it's like 28 degrees Celsius
today and there are a lot of weddings going on at this time of year and people
come to take photos it's kind of a little corner little oasis of this kind
of beauty with some as you can see the old bridge and the fountains that are
here well actually can't see the Falls because you see the bridge in this shot
but that's basically what's around there's a little well over there and
there's like a little lookout point just here and there like lots of couples so
you're gonna see that behind you a little bit of extra cultural context for
you here in Odessa so today's episode is dedicated to someone it's actually
dedicated to one of my trolls trolls are a funny thing I mean obviously I'm not
talking to people just right absolutely obnoxious disgusting stuff that's at a
racist or sexist or something else just to insult you but people who actually pursue
you online 'pursue' metaphorically speaking of course they're just writing
comments where they obviously don't like you but they feel compelled to keep
writing and leaving comments so this one is to Arian 1754 I did say when I replied
to your comment that I would make a vodcast episode and in this one I'm
gonna be talking about exactly why I spend so much time especially in the
summer in Ukraine first of all and also Odessa because a common thread
I mean there are lots of threads of comments left on my channel but one of
them is the fact the only the only reason I'm here is because there are
beautiful women there фку hot chicks here and that's the only reason for me to be
here and then you get a lot of comments like hey you're a 'sex tourist' because
you hang out in Odessa and there are beautiful girls well you should look up
the definition of 'sex tourist' first of all there and basically people who pay
for sex while on holiday. This channel does not advocate prostitution
personally I don't care about it very much it doesn't affect me so as long as it's
voluntary I don't really care so much but you should respect the law if
you are involved that there are places where it's legal I guess to work and to
consume that service but that's definitely not what this channel is
about it's actually the opposite so it's about meeting girls in real life real
girls that you don't actually pay for sex
which I found amusing is that it's a common thread so I think what they're
trying to get at is that as opposed to actually being here for prostitution
what they what I assume he means is that this is the main attraction and that
that's something bad as if it would be bad to come here just because they're
hot they're beautiful women that's would make me a rational male heterosexual so
I want to give you a little bit of background so actually why I spend so
much time in Ukraine and why I spend so much time in this city in particular
because there are beautiful women in lots of different countries and even in
Western Europe it's not really such so hard to meet them if you're obviously in
the right social circles or you know to go to the right places so while that is
an attraction in Ukraine for sure for straight guys to come here and that's
why there are so many guys actually travel to Ukraine at the moment exactly
I mean tourism here is probably I don't know maybe there's gonna be an official
statistic somewhere but I would imagine tourism from countries in North America
and Western Europe is 99 percent male and definitely from countries like
Turkey or the Arabic countries, Israel as well it's definitely heavily skewed in
terms of younger guys who come here so definitely that is one of the big
attractions but it's not the only attraction to come here so I want to
give you a little bit of overview now about exactly why I chose to spend so
much time here so the first thing that I'm gonna go into is cost of living now
Ukraine obviously since the Euro Maidan revolution just before it because
Yanukovych the pro-Russian president actually really kind of wrecked the
economy not that the economy was strong when he inherited it admittedly
but basically he wrecked it and his son was trying to become this also this
oligarch so they basically the country crumbled I actually used to come here
wasn't so cheap maybe it's probably 7, 8, 9 years ago it was more or less the same
price level as going to Central Europe so countries like Czech Republi so
like the big cities like the big like Prague for example which no one would say
today is a cheap city to go visit it's cheaper in London or New York of course
but it's not super cheap like it would had been in the 90s so I used to come
here before the cost of living obviously in terms of foreign currencies so
dollars or Euros whatever currency you're using I used to come here anyways
because I just love the city but more about that in a minute so the first
thing I want address is cost of living because your experience in a place is
to a large part depending on how much money you have first of all basically
it's dependent on your purchasing power right so your experience can be very different if
you can afford to stay in a five-star hotel obviously party all night in the
best club with bottles of champagne not saying that's the best way to have fun
but that it's definitely gonna be a different experience and money and
purchasing power allows you to gives you the option of experience in different
things and that's one of the key factors in spending you know so much time in
Ukraine at the moment because since 2014 the currency has plummeted here it's now
recovered in the last year I should point out the prices have for me they
seem to have increased maybe about 20 25 percent this kind of price range but
they they're coming back up from a very low base it was definitely the cheapest
country I've been in Europe up until this year for sure and that just means
your money goes so much further so that's a huge factor to come here right
I mean it's just like the level of service that I get is not much different
to what I would get in Western Europe or North America well maybe North America
is a bit different that extra touch they go for personal service but we'll say
definitely compared to other parts of Europe I wouldn't say there's a big
difference but when you go to pay and you take out your credit card then you
see a huge whopping difference there at least fifty percent my friend Dany
who's in some of my videos here in Odessa he has a channel got a world to
see I'll link him below. Great video, great content not just
from here it's also from around the world
he thinks from the higher end things like best restaurants clubs bars
whatever that's probably about 50% cheaper and then for kind of normal
things it's actually even cheaper again probably about 2/3 that's like one-third
the price save 66% that was his kind of rough estimate you can well we can go
and look up exactly what the statistics say but what I always feel was missing
in you know the statistics about comparative cost of living differentials is it really
depends what you're gonna do as a travelwe here that's not representative how the
country is in general so most of you are gonna stay in a hotel or an Airbnb a
rental apartment or something like that you're gonna probably especially if you
watch my channel you're gonna be eating in good restaurants solid good
restaurants you're gonna be going out enjoying the nightlife going to nice
bars going to the best clubs this kind of stuff I know there's a different type
of traveler and they would focus on being a backpacker and maybe eating at
the local market and buying stuff in the supermarket even but I don't really make
these videos for those kind of people. If you are watching I hope you get great
value out of it but I don't really have you in mind because that's actually not
how I live when I'm traveling here I definitely do go to the best restaurants
I don't necessarily need fine dining something very formal but I like I love
food so that's kind of when I you see my videos that's I'm trying to share my
experience with you and communicate that and if you're interested having a similar
one like the Tsar Experience as I call the channel then this is why it's
tailored in this way because I do get messages also from you asking me to make
budget stuff but I've decided against that so there you go that's me kind of
I'm digressing a little bit as to as to main purpose of this of this vodcast
episode but that's basically why you see me make the videos in that style so for
me I would say it's actually a little bit cheaper than 50% because I used to
live in Munich in Germany and that's the most expensive city in Germany one of
most expensive cities in Europe and I remember because I did have a very high
salary when I lived there so I used to go to the best restaurants and used
to go to the best clubs used to go to the best bars I used to live in the city
centre so I know what rent is like in the city center in
Munich in a nice place and I would think it's definitely cheaper than 50% when I
go to pay here I mean I just imagine what my ... my lifestyle you know in Odessa
would cost me in Munich well it's gonna cost at least three times much from
personal experience even with the price increase in the last year so
cost-of-living just allows you do so much more with you know it allows you
experience different things like I always say money is not an objective in
itself for me but definitely it affords you more possibilities in terms what you can
do what you can experience and I think this is a great value in earning money
and making money for me personally so that's something that's really really
important because I could choose to live in other countries in the region I
can go live in Moscow if it were just about girls for example of course there
are also beautiful women there or I go to Sweden for example Sweden also a
great place for for chicks but the cost of living in Sweden is obviously three
times I mean Stockholm is so expensive
compared to here so I would need to generate three times as much income per
month in order to have the same experience so this is a really really
important point to bear in mind that cost of living when you're choosing if
you are looking at having a more location independent lifestyle you can
actually spend more than just a couple of weeks holidays somewhere that you do
look at the cost of living what it's gonna afford to you I know that Central
Europe like seas like Budapest are really popular now for digital nomads
these are the people who can move around pretty easily work over the internet but
in Budapest definitely I've been there I spent a week with a good friend there
James we hung out and he brought me taxis the best restaurants in Budapest
then it's it's it felt double the price of here but I can people who come from
London think Odessa is so cheap where they come from New York LA or
somewhere and they're like and I'm just like no I think things doubled in price
so that kind of gives you a ballpark estimate right of course if you have
unlimited money or you know you inherited or you just made it he made so
much money you don't know what to do with then you don't really care about
these things but if in any way your price sensitive ... I think actually
everybody likes to get good value for money
let's be honest but even if you have 50 million sitting in the bank 50 million
dollars 50 million euros you still want to get value for money most people I
think it's a psychological thing no one likes to just squander especially you've
made it yourself you know through hard graft and applying yourself over many
years you know like to just throw it away willy-nilly so that's a huge
factory to spend time in Ukraine Odessa is a very touristic city but like now the
tourists season is over I was here for high season I paid high season
prices for accommodation but now it's like I'm paying 25 euros a night for a
an apartment a studio apartment very nice one right in the city centre I
think a homeless shelter probably in Dublin or in London it's probably per
night gonna cost you more but I don't know I should look that up before I say it
but it's it's you know it's it still costs money to stay in those places so
a youth hostel there in Dublin or London it's it's gotta be about the same price
I would expect in the city centre so that's that's the comparison so you can
just do a lot more with your money that's a huge factor for me the
countries around it are more expensive like even Moldova is a little bit Chisinau
is a little bit more expensive than here you know that the economic
development of Moldova is definitely way behind this country and definitely way
behind this city Odessa it's definitely higher Romania the same definitely
higher cost of living there Belarus Russia in the big cities like Moscow
St. Petersburg way way higher than here so that's why I actually chose to spend my
time in Ukraine at the moment that's a big factor in number one so got into
that I touched on food I love the restaurants here I'll be honest about
you I'm a glutton I love the food and of course you know and if money was
unlimited I guess I would I could say the same about living somewhere else but
food in Ukraine in restaurants is particularly high standard I would say
just the kind of above average is excellent and there's just a great
diversity for me anyways for my tastes they have Italian food a lot of Ukrainian
obviously I don't like the Ukrainian everyday like borscht for vereniki and
the stews and the salads I like them but I wouldn't need it ever more than once a
week if even the other cuisines I like here in Odessa
or Ukraine in general is Georgian and Georgian food for me is just like
it's heavy but man is it good so order khachapuri, khinkali the different
salads also they have a lot of stews so that's also something I just love and
there's obviously a lot of Japanese sushi it's gonna international so
basically a good mix of cuisine here the standard is very high service also
shisha I never smoked anything actually to be honest until I started hanging out
in this country and just enjoy shisha should have been a very social so I'm talking
about hookah I'm not saying it's good for your health not saying that you should
go and do it yourself but I actually enjoy it so this is something that the
standard is really really high in Ukraine compared to other countries that I have
been to in Western Europe for sure it was not as good and it costs a fraction
of the price here and I also have had really good shisha in more expensive places
like Dubai or say in Beirut in Lebanon where it's excellent but I have to say
that's another factor so this kind of food entertainment just the quality of
it also I really really enjoy so that's the second reason to be here third reason
is the political situation I actually studied in addition to becoming a lawyer
and working at the European Commission where actually dealt a little bit with
Ukraine and Russia and this region I studied international issues and I had a
specialization in the former Soviet Union so new Eurasia they called at the
time went to graduate school in the US to a top university Johns Hopkins
University where I studied at SAIS School of Advanced International Studies
which is which was a time voted number one for this kind of specialization and
there I took on the former Soviet Union so for me to come to Ukraine there was
actually a famous book The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington at
the time was very popular and I studied about ... and they had these fault lines
where there would be conflict I mean this is post Cold War early 90s you had
The end of history in the last man by Francis Fukuyama and he basically said it's
over there's no more competition we've found the right
the final template for everybody people thought that was the end we weren't
searching for a new system that everything would be set around free
marketing economics capitalism and democracy and Samuel Huntington
had had a book about how there would be these clash of civilizations that just
to simplify I'm not going to go into a political make this a political video or
an international relations tutorial but basically that here in Ukraine was one
of the places that he had the fault line between Russia or the Russian sphere of
influence and the more European Western sphere of influence and of course we had
2004 the orange revolution in Ukraine which forced a third round of voting and
eventually a pro-European president Yushchenko came to power and then of
course we had EuroMaidan in end of 2013 beginning 2014 where Yanukovych who
subsequently been democratically elected lost power in a in a revolt against his his
rule his decision not to sign an association agreement with the EU so I
was actually there actually on the square at the time is another thing
that really interested me to see the revolution take place because I missed
obviously all the stuff in the 90s or the end of the eighties here that was
off-limits to me I was way too small and then I wasn't I was actually the US
during the 2004 so 2013 2014 I actually got to see it close up first and then to
read the media whether it happens to be the mainstream media and their
interpretation or a lot of like alternative media on the on the internet
who claim everything is a Western coup or whatever in Russia and then
pro-Russian a lot of it and then actually been there and just see what a
lot of BS half of this is especially the stuff about the language
at the time so for me it was really you can see how passionate I am about it and
then to be here and see the results of the revolution and see what was actually
happening and then it just gives you a good personal experience as opposed to
relying on the media all the time because the media is basically group of people
with their own perspectives maybe they're good journalist maybe they're just lazy
journalists maybe they're pushing a certain political agenda
and whether it's mainstream or so-called independent media a lot of
it's just like propaganda anyways they either have symphonies are they're paid
by another side to push that point of view and they claim to be independent it
Anyways so that's basically one of the big reasons for me to also be in
Ukraine I'm also really interested to go to Russia and to Belarus I was in Belarus a
few times this year and it's very interesting to see the difference in the
people's mentality and how the country is run compared to Ukraine it's
really really different ... people of course they have a lot of commonality
historically and a lot of people obviously most people in Belarus speak
Russian a lot of people do here and they were both in the Soviet Union at the time
it's really digressed in terms of how young people they're perceived the world
Belarus is starting to move in the same direction as Ukraine from what I can see
and Russia I don't go to often enough at the moment I'm planning to go to Russia
very very soon it's been a few months there and really get to know the country
better than in my previous visits which were quite short there you go that's a
third reason for me to be here and it's just the political context and the
culture and that's really just like the historical culture and the new
developing culture whether it happens to be a youth culture that's very strong
here in Ukraine definitely I've seen big differences in the last five years and
how young people dress behave their objectives it's definitely moving more
towards Europe quite rapidly I would say maybe not as rapidly in Odessa itself
the south because we're a bit further away from from Europe than we would be
let's say in Lviv which is really close because it's close to the Polish border
or Kyiv, the capital you definitely see big change there so this is really really
interesting for me to see firsthand and then yeah
there are lots of beautiful girls here that's definitely a big factor as well
an important thing of straight single guys of course this is a consideration
where the were the pretty girls of course and this country I'm going to
make other videos about Ukrainian beauty and just beautiful beauty in the region
in general for me this is the region in the world the most beautiful girls on
average there are other regions where I think it's
like like southern Brazil for example very very south of Brazil also it's
extremely high level of beauty amongst the girls there that's why there's so
many top models from Brazil also why there's so many top models from this
region and from Russia of course as well so that's definitely a factor I would not and I
don't myself come to Odessa in particular because of girls I would say
that's one the least probably lowest priority reasons to be in Odessa
and it was just my experience because my friends I made these videos five reasons
never to date a Ukrainian girl followed by five more reasons never to date a
Ukrainian and that's just the frustrations of a lot of my friends who
come here so there was a Belgian guy I met Sven and recently he was here and he
told me that if you come to Odessa you think it's gonna be easy to pick up
girls then you're gonna go back with your ego between on the floor basically
so don't come here for girls another American guy mark he said like this is
the hardest place in the world to pick up girls maybe not sure I'm sure they're
a harder place I'm sure I don't know if he went to Saudi Arabia or somewhere
where that might be harder at least harder to survive afterwards so that's
definitely it I wouldn't come to that's for this reason basically local girls in
general don't like foreigners. Sven also said that he thought that being a
foreigner having traveled around the world was always an advantage every other
place he visited except this city he said being a foreigner was a noticeable
disadvantage and I have to agree with that being a foreigner especially if you
don't speak Russian big disadvantage so I wouldn't never advise to come here for
the top reason if that's your top priority
there are definitely places where that's gonna be it's gonna be more interesting
easier well you're more likely have a success for sure especially if you're
North American or European so that it is true that definitely there are pretty
girls here and you can see that in my my videos of course there are lots of
pretty girls there are girls I'm hanging out with and girls on dating while I'm
here but that isn't particularly high
priority for Odessa Ukraine definitely but Odessa in particular no if that were
a very high priority I actually wouldn't spend so much time in this
city that's the honest truth about it so you can see that I'm not maybe even as
passionate when I start talking about girls here as I do and that's why I made
those other videos to give you a more balanced view about what it's like if
you come here with that objective in mind I will as I said there are better
places I'm gonna be going into that later episodes of this vodcast and also
my videos as I travel around the region you get a real taste of what it's like
where I recommend or maybe where I do go if I'm only interested in hooking up
with chicks beautiful women it's definitely not in this city that is for
sure now though that's four reasons and you
see I listed the girls number four you know and number five is the languages as
you know I'm a language geek freak whatever you want to call me on that
for that reason or on that note and of course I was learning Russian for
several years and that wouldn't say I'm particularly amazing in Russian
especially because I learned over ten languages you can check that out
probably in other videos on my channel where I speak in those you can see my
levels but definitely Russian even after a lot of time here's probably only
language number seven number eight I would think I definitely speak better
French Italian English German I also might say Portuguese for sure
maybe I don't know if my Dutch is good anymore that's probably sucks probably
my Russian is better than my Dutch we don't if you don't maintain languages
they tend to atrophy or fade away as a competence so my languages I spoke
really well five or six years ago because I was just in that country or I
was in that environment and now I don't use it so and Russian I obviously use
when I'm here every day because I speak in Russian in Odessa so we are in
Ukraine the official language of the country is Ukrainian but this city the
language that's used most in daily conversations on the street when you go
to shops is you is Russian it's overwhelming Russian and you were
definitely not gonna hear very much Ukrainian spoken here you can of course
be can Ukraine if you if you are Ukrainian speaking no one's going to be
angry at you or something if you speak Ukrainian it's completely cool with
everybody but this city is predominantly Russian speaking so Russian is a big
international language is one that I started learning many years ago and that
has been a real struggle for me compared to the other languages
that I learnt. It's taken me a lot longer to get to a good level and being able to use it here and
just reap the reward the the fruits of my labor in terms of time invested in
learning it that's a huge incentive to spend time in this city in Odessa. Now
Ukraine in general of course it's not the official language and it's not the
language spoken by the majority of Ukrainians. You have to be clear about
that but in big cities that a lot of you guys are gonna go to it is still the
main language no matter what Ukrainian language nationalists might say wriite
and my comments are troll me about that's just the reality and I'm giving
you this information so that you can have the Tsar Experience you can come
here and you get the most out of it so I always say you should learn Russian
first unless you're gonna spend a lot of time in the west of Ukraine like Lviv
which is a really beautiful city if you're gonna spend your time there then
definitely learn Ukrainian before Russian because it's the main language
and it will just go a lot further for you but Russian is a big international
language it's a bit like the debate maybe between learning Spanish and
Catalan even if you live in Barcelona I know it's Catalonia Spanish is such
a much more valuable and useful language for you most likely in your entire life
and when you travel to Latin America et cetera that you should learn Spanish
first and I think if you learned spend a lot of time in Barcelona I did learn
some Catalan I never lived in Catalonia but I did go and spend six months
learning the language and I did use it when I went to Catalonia and people were
really surprised that they could a foreigner and I had actually gone and learnt
Catalan so I think you should definitely go and
do that you can spend a lot of time in the country so if you learn Russian then
of course you should go once you get a good level and earn Ukrainian as well
but the reality is like you can travel all over the former Soviet Union and
basically use Russian as the lingua franca so obviously Russia itself
Belarus, Central Asia and you meet Russians are kind of everywhere these
days as well so you're actually gonna use it in different countries so there's
50 million Ukrainian speakers and there's like probably there's over 300
million people who speak Russian maybe it's 350 million so there you go
that's your return on investment is gonna be higher that both is difficult if you
only speak English beforehand for sure because I didn't speak any other Slavic
language so definitely I would recommend that you go and
learn Russian first here in Ukraine it's completely fine to use Russian in any of
the cities that you're likely to visit so here in Odessa, Dnipro, Kiev
definitely Russian is probably it's definitely the main language still used
in those big cities if you go to Lviv as I said Ukrainian ... is the
opposite Ukrainian is number one it's overwhelming Ukrainian speaking you can
of course use Russian in the center of the city not everyone's gonna reply to
your Russian but it's not a problem if you're in the touristic center there
on that beautiful Market Square and all the places people will understand and
they may reply to Ukrainian but it's perfectly fine to use Russian a lot of
people actually do speak Russian there because they just have a lot of Russian
spoken by people who visit then if you are gonna hang out there like I did I
actually went there to learn Ukrainian then definitely go and invest your time
in that so that's the fifth reason it's languages linguistic I also went to
learn Belarusian a little bit I was invited there I didn't make my videos
yet so you haven't seen them on the channel I actually need to go back to
Belarus because it rained every bloody day that I was in Belarus for the ten
days of learning Belarusian I had three hours one-to-one tuition and in that
time yeah we only spoke Belarusian so I should get up to a good level so I've
actually also learnt that language a little bit so I can tell you about that
just got a little fly on my back so I'm gonna run out this episode of the podcast there are
the five reasons girls and beautiful women are definitely one of them but I think for
spending time in Ukraine it's a combination of those five factors what I
chose to live live here I'm sure you can relate to a lot of that so that rounds
out this episode of the vodka vodcast with me Conor Clyne this is the Tsar
Experience if you're new to the channel you know help the channel out give the
give the video a thumbs-up if you've lasted this long
to get to the end of it you must have enjoyed it got value out of it and
definitely squeeze the red subscribe button after you strike him to like and
whack the notification bell beside it because otherwise you don't get notified
when I upload new videos uploading about twice a week at the moment will
try and push that to three let's see how we get on but you know I've been making a lot
of content here in Odessa and it's end of summer so maybe as we go into winter
it'll be a few less videos if you have visited Ukraine and if you have good
reasons that I haven't mentioned to come here and spend time in this city then
please leave me a comment below building this great community I do get a lot of
trolls like I mentioned a particular troll in the beginning but you know he
inspired this videos to know it's not all trolling is counter productive but
there are people who really try to help each other out there in the comments
really give great personal advice and experience from being here so don't
think that your your personal experience if you've interacted with Ukrainians
visited Ukraine isn't worth it's going to help someone else so definitely leave
a comment there become part of this is Tsar community of ... what are you Tsaristas
Tsarians I'm not really sure what name I should give you guys
maybe drop me a comment like that as well if you find it interesting enough
and let me know what your top reasons for coming to Ukraine are and whether
you think girls should be the number one priority for coming here whether they
are worth all that if they are worth prioritizing number two and
whether you think they are actually the most beautiful in the world because I'm
gonna be making videos on that topic as well very soon I'm gonna stop rambling
there is another photo session going on in front of me for a wedding couple
so as I was saying this is wedding season and with that I bid you all an
amazing afternoon if you're watching my time zone evening if you're watching
this in Asia and if you're in North America it's gonna be morning if we were
doing all this live which of course we're not and I will see you and all
your smiling enthusiastic faces for traveling in Eastern Europe in the next
video до свидания до побачення from Odessa, Ukraine!
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