Should You Move to Austria (via Ukraine)?

Insights and reflections from people who've done it: War Zone edition.

Granted, this is not a typical “Should You Move” survey because most of us are fortunate enough never to have been forced to flee a war zone. In his thoughtful and moving answers,

Daniel Puzzo

takes us with him as he travels the world as an ESL teacher and, after finally putting down roots, is forced to move once again due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Daniel’s journey is uncommon, and his answers take readers to spaces and places they might not otherwise discover without him as their guide.

This is Emilie and I enjoying mulled wine at a Viennese Christmas market, 2022.

After reading his survey answers, if you want to know more about Daniel and his journey, he has a wonderful Substack and has even written a hilarious book about his life in the classroom as a teacher of English as a second language: A Classroom in Kyiv: Life Lessons for English Learners, available on his website, danielpuzzo.com.

It's here. Finally.

Finally, to all my non-European readers, I want to emphasize how terrifying the war in Ukraine is for people living in Europe. I’ve written before about how the war on our doorstep is not a theoretical or minor conflict, as it might seem when observed from a distance. For Europeans, the larger ambitions of Vladimir Putin threaten the entire continent. Ravaged by two world wars, it is clear from Europe that Western democracies will stand or fall together.

Okay, then, let’s get to the good stuff!

Daniel Puzzo, Austria:

1. Background:

• Country of origin: USA/UK

• Country of current residence: Austria, February 2022- present; Ukraine, 2010-2022

• Length of time living abroad: As an adult, 23 years

I’m going to focus mainly on life in Kyiv from 2010 until the time I left the country 10 days before the full-scale invasion by Russia.

2. Motivation: What was the primary reason for your move? (e.g., work, study, retirement, lifestyle).

My upbringing had a lot to do with it. My father was in the American military, and my mother is British. I grew up between the US, the UK, and Europe, but I felt very American because I went to American curriculum schools. In 2002, after 8 years of studying and working in Boston, I decided to return to Europe. Three years later, I got my Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) because I wanted to spend a couple of years teaching before getting a ‘proper’ job. That never happened – it turned into my career.

I started teaching in Ukraine (Lviv) in 2005 before moving on to Basque Country, Latvia, and Kyrgyzstan, before returning to Ukraine (Kyiv) in 2010.

3. Practicalities: How challenging was the visa and work permit process?

I’ve been fortunate – every language school I worked for took care of this, so it was pretty easy peasy. Otherwise, in a place like Ukraine or Kyrgyzstan, it would’ve been a nightmare.

What were the biggest hurdles in setting up your life abroad (e.g., housing, healthcare, banking)?

With housing, my employers always sorted this out, and healthcare was usually provided with varying degrees of quality. The biggest challenge, especially in Ukraine, was the language barrier. Very few people speak English, so healthcare was always a bit of a gamble. Getting a doctor wasn’t difficult, but communicating with one was.

Banking and post offices were always a fiasco, but over the years, standards improved dramatically, especially contrasting my time in Lviv in Western Ukraine in 2005 to Kyiv.

4. Cultural Adaptation: What were the most significant cultural adjustments you had to make?

The language barrier, especially when dealing with the Cyrillic alphabet in Ukraine, was incredibly challenging. I was totally unprepared (shame on me), and it involved so much muddling through, trying to work things out on the fly. I knew a lot about the history and culture of Ukraine, which is what attracted me to the country in the first place, but sadly neglected the language until arriving. Bad idea, especially not to know the basic survival phrases or at least familiarise myself with the alphabet.

• How did you handle language barriers and cultural misunderstandings?

Luckily, most Ukrainians, especially in Western Ukraine, when I first moved there, are very understanding and patient when dealing with foreigners. In 2005, a foreigner in a place like Lviv was such a novelty that I felt almost like a minor celebrity at times. I quickly learnt to read the alphabet just to make sure I could decipher restaurant menus (NOTHING was in English back then).

A healthy sense of humour is the way to go, and I never caused any major offence by not understanding local customs. I learnt the hard way that buying a woman a dozen flowers is a huge no-no – even numbers are strictly for funerals.

One funny misunderstanding – in a supermarket trying to find a jar of jam without preservatives, I asked a shop assistant, in my best Ukrainian, whether there were any ‘prezervativos’ in the jar I was holding, and she looked at me shell-shocked, wondering why some crazy foreigner was asking whether there were any condoms in the jam!

It was both frustrating and hilarious at times. Life in Ukraine is/was full of experiences where, even at the time, you knew it was going to be a good story.

5. Quality of Life: How would you rate your overall quality of life compared to the US or UK?

Well, it’s a far cry from the more ‘developed West’ (I feel like I have to use air quotes here). There’s more of a wild west, adventurous feel to it, which, depending on your perspective, is either a good or bad thing. I was young and independent enough to get the most out of the experience, especially in 2005.

There were plenty of creature comforts that I missed and wasn’t used to. Consider this the downside of having a spoiled lifestyle of convenience in the US/UK. Some of these are very much 1^st world problems—I couldn’t believe it was impossible to get dry red wine when I first arrived! That’s a frivolous example, but there were a few food items that were tough to track down.

Other things took a lot of getting used to – the public transport system in Ukraine features some seemingly unregulated ramshackle minibuses that fly down the streets at breakneck speed and if they’re jam-packed and you’re stuck at the back and need to get out (they only stop on demand), good luck calling out to the driver and being understood, and then making your way through to the door.

And then there is often little sense of any public safety. In the winter, with icy, frozen, snowy streets, there’s no such thing as salting the pavement/sidewalk or ploughing the roads. Just across the border in Poland, in the European Union (!) it’s like a completely different world with clean streets. In Ukraine, it’s every man and woman for themselves.

When I think back to my arrival in 2005, a real ‘fun’ experience was my apartment. It was like an early 20^th-century Soviet museum, which had its charm at times. It had ancient ceramic gas heaters that took ages to warm up, and they were only in one room. That meant the rest of the apartment was freezing all winter, and the kitchen was brutal. I once poured a glass of orange juice and left it on the counter while dealing with my laundry (all done by hand in ice-cold water). When I came back to the kitchen, there was a thin layer of ice on the juice, which meant it was colder in my kitchen than it was inside my fridge. I could literally heat the kitchen by opening the fridge! (That winter, it got as cold as minus 36 Celsius)

And the city only had running water from 6-9 am and pm. That meant if you were out in public around 5.30 and had to use a toilet anywhere…good luck dealing with the smells!

Everyone had to put up with this at time. Apartments were cold, the running water issue, hot water was a luxury many couldn’t afford. Ukrainians were used to it; I found it uncomfortable but accepted it as part of life in Eastern Europe.

But when I look at life in Kyiv in the 2010s, it’s unrecognisable compared to Lviv. Kyiv is a world-class city with incredible architecture, a vibrant and bustling café, bar and restaurant scene, and there’s always a constant buzz about the place (both pre- and post-war). Vienna, where I live now, is a world-class city in its own right, but in comparison, it feels tired, conservative, set in its ways, like a giant open-air museum. I’m not complaining – I’m happy with life in Vienna, considering the circumstances.

• Are you satisfied with your host country’s cost of living, healthcare, and education systems?

I hate to say this because it makes me sound like a privileged foreigner, but the upside to being in Ukraine was how cheap it is. As in, unbelievably cheap for foreigners (in 2005, we’re talking a draft beer or coffee for 25 cents). However, I didn’t have much money other than my local salary, which was around $300/month. That was actually enough to have a decent quality of life each month, but impossible to save. The only way I could afford to live there on such a paltry salary, with all my student loans to pay off, was to do a couple of handsomely paid medical trials in the UK before I went to Ukraine (but that’s a story for another time!).

In Kyiv in the 2010s, it wasn’t nearly as cheap, and prices in recent years have shot up, but in comparison to life in the West, well…there is no comparison.

Not to cherry-pick such a specific example, but my friends from the US and UK who came to visit were shocked by how magnificent the cocktail bars were in Kyiv. There are some exceptional places with exquisite cocktails…for around $4-5. The café scene is incredible, too, with lots of third-wave hipster places with flat whites topping out at $2.

6. Professional Experience: How has living abroad impacted your career?

As an American or British English teacher, you have your pick of jobs worldwide. You can start off at a smaller, less reputable school before getting a job at a better one. In 2010, when I returned to Ukraine, I worked for the British Council, which is about as good as it gets in language teaching.

Were you able to find employment easily?

Any English teacher with a bit of experience and qualifications could pretty much start working anywhere they liked within 24 hours.

7. Advice for Future Expats: What are the top three things you wish you knew before moving abroad?

Even though I studied history and international relations at university and during my master's program in Edinburgh, with a particular focus on the Cold War and the Soviet Union, I wish I’d been able to read the tea leaves a bit better before returning to Ukraine in 2010. Who knew Russia would eventually invade and I’d end up a refugee? That wasn’t exactly part of the plan.

I wish I’d known more about how the property market works in general. I was (and am, I think) a fairly competent investor, and I’ve tried to save for the future, but property has always been a gap in my knowledge. Growing up in the military, our family never had to worry about that. When it came time to buy property in Ukraine, which is a completely different kettle of fish, I was hopelessly clueless. There’s not really a mortgage market, so everything is paid for in cash, and I put all my trust into my wife (a good idea? We’ll eventually find out!) to navigate the process. I would have felt better if I’d had a better understanding of this stuff, but then again, when I came to Kyiv in 2010, I didn’t expect to stay for more than a couple of years. What is it that they say about the “best laid plans of mice and men?”

And as mentioned before, a decent knowledge of at least the alphabet would’ve helped a great deal.

What advice would you give to someone considering a similar move?

I chose the destinations I did because I was genuinely interested in the history and culture of those countries, and I deliberately sought out so-called hotspots where things were happening. I started off in Western Ukraine because of its fiercely proud patriotism and then Basque Country (San Sebastian) because of the long-simmering conflict with Spain. And then Latvia had tumultuous relations with its Latvian and Russian-speaking citizens, a holdover from the collapse of the Soviet Union. And I returned to Ukraine in 2010 because I genuinely wanted to be there.

What I found over the years was that the people who were happier, better able to fit in, willing to put up with more challenges, and got more out of the experience were those who chose destinations where they truly wanted to be, not just because there was a job opening and it sounded different or exotic. (There are exceptions, of course.)

Also, consider your social needs. If you do teach English abroad and end up in a larger language school in somewhere like Spain and Italy, there will likely be many more [English-speaking] expats and a bigger support network, it that’s what you need. In my first job in Lviv, I was the only foreign teacher, but luckily, my director of studies was British (and significantly older than the rest of the staff). I’m fine with that; I’m comfortable in solitude and love solo travel, and as a man, it was fine to go out on my own, have a few drinks, and attempt to talk to locals. Or I was perfectly content to keep to myself. It can be a tough, lonely existence, with miserable weather and terrible infrastructure added in to make it feel bleak at times.

Think carefully about your destination if you’re considering going somewhere less salubrious or off-the-beaten-path, especially on your own. With a partner, it might be easier.

8. Overall Experience: Looking back, would you say moving abroad was a positive experience? Why or why not?

Up until February 2022, I would’ve said absolutely, 100%. It can be hard if you choose to move around and are constantly saying goodbye to new friends (and relationships). It’s one thing to go to one safe, comfortable place and settle down; it’s quite another to bounce around, and saying goodbye never gets any easier. As one colleague put it, “We’re all just passing ships in the English Teaching night…”

When I look at life now, here in Vienna, where the quality of life is exceptional, especially in comparison to Ukraine, I hardly know what to make of things. I feel bad for complaining – we’re very fortunate to be here, my daughter is thriving in Austrian schools, and my [now] ex-wife has accepted that returning to Ukraine, her lifelong home, is getting more difficult with every passing day.

But I can’t help thinking of where it all went wrong. We had no choice but to flee Ukraine, but my daughter and I were at least lucky enough to leave just before the full-scale invasion. And though I’ve returned to Kyiv a couple of times since to check up on things, it’s pretty tough thinking about our newly bought, barely lived in apartment I sunk almost all my life savings into – which could literally go up in smoke any day now – and how all my friends are faring. And who knows if we will ever return? Having grown up all over the place, with no clear sense of home, Ukraine had become home. And now?

I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry at times. Ukrainians have a remarkably resilient spirit and a wonderfully dark sense of humour, and it’s only by laughing at the absurdity of it all that I can get by most days. In the early days of the invasion, while I was safely out of the country, my friends and colleagues in Kyiv were busily preparing Molotov cocktails, and I told them to go to my flat and raid my scotch collection – I didn’t want it falling into the hands of the Russians.

The irony is rarely lost on me – there I was, growing up in Cold War Europe, the crumbling Soviet Union right on our doorstep, and then all those years later, I ended up in a country that got invaded by Russia. Who would’ve imagined it?

9. Additional Comments: Please feel free to share any other insights or experiences you have.

Two final pieces of advice:

First, it might not be the best idea, especially if you have a family, to move to Ukraine right now. Even though the war might not feature regularly on the news, it’s still very much going on, and barely a day (or, usually, night) passes in Kyiv without air raid sirens and drone and missile attacks. Ukrainians have had no choice but to get used to it, but it’s obviously challenging and emotionally draining.

Second, if you are considering moving abroad, don’t go anywhere that Russia is likely to invade. Trust me on this one.

This is me on my wedding day, Kyiv, 2015, serving as my own MC because the one we hired had shaky English. Having MCs and entertainers is a very Ukrainian wedding thing to do. The t-shirt reads 'Glory to Ukraine!'

I am in Kyiv, August 2024, with former students, during an informal book event.

My daughter Emilie in Kyiv, August 2024, asleep during an air raid alert. This is the only safe space in our flat, although being on the 9th floor, we'd hardly be safe if a missile were to hit. This was a particularly intense night.

Lviv, 2024, enjoying a borscht-flavored ice cream. It was disgusting! (Borscht itself certainly isn't.)

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Don’t forget that you can read more from Daniel on his Substack, where he shares stories from the classroom and his travels.

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If you live abroad and would like to take the survey, please feel free to DM me.