Swiss-born Carro takes an open-minded approach to life here in Kyiv, just like his father hoped he would.
Charlie Chaplin once lived in the little French Swiss town where Jose Manuel Carro Rellan was born. Vevey (pop. 40,000), which is pronounced like the Ukrainian band VV, is known for little else, other than that it’s close to Montreux, home of the world-famous jazz festival, and that it’s the location of the corporate headquarters of international food giant Nestle. Carro actually interned for Nestle for a time as an accountant, but that was years ago, when he was a modest 18 and barely out of high school.
These days Carro, 28, works for much smaller fry, as a corporate communications specialist with a small Swiss firm based in Kyiv that specializes in e-solutions and Web design. The clients that Carro often communicates with are based in – of all places – Montreal, Canada, a place where he once lived for five months. He was impressed by that city’s culture and its people, and so was his boss, who regularly travels there to visit his French Canadian girlfriend, but that’s another story. Suffice it to say that Carro’s work is never quite finished, even long after any sales or contracts have been made or signed.
“A Swiss [recruitment] company offered me a chance to work here,” Carro says in his delicate French accent. “The Swiss government wants to reach out to developing economies in this part of the world, so I applied and was accepted.” His initial work was with GfK-USM, but he worked there only a short while before finding his current job. His contract from last September lasted six months, and then was extended for another six. He’ll be sad to leave Ukraine, he says, mostly due to how free he finds life here – free from the bureaucracy and the rule-oriented mindset that he says typifies his native Switzerland. Ukraine’s not a perfect place to live, but he doesn’t jump to conclusions about it.
“Every experience teaches you,” he says before taking a sip of cherry juice (Hr 8). “You learn from bad or good. Nothing happens by chance; things happen for a reason.”
One of Life’s Ironies
Carro, though born in Switzerland, is a Spanish citizen, his father and mother hailing from the city of Leon, in Spain’s largest province of Castille y Leon. It’s a place that’s been ruled throughout the ages by the Celts, the Romans, the Moors and then the Christian kings of Asturias, who named it their capital in 913. Almost without exception, Carro’s relatives all live there.
Ironically, Carro has never lived in Leon, or anywhere else in Spain. His first language is French, which he speaks perfectly. Spanish, which he speaks mostly with his parents and family, is his second language. As a Swiss citizen he certainly knows German, though he admits he’s not as fluent in it as in English, which he learned in school for five years and improved with his stays in Montreal a few years back and on a five-month trip to Australia shortly after his Nestle stint. He is resident of Switzerland, legally entitled to work there, but despite its being his birthplace, it does not welcome him as a citizen. That might create a conundrum for others, but it doesn’t really for him.
“I’ve tried to answer this question for others many times,” Carro says as his colorful order of risotto with salmon and spinach (Hr 36) arrives. “I think this idea of national identity is disappearing and will disappear.”
“We now travel so much that you can’t help but meet people from many different countries, and people travel so much that even if you don’t travel, others will meet you. We share our ideas, thoughts and perspectives with others, and it changes you,” he adds. “It helps you to open your mind to other things.”
An Open Mind
His open-mindedness stems first and foremost from his father, who against his family’s wishes left his studies in a Catholic seminary in Spain for married life and opportunities abroad. Spain under Franco was heavily influenced by the Catholic Church, as was his family, and there were few jobs. Carro’s father felt so oppressed by a growing sense of indebtedness to the Church for his education that he eventually went to Switzerland, where he began work cleaning in a kitchen that prepares meals with specialized nutritional requirements for patients recovering from surgery. Today he’s the head chef there. Carro speaks proudly, but with modesty, about his father.
Carro’s parents sent their only son to a public school and they took the unusual step of not having him baptized; they wanted him to make his own choices in life about such serious matters.
“Even now my father does not like to talk [of religion],” he says.
Growing up in Switzerland with darker skin than the other kids at first caused Carro to be teased, but he learned the language and read intensely both in and out of school, learned to play soccer quite well, and soon was integrated into Swiss culture.
Once out of school, Carro began interning for Nestle, then spent time in Australia, where he met many people – Canadians, English, Irish, Dutch and Australians, too. (He also quickly grew accustomed to the loud shark warnings on the beach.) He eventually went to university in Lausanne, where he studied economics and marketing. He’s also traveled to South Africa and a range of places in Europe, and during his time in Montreal networked with people from across the globe while helping a Swiss NGO organize an international conference on the Internet and multimedia. Some of his contacts have even proved useful here in Ukraine.
The Observer
Here in Kyiv, Carro, with much leisure time on his hands due to the flexible nature of his work, enjoys observing life in a country “that’s growing every second.”
“People strike me here as very confident about their abilities,” Carro says. He often meets people who enjoy the chance to speak with him in any of his many languages. Over a shot of espresso (Hr 12) he relates that he’s also studying Russian three times a week and fast developing a fluency in that language, too.
In general, Carro constantly looks forward and rarely back. He’s an avid reader of current events and enjoys authors who try to make sense of the world, such as controversial French author Frederic Beigbeder. He’s also interested in Kyiv’s advertising industry, which strikes him as reflecting the current reality of Ukraine: naive, newly opened to the world, fresh, marked by discoveries and surprising. “Here advertising has to be simple, sexy even,” he says. “A sophisticated Swiss ad would not likely work well here.”
About the only thing that Carro misses here is the chance to sit around and chat with people about politics, the economy, the future – things like the Palestinian conflict and the upcoming Ukrainian presidential election. When he fleshes these things out in conversation, it helps him make sense of his own world.
“I like to learn how other people live, how they solve problems,” Carro says. “I want to learn what things are important to other people and why. The ‘why’ is very crucial for me. It aids in tolerance and respect.”
Decadence House
16 Shota Rustaveli, 206-4920.
Restaurant open daily from noon till 11 p.m.
English menu: Yes.
English-speaking staff: Yes.
