A globetrotting daughter of Kharkiv talks about ballet, psychology, why "feminism" isn't a bad word, and how she became the editor of Kyiv's coolest new magazine
g something that they see as indisputable.”
Such as, for example, that women aren’t less important than men; or that women, and Ukrainian women especially, weren’t put on this planet exclusively to have babies. “These things are important,” she says, “but there are other things.”
Guzenko, 26, with her orange scarf flung over her chair back, toenails painted bright red, and coy smile as she sits on the deck of the new Georgian restaurant Tiflis, is not the sort of woman someone back in Huntsville, Alabama, during her college days would have called a “feminazi.” Her college thesis was on feminism’s influence on American English, but she doesn’t have brush-cut hair, she eats meat, and she admits she likes to shop and hang out with her friends on weekends, whether in clubs, at the beach or at a coffee shop for a shot of espresso. But she does have beliefs – strong beliefs – and tends to trust in what she calls her “woman’s intuition.”
Guzenko grew up a middle child, between two brothers, in Kharkiv oblast. She was sent to ballet school in Kharkiv at the age of four, and lived away from home rather than commute back and forth. Ballet lasted for nine years, but around the age of 13 she just became too tall for it, and so devoted herself to completing her high school studies. Among other things, she immersed herself in English and Japanese. English is a useful language in this part of the world, she says; but Japanese is a struggle.
“It’s a great thing to study, but it’s a very hard language to learn,” she says after taking her first bite of Tiflis’ tangy Georgian salad of seasoned cucumbers and tomatoes (Hr 25). “Instead of letters and words, they have characters and symbols and images to describe concepts; a real brain twister.”
Not quite able to master Japanese, Guzenko did manage to gain some mastery of French in a little under three years, just before graduating from Kharkiv State Technical University with a degree in English. Before leaving school she spent a year in Huntsville, at the University of Alabama campus there. She majored in English, but continued her studies in Japanese. Guzenko worked in the library, hung out variously with international students, professors and older students (she had no interest in joining a sorority), and has funny stories to tell about her Japanese teacher that require her to gesture wildly as if on the phone and speak in rapid-fire monosyllables.
“My roommate thought I was saying ‘Hello’ over and over again, but what I was really saying was ‘Yes. Yes. I don’t understand. Yes. Yes,’” she says.
Upon her return to Ukraine, Guzenko still felt the urge to travel – this time to France for a degree course jointly run by KSTU and L’Ecole Centrale de Lyon. She had never studied French in her life, and the language was one of the two prerequisites for the course, in industrial management. Nor had she studied economics, which was the other prerequisite. Yet within three years she gained enough fluency to pass a series of oral and written exams and, despite not having fulfilled the economics requirement, she was off to Lyon, in east-central France, where she lived with a host family while taking courses in marketing, economics, logistics and other related disciplines for her second degree in industrial marketing.
“I had a hard time at first, but I like challenges,” she says after a sip of her tomato juice (Hr 10 for 250 ml).
In France, Guzenko learned to appreciate things like close girlfriends; good food; and an Italian boyfriend who made her fall in love with his country more than with him. In short, she developed and grew as a person.
“I’m a lifetime traveler. I’m curious more than anything,” she says. “I’ll sacrifice anything to satisfy my curiosity, to find out more about myself. If you don’t travel, you try to protect your identity and you don’t grow.”
In France, Guzenko learned to drink hot chocolate for breakfast, take hot bathes with tea tree oil, and eat fresh croissants and other French pastries while shooting down an espresso, like she did at Tiflis (Hr 9), after a meal that also included Georgian classics like chakhokhbili (Hr 25) and lavash (Hr 2).
“I want a life that’s a balance between the complacency of Europe and the always busy U.S. I don’t want to be someone’s assistant’s assistant,” she says in earnest.
Guzenko has a hard time submitting to anyone else’s demands but her own. She remembers a psychology professor in the U.S. delivering a lecture on the development of the self and the personality. He discussed how we adopt elements of our personality from our parents and friends and society, but he left something out.
She raised her hand and asked, “Is there a ‘me’ in all this?’ and he said ‘No.’ I’ll never forget that. I wanted to have my own thoughts.
“There’s a long history here in Ukraine of repressing thoughts and feelings. We need to be like Moses and wander on our own for 40 years,” Guzenko says. She’s not a strident nationalist. She simply believes Ukrainians aren’t conscious enough about their history and what being Ukrainian can really mean. But she enjoys telling people about Ukraine, including how her country’s women aren’t born to be prostitutes.
“When I went to France, at first I didn’t want to move back,” she says in her impeccable English, “but I needed something to live by. Europe lacked adversity. Everything is too comfortable there. I saw an ad on the Internet, applied and returned to Kyiv.”
Before returning to Ukraine in August 2003, Guzenko had worked during her year in France for the ad agency Legrand – work that was “somewhat related” to her eventually taking over the top job at a magazine dedicated to shopping. Being a good writer was also necessary to becoming Pink’s editor, but the bigger part, she says, is being a good leader.
“Pink is a challenge,” Guzenko begins.
“At Pink we have 12 on staff, and various freelancers. You need to have the right ratio of discipline and freedom.”
“I try to give as much freedom as I can – to let them grow as much personally and professionally as possible. I can’t do everything myself.”
While remaining relatively independent, Guzenko and her staff are still a team; a women’s team that some, she says, might deride as a babski kollektiv – a derogatory term from Soviet times for a team of women.
“This is wrong,” she says. “Each of us is a person. We respect each other. There’s no gossiping or intrigues in the office.”
The job as chief editor of Pink suits her, Guzenko says. She’s always wanted to create something that speaks for her. The magazine is creative, entertaining, and has an attitude, she says, although the 12-hour days, constant deadlines and creative debates with the publisher have turned her to yoga to manage stress. “I reached my limits at work,” she says.
Yoga has a lot in common with ballet, she says, making her feel like nothing can stop her.
“We have only one life,” she says, “and it’s important to make the right choices for one’s self; to be brave.”
Tiflis
22 Shota Rustaveli, 235-6101.
Open daily from
11 a.m. to 12 a.m.
English menu: No.
English-speaking staff: No.
