As Ukraine progressively opens to the West and modernizes, its population of resident Westerners is also growing. One segment of these foreign residents are French expats who have chosen to settle in Ukraine either on their own or with their families.
Although their reasons for coming to Ukraine vary, they all quickly fall in love with the country’s culture and its people’s hospitality.
Nevertheless, as good French citizens, some never miss an opportunity to speak of politics.
Florian Mellet
Florian Mellet is 36 years old, married and a father of three boys.
He is a newcomer to Ukraine and could not have hoped for better — aside, perhaps, for the climate, which was a bit of a shock at first.
“I arrived on Jan. 19 from Toulon in the south of France… We had lunch the day prior on the beach where it was 22 degrees out, and we arrived (here) with 50 centimeters of snow and minus 15 degrees,” Mellet said.
Mellet is the director of IKEA Ukraine, which should open its first ever store in Kyiv before the end of 2019.
“I could choose between Slovenia and Ukraine… I knew the former but not the latter, so I decided to come and see for myself in July 2018,” he said. “I was very impressed.”
Both his wife and he sought change, and the three months they have spent in Ukraine have confirmed to him that Ukraine was the right place for them to continue raising their three children — two of whom attend the French high school Ann of Kyiv.
Mellet is particularly thankful to his Ukrainian co-workers — and Ukrainians in general — for their hospitality and their help in settling down.
“In Ukraine we need to be patient in order to do everything by the book… and we French have real know-how in retail because we know how to be patient and push for progress at the same time,” he said.
Boris Guitton
Boris Guitton is a 31-year-old Frenchman from Britany — “a proud Breton” as he says — who came to Ukraine three years ago for work and who loves it here.
Previously based in the Balkans, Guitton says coming to Ukraine was an important step for him because the country is a place where opportunities are greater than in Western Europe and progress can happen very quickly.
As director of digital and innovation at a company in the financial sector, Guitton praises Ukraine’s IT market — “the number one in Europe,” he said.
He further explained: “When you work in innovation and digital, there is nothing better than to be surrounded by fellow innovators… It is a small world here that grows fast and that helps you grow in ways that would not be possible somewhere else.”
Guitton enjoys his life as an expat and sings the praises of cities in eastern Ukraine like Kharkiv and Sumy. He says he is fond of the local, often Soviet-style architecture and the sheer size of urban areas.
As a football fan, he also enjoys going to Dynamo Kyiv’s games, where he appreciates the small yet convivial crowd that gathers to support the team.
Élie Duval
Élie Duval is 33 years old and works as the director of AGS, a moving company that solely transports personal items.
Duval arrived in Kyiv from Nigeria in November 2015. The move represents both an evolution in Duval’s career and a return to more comfortable living conditions.
After the strict security measures imposed on expats in the African country, settling in Ukraine — where you can “jog freely in the park or stroll” — was a breath of fresh air, Duval said.
One of the biggest cultural lessons for him was the importance of March 8, International Women’s Day, when Ukrainian men express their appreciation of the female partners, friends, and colleagues.
“I was clearly told: do not mess up on this day,” Duval said with a smile.
He certainly didn’t. Duval met his fiancé in Ukraine and has just become the father of a little boy. He loves the country, which has truly become a second home for him.
But that doesn’t prevent him from staying close to his fellow French people, with whom he gathers every Sunday to run on Kyiv’s Trukhaniv Island.
Vincent Amoursky
Vincent Amoursky is a 49-year-old Franco-Russian who now lives in Ukraine. Born in Soviet Russia but raised in France to a French mother, Amoursky always had a feeling of love for his father’s Soviet past. However, throughout the years, he has slowly come to understand that country’s grim reality.
Amoursky moved from Russia to Ukraine in 2008 with his wife and kids to take the helm of the local office of one of France’s most iconic luxury brands. Even though the move was supposed to be only temporary, the events of 2014 changed everything.
“Maidan has made us choose a side… and the culminating point for us was Crimea,” he said.
It was at this moment that his wife — a native Russian who initially did not wish to stay more than two to three years in Ukraine — took him by the hand and told him: “When I arrived here I admit that I had the older brother complex, but no more.”
Although Amoursky strongly criticizes Ukrainian corruption, he does not hide his admiration for the Ukrainian people’s fierce desire for freedom and independence.
As the director of a French company, he often gathers with other French speakers and enjoys time spent speaking his mother tongue.
Stéphane Siohan
Stéphane Siohan is a 40-year-old journalist, movie producer and director who manages East Roads Films — a company that produces Ukrainian documentaries.
Siohan moved to Ukraine during the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2014 and installed himself quickly as the permanent correspondent of Le Figaro, Le Temps and various other news outlets.
But beyond working as a journalist, Siohan says he really wants to “contribute to the country he profoundly loves… by speaking of Ukraine in the most interesting and composed way possible… and through his activity as producer and director of documentaries.”
Siohan believes Ukraine is redefining its identity through revolutions and counter-revolutions in a way that “France did during the 19th century.”
He calls himself lucky to live in a country full of “extraordinary destinies, where when you wake up in the morning, there are more incredible stories than one can handle.
“I see three to four stories every week that could make a movie,” he said.
Siohan produced the Ukrainian documentary Home Games, which tells the story of a 20-year-old Ukrainian soccer player who must also care for her younger siblings. The film was directed by Alisa Kovalenko and has already been shown at 35 international festivals — including the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam, the biggest documentary festival in the world.
Despite being French, Siohan does not feel like an expat because he spends most of his time with Ukrainians — a people that he has adopted as his own.
