Hello! My name’s Anastasiya

Date: 09 February 2016

Hello! My name’s Anastasiya (left on the photo) , yes, like a princess in the cartoon you have probably watched. I live in a peaceful country Belarus, which is in Eastern Europe. I call Belarus a “bridge” as this land has being always crossed by numerous people between East and West shaping the people and their characters. Nowadays Belarus is located between European Union and Russia and playing a bridge role again. So this is a place where I am from, where I am formed.

I am 26. I am married. I’m high educated (who estimates?) or anyway I’ve got high education : ) I am a pedagogue due to the university diploma, but I have never gone to a school as I prefer to be a trainer and a facilitator at the YMCA as I can contribute more into youngsters this way instead of fighting  with an educational system which I find ineffective. Besides my husband is a teacher at school and he likes his job except a salary and some bureaucracy.

Couple years ago we joked “Everyone in Belarus is high educated”. The high education turned to be a standard of the life, but not a quality. Currently we kid like this “Everyone is an entrepreneur or a firm director” 🙂 Recently the government released a new law about “lazy people” (similar as in USSR time). So those who don’t work should pay tax yearly. But the irony is that how you may pay tax if you can’t find a proper job? How you may pay tax if you don’t work?.. So it means that you are also to pay tax for tax, because officially you don’t work so you have no funds to pay tax for not working 🙂

This is my own reality too. So I’m young. I’m a firm director. I have started a small tea business a year ago straight before the crisis had come. So currently I’m struggling with all the currency credits I should pay back. Now I know how to make some money and I do make some, but they go to tax and credits back. But the same time I earn some money for food so I’m happy to have some job and I do hope that easier time will come and my boat will survive 🙂 I also should say that I dared to start the business because the YMCA showed me that I am able to dare. Because I acquired some useful skills at the YMCA volunteering there for years. Because one Y’s man had told me once: “Learn how to make some money yourself then you will contribute them to the YMCA who contributed a lot in you”.  

Because I am young and I dared to change some things in my own life I wish to show there is always a lighthouse on the way which helps us young people to change our behavior to change the circumstances. That’s how we may direct the changes. That’s how we may know there is always a hope. There is always a hope to change. There is always change on the bridge to the change. So dear, dear!!! 🙂

With love,

Anastasiya Chukhlataya