In this episode, Robbie Kramer and special guest Yoni dive deep into the current situation unfolding in Ukraine. They discuss the leadership, the impact of the war on individuals, personal experiences in the midst of conflict, and the determination of the Ukrainian people to protect their territory. With firsthand accounts and insights, this episode sheds light on the realities and challenges faced by those living in Ukraine during this turbulent time. Stay tuned for a captivating conversation that explores the resilience, unity, and unwavering spirit of the Ukrainian people. Let’s dive in!
Show Notes:
00:01:26 – Introducing our guest! – Find out our backstory!
00:03:22 – “What war?? what are you guys talking about?” – Find out where our guest was when he found out the war started in Ukraine!
00:06:33 – The shelter was right next to the Russian embassy! – Crazy war stories!
00:09:50 – They told me to watch out for ‘War robbers’ – We talk about the chaos and people running rampant!
00:14:55 – “Misinformation in wartimes made everything more stressful!” – Guest shares his view on the fake news and how he handled it!
00:16:34 – “I have some experience with Israel wars, so I tried to panic manage the people” – Our guest tried to keep people calm in the shelter, find out how it made him feel!
00:19:15 – “They let you negotiate the bill” – Host shares a funny rare story about a Jewish restaurant!
00:21:31 – Everybody started helping each other when the war started! – Guest explains how the war made people more empathic!
00:23:05 – Russian vs Ukrainian language – Guest explains the difference!
00:27:09 – Guest shares his business ideas for when the war calms down! – Learn about it here!
00:31:48 – Curfew in Ukraine – You can’t be clubbing! Night-life is death!
00:36:46 – from playboy to dad! – Guest shares why he wouldn’t just pop out a baby!
00:40:46 – “Ukraine was like Disneyland for single guys” – Will this remain the same after the war? Find out here!
00:43:04 – You can’t have fun during war! – Learn how the war is effecting nightlife in Ukraine
00:48:05 – “I live in hotels now” – Find out why our guest needs to live in hotels!
00:53:53 – They will not forget this for generations! – Guest shares why Ukraine will never forget what Putin did to them!
00:57:17 – If the US stops supporting Ukraine is f** – We discuss the rumors about the support Ukraine is receiving!
01:03:35 – Every dead soldier effects 100 people – We discuss the dark side of war!
01:08:02 – “When Putin had very low approval ratings, he always started a war” – We speculate some theories!
01:11:13 – Guest shares his opinion on Putin! – Listen here!
01:16:56 – Ukraine and USA comparison – We discuss!
01:18:45 – “When a girl gets hit on a million times a day, she starts letting her looks go” The phycology of evolution! – Listen here!
01:23:19 – Balkan woman – This is why they are amazing!
01:29:13 – Find out guest on social media!
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Transcript:
Yoni [00:00:00]:
You hear the bombs, and next thing you know, the Russians can come in with guns, right?
Robbie Kramer [00:00:03]:
Ukraine was like Disneyland for single dudes, you know?
Yoni [00:00:06]:
I was dating this one girl before the war started.
Robbie Kramer [00:00:08]:
I’m hoping that once the war is over, people will come back.
Yoni [00:00:10]:
There’s gonna be a bonanza, man. There’s gonna be an explosion, man.
Robbie Kramer [00:00:13]:
My wife won’t even speak Russian with me.
Yoni [00:00:15]:
I still speak Russian a little bit better than Ukrainians. I don’t know. I’ve been blocked from tinder a long time ago, so I couldn’t tell you.
Speaker C [00:00:25]:
Welcome to the Interconfidence Podcast, where we bring you men’s dating and lifestyle advice that doesn’t suck. I’m your host, Robbie Kramer, a former collegiate golfer turned poker pro turned finance guy who became obsessed with learning about male female attraction and dynamics and passionate about teaching men how to improve and optimize their love life. Tune in each week, and we’ll bring you the latest and greatest strategies on how to get more dates, how to build a thriving social circle that brings the best men and women into your life, how to become a better networker, and how to design a lifestyle that makes all your buddies jealous. If you’re new to the show, I recommend you download my First Date Protocol. It’s the best piece of content I have. It’ll help you optimize your first date and subsequent dates. And I like to connect with my listeners personally, so if you want to grab a copy of that, please send me a direct message on Instagram. I’m at Robbie Kramer. Now let’s dive into this week’s content.
Robbie Kramer [00:01:16]:
We are back with a episode. Today we’re going to talk about dating in Eastern Europe. We can talk about Ukraine post war. My boy Yoni, who was a good buddy from Ukraine, he has still has or had a big sort of events, promotions company in Kiev. We were wingmen, ran around all the time. Got in a bunch of trouble there before the war. Odessa all over Ukraine. Yoni’s very well versed in nightlife and all things related to travel and basically was kind of like a concierge a bit also for Israelis coming to Ukraine. So he would help them find accommodations and hook them up at clubs and kind of like a VIP host. A jack of all trades, you could say. He’s been on the podcast a few times. So excited to have you back, Yoni.
Yoni [00:02:04]:
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. We’re not we’re not a post war yet, man. We’re still in the midst of oh.
Robbie Kramer [00:02:12]:
Sorry, I didn’t mean to say post start right.
Yoni [00:02:16]:
Post starter war. And honestly, there’s not much talking about dating. Well, there is, but this is not the focal point right now of this whole situation in Ukraine. We still date. Yeah, we still date. Yeah. But it’s a totally different story.
Robbie Kramer [00:02:34]:
Yeah, man. Well, I’m excited to hear the story about essentially what happened once the war broke out. I mean, everyone who listens to the show knows my story. I was leaving anyways because I was engaged to my fiance. We were waiting for her K one fiance visa. We heard rumors that Russia might invade. We usually kind of fucked off for the winter anyways because it’s cold. The summer before we spent down in Mexico, tulum and Playa del Carmen and then 2021, let’s just go to Turkey. So we packed up the car, the two dogs drove to Turkey in January and then the war started in February and then we just didn’t go back. Spent the next six months traveling around Europe and then moved to the US once her visa came in. But that wasn’t the story for you, obviously. You were in Kiev when it started.
Yoni [00:03:22]:
No, I was in Kharkiv, man. All my Ukraine career I lived in Kiev and six months before the war started, I moved to Kharkiv.
Robbie Kramer [00:03:36]:
And for people who don’t, kharkiv is.
Yoni [00:03:39]:
Close to 40 km from the border, right? This was the center of the fighting at the beginning of the first two, three weeks. This was the center of the major fighting and stuff like that. We were sitting in the bomb shelters and stuff. They were blowing up everywhere and stuff like that. But I’ll take you before that, you said that you managed to get out and I believe that most of the people I didn’t believe that it’s going to happen. I was laughing. I was like, what war? What are you guys talking about? And I thought maybe if there’s going to be anything, maybe some movement down in the Dom bus area, which was problematic to begin with. And I was very chill, like too chill, I think. And then I wake up one morning. I don’t usually drink during week or at work, but I had a few drinks with my workers and the few drinks turned into a few more drinks. I woke up, my head was like exploding. I’m waking up because two of my phones are ringing everywhere. And I’m like I’m like, what the hell is going on? Right? And then I see all the Israeli news because I was giving interviews all over the thing prior to that. And then I see the Israeli news are calling me, my friends are calling me, my family is calling me. And then my partner is calling me. And then he’s like I’m like, oh shit, I got to pick up, right? I pick up. He’s like, Where the fuck are you? I’m like, what do you mean? I’m at home. Yeah, I’m a little bit late, a little bit late to work. But chill, man. He’s like, what do you mean? I’m already almost in viv. I’m like what? And then I hear all of a sudden, holy shit, it was crazy. Then I’m like, oh, shit. Something happened. I just end up grabbing like 1011 of my workers, the ones that were in the bombing areas in the neighborhood where they were bombing the most. I took them in. We went to my friend’s hotel in the underground. There was a spa, I guess, but it’s like a bunker thing, so we just chilled there for two weeks, man. Because every day you think it’s going to stop or you can’t believe, dude, it’s unbelievable. So you think, okay, it’s going to end tomorrow. It’s going to end tomorrow. And then after the first week, you wake up every morning and thinking that the Russians are in the city. So you’re waking up and you’re like, okay, maybe we already got conquered yet. And that was like a very realistic scenario, right? Because they were like, attacking nonstop. They were bombing everything.
Robbie Kramer [00:06:28]:
Were you able to get service and news and everything down there in the shelter?
Yoni [00:06:34]:
Not really. The shelter was it ended up that the hotel was right next to a Russian embassy with the Russian flag flying. So they would block all the signals. All of a sudden, at their special times or whatever, they would block everything, the GPS, anything. You’re just sitting there like complete blackout.
Robbie Kramer [00:07:00]:
That must have been incredibly boring, but also stressful at the same time. Like, what the hell do you do.
Yoni [00:07:05]:
For two weeks in that situation? The time flies, man. You don’t understand because you’re always busy doing something. I would drive out every morning and.
Robbie Kramer [00:07:16]:
I would so you wouldn’t stay in the bomb shelter all day?
Yoni [00:07:18]:
You’d be yes or no? At the beginning, you were there twenty four, seven. And then slowly you realize you have to do something. First of all, the food is running out, right? So you got to go and fetch for food somewhere. And then all the girls that were working at the hotel and the staff that work in the hotel, they were trying to get out of Kharkiv. I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures at the beginning of the war. Kharkiv train station, like, packed of people. You couldn’t see anything but people. So I would drive them in the morning. Whoever wanted to evacuate, I would drive them in the morning to the train station. I would leave them there, and then they would call me at the end of the day if they got up or didn’t get up. So I would have to come and pick them up back to the hotel, right? Getting out of the hotel in the car is very stressful because the tension on the streets was so high. There’s no cars, there’s no people walking. There’s only like secret service fucking people all over. They pull you over like, what are you doing? And then they see my Israeli passport. What the hell? What’s going on here? Right? And I explained to them, I’m like, listen, I’m just going like thing to pick up or drive somebody or pick up some food or something like that. And then they’re like, okay, go. And then there’s curfew, which is very scary because they’re so nervous themselves, you understand? So if you drive and all of a sudden you made a move, that made them even more stressed. They have the authority to open fire if they see it fit. So you’re always constantly on very high adrenaline and tension. You’re driving on the sidewalks and stuff like that to make sure that nothing happens. You see burned cars in the middle of the street. Then I drove into a gunfight with some separatists by the remember the new mall that they opened in Kharkiv? Very nice mall there’s. Like separatists are fighting the army and stuff like that. I’m driving into it. The soldier is like, get out of here, get out of here. I’m like, oh, shit, I’m turning around. I’m driving. Oh, man, it was so crazy.
Robbie Kramer [00:09:30]:
So why didn’t you just jump in your car and head west?
Yoni [00:09:35]:
Was it because a few reasons. First of all, because I had eleven people with me and the car fits five, okay? And I was trying to wing it and see and maybe get somebody else to come with us and stuff like that. And maybe the war will end and stuff like that. And then my friends, the geniuses, the good friends that they are, they’re telling me all these stories about robbers, about wartime robbers. I don’t know if there’s a name for that in Ukrainian and Russian, which are basically like they operate in wartime. So they would go and rob cars and pull people out and whatever. It’s a lawless place. Right?
Robbie Kramer [00:10:15]:
Right.
Yoni [00:10:16]:
And another reason is basically everybody was driving. So to get to Lviv from Kharkiv, it was like a four day drive in the car, nonstop. Just traffic, the whole traffic, you know, chaos, roadblocks, you name it. Everything along the way. Checkpoints. Yeah. It’s crazy.
Robbie Kramer [00:10:34]:
My other friends, because I had probably five or six other friends who basically left from Kiev in the morning and drove to Lviv or they drove south. I mean, it was a three to four day journey. Plus ditching the car at the border, walking across. I’m just really glad I left before all that.
Yoni [00:10:55]:
No, a lot of people did.
Robbie Kramer [00:10:56]:
That would be yeah, and way more way scarier because Harkiv was getting hit harder than like I remember maybe in the first few days. Didn’t a missile go right into one of the square government buildings?
Yoni [00:11:15]:
Dead in the center? Yeah, dead in the fucking center.
Robbie Kramer [00:11:18]:
It’s not a photo of me parked in front of that building in my car when I did that road trip with Igor around eastern Ukraine. Yeah, it’s the most famous that’s where the missile went.
Yoni [00:11:30]:
The missile is still standing there, by the way. It’s the most famous place in Kharkiv. This is like the pride of Kharkiv. This and the big park that they have. So they wanted to show us it was like three, four days in that they wanted to show us what they mean. So they blew the main thing. But no harkiv. If Kharkiv fell realistically, they would come all the way to Kiev. They would surrender Kiev, and Kiev would fall also. Kharkiv was like the breaking point of the beginning of the war. And then when we left, actually, it was two weeks in, and when we left, they were very close. And that’s like, I left almost without a choice because the owner of the hotel, he told me, Listen, man, like, something is going to go down big. I think you should go. So I took my guys, I would go to Poltava, came back for another one, and I came back to Poltava again. Kharkiv was divided by a river into two. We were on the other side of the river. When I was driving away, like when I was driving the last one, they were already blocking the bridges with cement, concrete, these blocking things. They were preparing for street fights and tanks rolling down the streets and stuff like that. That so it was pretty hectic, man.
Robbie Kramer [00:12:59]:
Pretty hairy. So what happened next? You went to Lviv?
Yoni [00:13:05]:
No, we went to Poltava first. Regrouped poltava coffee shops are open and stuff like that. We were in shock. We were like, what the hell is going like because nothing is open in Kharkiv.
Robbie Kramer [00:13:16]:
And for reference, it’s about halfway between or a little closer to Kharkiv, right, than to Kiev.
Yoni [00:13:23]:
It’s much about it’s about an hour and a half from Kharkiv.
Robbie Kramer [00:13:27]:
Okay, so like two and a half from Kiev, give or take, something like that.
Yoni [00:13:32]:
Yeah, but Kiev, at that point, you couldn’t go to Kiev because Kiev was surrounded. Remember butcha and all that. So you can’t go to Kiev. So we’re sitting in and and we’re regrouping. We just don’t know what to do. We’re sitting in a hotel and thinking what to do. The girls are with us, my workers. Somebody down the hallway is opening the door, like slamming the door. Doors are jumping like crazy. They think that bombs are flying. Were you with girls at this time, too? Well, my workers not girls as we know it, but my workers.
Robbie Kramer [00:14:10]:
Yeah, your workers are usually girls. Yoni usually rolls with a nice squad of female to males ratio. How many of these? Eleven were females?
Yoni [00:14:23]:
About six. Okay. There was three guys. There was me, two of my workers, and the rest was girls. But it was too stressful to think about that.
Robbie Kramer [00:14:40]:
Were the girls, like, panicking at first and then staying cool, or they were. Was it difficult to manage sort of all that?
Yoni [00:14:51]:
Not only the feminine energy in these situations, people are like the amount of the information that goes through telegram, channels that say stupid stuff, especially at the beginning before people realize what to listen to. Whatnot. So everybody’s sitting as soon as we get some connection, everybody’s sitting on their phones and reading all this fucking stupid. Zelienski fell, zelensky ran away, and everybody’s stressing out, and they’re talking to each other and making each other more stressful. And I’m sitting there, I’m like, listen, guys, first of all, stop reading all this crap. If you want to read something, there’s a few reliable sources that you should go to. If they say, then you should check a few more, and maybe only then, panic. Until then, I don’t want to hear of all this, the end of the world and stuff like that. It’s not, we’re going to be fine. We’re going to be okay. We’re together. Everything is going to be okay. But it’s very hard. In theory, you try to calm them down, but in fact, they’re like, well, what do you mean? Look what’s going on. I’m like, okay, what’s the point of sitting here and panicking? How is that going to help anybody? Let’s chill. Let’s calm down. I’ll promise I’ll do anything to make sure that we’re okay. But, yeah, it’s stronger than them, you understand? It’s like the fear, and it’s not something over there. You hear the bombs and everything is shaking, and next thing you know, the Russians can come in into the bunker with guns, right? It was a constant reality like that. So, yeah, you try to because I was the oldest and a guy, and I have some experience with Israeli wars and stuff like that. Not like that, but a little bit of panic management, I guess. You try to keep him sane, but there’s paranoia, and people are saying, oh, did you hear something from the door? And stuff, like, very emotionally draining and emotionally it was hard, man. But I’m glad that we did it. We made so from poltava. There’s a chaos all over the country. It’s two weeks in. Kiev is almost surrendered. Lviv is packed with people, like, refugees from all over. Absolutely packed.
Robbie Kramer [00:17:28]:
We started driving at a hotel room or anywhere to stay in.
Yoni [00:17:32]:
Anything, man. Anything, man. So we’re driving, and we’re just calling every house owner, try to get them to let us in, and they’re all paranoid about refugees coming and bringing more refugees, and it’s like, a big mess, right? And they charge you up the ass for it. So we rent some kind of absolutely empty house on the outskirts of Lviv for, like, $2,500 a month with, like, $5,000 damage deposit. Very expensive. Very expensive. And the owner of the house was there every morning before we go to work to make sure we don’t take the little that he had, like, the two sofas that he had inside. Now we don’t fucking pull it out of the house and go sell it somewhere. Ridiculous, man. Wow. He would meet us in the evening to make sure that everything’s okay. Crazy. From the movies. The owner of the house was like a movie character, too.
Robbie Kramer [00:18:32]:
This is an old western Ukrainian dude.
Yoni [00:18:35]:
Yeah, like classic, classic, like nosy. You wouldn’t believe, man. All up in our shit. Jewish everywhere. No, I think he was like 100% anti Jewish, to be honest with you.
Robbie Kramer [00:18:51]:
Well, Leviv is the what’s that area called where basically all of us Ashkenazi Jews are from.
Yoni [00:19:01]:
It’s the Galicina or something like that.
Robbie Kramer [00:19:03]:
Galicia, whatever, right?
Yoni [00:19:06]:
Where most of us got slaughtered also. So it’s like a ying and a yang Galicina or stuff like that.
Robbie Kramer [00:19:16]:
I visited Leviv in 2019, and I was with a bunch of girls and kind of doing one of the trips. We went to this Jewish restaurant where they let you negotiate the bill at the end.
Yoni [00:19:29]:
So racist. So funny.
Robbie Kramer [00:19:35]:
They started at like 2000 grievna, which at the time, I think was like $300 or something like that, maybe less. 2000 is probably like $100 right? At the time, yeah. And then the girls that we were with, one of them negotiated down from 2000 to 650, and I’m like, So wait, this group of ten people is going to pay $55 or $45 for this meal? Those were the incredible.
Yoni [00:20:06]:
Who’s the Jew here?
Robbie Kramer [00:20:10]:
I thought we were going to be the ones getting suckered in that restaurant.
Yoni [00:20:19]:
The prices right now in Leviv are like, crazy. First of all, the grievna is basically almost like half of what it used to be. It used to be when you were around before the war, about 24 grievna to a dollar. Now it’s like 39. It was 40. Now it’s 37, something like that. So it’s almost double. Prices are like shooting up. Petrol is $2 a liter or something like that. Very expensive. And before, when we just arrived here, there was absolutely no gasoline to find, man, you would drive around like a drug addict with a canister, try to find some fucking gas, man. It was crazy.
Robbie Kramer [00:21:03]:
Yeah. How did you get the gas to get from Harky?
Yoni [00:21:06]:
You just waited for they give you 20 liters at each gas station on the way, they give you 20 liters just to get to the next one.
Robbie Kramer [00:21:17]:
All right?
Yoni [00:21:17]:
And then sometimes you talk to them and be like, hey, I got like a four liter fucking Jeep Grand Cherokee. I wouldn’t make it, so give me like 25, 30 liters. But everybody was understandable. Actually, you know what? You know, Ukraine before the you know, we all know that there was not much of this togetherness and sense of peoples. When the war started, everybody started helping each other out. Like, I’ve never seen, even in Israel, at times of war, everybody came together. Everybody was helping each other, like, food, gasoline. Everybody was looking at each other with so much compassion and stuff like so actually, this is one of the unfortunate but really good things that happened is that Putin actually made Ukraine into a nation. That’s what they say here. He got people got him together and got him to actually think about each other, which wasn’t happening before I even got my car fixed on the way in Poltava, I was like, Here, man, I got money. He’s like, no, no, don’t worry. You got a long way to go. I’ve never seen that in Ukraine before in my man. Yeah, yeah.
Robbie Kramer [00:22:30]:
Well, I always thought you were clever because you learned Ukrainian. I learned Russian just because in Kiev and also Odessa, where I’d spend most of my time, most people spoke know. And so when you were learning Ukrainian and became fluent, I was always like, why would you bother, given the Russian language is spoken much more. And now my look where we are now, right? She’s like, I learned Russian for what?
Yoni [00:22:55]:
And look where we are now, man. It’s crazy how the world turns. It’s very unbelievable. I still speak Russian a little bit better than Ukrainian. Ukrainian is very hard because of the Russian. It’s very hard to learn Ukrainian because a lot of the Russian words would come up, even for the locals from the east of Ukraine. A lot of them speak that mixed Ukrainian Russian language, and it’s very hard here in Lviv, they speak proper Ukrainian, and that’s very hard. I sometimes don’t even understand what they’re saying, so I’m like, Please repeat, and stuff like that. It’s much nicer. It’s such a beautiful language. When girls speak to me in Ukrainian, I melt, man. I’m melting, man. Such a nice language.
Robbie Kramer [00:23:50]:
Yeah, it’s much softer sounding. It’s a lot easier on the ears than Russian, that’s for sure.
Yoni [00:23:56]:
So much easier. Russian is cutting through your head. Suka blood. Pashalusta, don’t hit me. Don’t hit me. Please and thank you.
Robbie Kramer [00:24:10]:
Sounds like.
Yoni [00:24:15]:
Terrible. And now even more, it’s understandable even more. When they attacked us, we understand why.
Robbie Kramer [00:24:24]:
So what did you do once you got to Lviv in terms of because obviously you’re in nightlife and entertainment. That sector is completely done. No one’s partying, no one’s doing anything of that nature. Right? What did you do for work? How did you sort of pivot your.
Yoni [00:24:43]:
Life that side of Ukraine for? That was on hold, obviously. Unless you have some kind of extreme, extreme dudes. Don’t want to date Ukrainian girls in a war zone. That could also be, like one of the things. But no, now with our friends, we open some outsourcing for call centers and stuff like that. Outsourcing for a few very boring businesses. I’m very bored, but this is a means to make money right now. And parallel to that, I’m actually preparing a lot of things for PR, which is going to be, I believe, that when the war is over, at least it’s more or less stable and that people are going to start. Pouring in here to rebuild Ukraine, to wanting to see all the cities that you heard in the news about Bachmut and stuff like that. When we conquered back. I’m working on a few things. I think we’re going to develop the tourism because it will be like the whole world heard about Bachmut and Irpin and Butcher and stuff like that. So I’m laying down the ground right now for these things and have like Chernobyl and there’s going to be endless possibilities for tourism.
Robbie Kramer [00:26:13]:
Yeah, that’s really smart because I think it’s just going to go crazy.
Yoni [00:26:18]:
Yeah, I mean right now only the heads of states are coming to Butcher, right? As soon as things are more or less stable, everybody’s going to want to come see it.
Robbie Kramer [00:26:28]:
Yeah. I’ve held onto a couple of my properties. I had a nice little portfolio of like 16 airbnb listings before the war started, obviously all in Kiev. And I still have my office, which has tenants in it, and I still have one property that’s right in Mikhailska Square and then my personal place, which it’s all media people that are there, journalists basically I had to give up the rest of the places. But I’m hoping that once the war is over, people will come back.
Yoni [00:27:06]:
There’s going to be a bonanza, man. There’s going to be an explosion, man, explosion. And this is another thing that I’m really not really looking but actually working on is to make a business introduction into Ukraine sort of thing. It’s like a one stop shop to move your business here or to start a business. Like if you have some kind of franchise or business and you want to start working in Ukraine, we’re going to give you the whole service of bringing you in from the smallest thing as immigration papers, work permits and renting offices and hooking you up to the internet and tax.
Robbie Kramer [00:27:50]:
Kind of like companies bespoke service to help people open businesses and live in Ukraine.
Yoni [00:27:58]:
Yeah, exactly. But this is going to be more for companies, for bigger companies. So let’s say I don’t know your It company and you want to work in Ukraine. So before you come in, we rent an office for you, we connect you, we buy all the equipment, we do the HR work. You just come in and bring a few of your managers and basically we set you up. We set your company up for everything and then you come in and you just start working instead of going through the bureaucracy. It seems simple, but you know how it is in Ukraine. Everything is in Ukrainian. Everything is kind of hard.
Robbie Kramer [00:28:39]:
It was hard enough to get my residency and work permit. Luckily I had our buddy Tassos for that. He took me all the offices and he’s flirting with this lady and that lady. Yeah, I didn’t know anything that’s happening. It’s all in Ukrainian. I’m just sitting there.
Yoni [00:28:56]:
Exactly. Okay, I hope I’m even the immigration services are all in Ukrainian so if you come like speaking English, they don’t even know what the fuck is going on. So basically we’re going to give you the solution of you completely. You tell us what you want. You tell us. I want this, I want that, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we put it all in, we get it all done for you. Legal HR like PR everything. So this is something I’m working on. I’m setting up. The company is already open. Going to be hiring people and getting an office. I don’t know which city yet. Probably going to be in Kiev. But I’m in Lviv.
Robbie Kramer [00:29:37]:
So what are things like in Lviv now? What are things like in Kiev now? I’m guessing you’ve been to Kiev since, right?
Yoni [00:29:46]:
Yeah, I’ve been to know. Kiev is my favorite city in the world. But it’s a little bit yeah, it’s missing something. It’s all the same city. It’s all the same, you know, a little bit of the I guess the excitement. You could understand why, but something is missing.
Robbie Kramer [00:30:07]:
Right.
Yoni [00:30:08]:
Leviv, on the other hand, has always been a sleeper town. Not a sleeper town, but like a chill, like family orientated. I used to like to come here for a weekend with a girlfriend and run away from here. Now you remember the old city, right? Very beautiful place. Now you see almost every day, especially when it’s sunny. But not only when it’s sunny. Packed with people. Absolutely packed. All the restaurants are open, all the cafes are open every day. And I guess the life moved a little bit west in Ukraine now, because even though rockets are still flying, sirens are almost every day. But it’s not as they don’t throw as many rockets here as in Kiev. In Kiev, they could throw 50, 60 a day. Here they could throw three, four, something like that. One of them would hit once in a while. So people just continue with their life because you can’t stop. Obviously, the first couple of weeks, everybody stopped everything. But now life must go on.
Robbie Kramer [00:31:18]:
It just kind of becomes like a normal thing, right?
Yoni [00:31:20]:
It became a rocket. Yeah, until there’s a rocket a few days ago that fell on a residential building. Until then, people relax when they hear a siren. They don’t even go into the underground. And then one hits and kills a few people. So people start going back into the shelters again. And that’s how it is. This is the routine for over a year and a half now. But it’s a lot more relaxed here.
Robbie Kramer [00:31:50]:
To be honest, because there’s still a curfew in Kiev, right?
Yoni [00:31:52]:
All over the country, for solidarity with the rest. Right. You can’t be clubbing in Leviv and people are dying in Bachmut. So solidarity wise, curfews from twelve to five everywhere.
Robbie Kramer [00:32:05]:
Got it. So midnight, everything shuts down. So the whole nightlife industry is effectively just now, dinner.
Yoni [00:32:13]:
Oh, yeah, dinner, dinner, and that’s it. Some places are open, but then, honestly, I don’t feel comfortable, like, partying too much when shit like that is going. Some guy in Kiev, especially a lot of places like you see on the news, all got raided. Dudes are. Sitting jessica Fey and arena, places like sky, bars like that. People are partying and dancing. I don’t know. You know how much I like to party, but.
Robbie Kramer [00:32:45]:
If you’re not partying, I don’t feel 100% partying.
Yoni [00:32:48]:
I don’t feel 100% with it. I do private, very small parties like me and a few girls. That’s it. On the weekends. That’s it?
Robbie Kramer [00:32:59]:
Yeah. So what’s happened with your dating life? Because we both started dating girls when I met my wife, and then I think you guys obviously broke up. And that was before the war.
Yoni [00:33:12]:
Yeah, that was before the war. Well, I got into work a little bit, so I wasn’t oh, actually, no. I was dating this one girl before the war started. And then I don’t know, man. I’m jealous of you that you could I’m still finding my niche in the relationship in the relationship department, man. I don’t know. Especially right now when there’s not much going on. This would be like the perfect time to settle down and have somebody with you and stuff like that. But I don’t know, man. Maybe it’s not meant to be. I don’t know, man.
Robbie Kramer [00:33:53]:
I don’t know. I feel like it’s kind of like dependent on your partner because for me, I was in the same boat as you that’s never going to like the whole idea of monogamy for me was like, no, not interested in that. Why would I? But then, I don’t know. I changed my opinion. Obviously, Maria probably had something to do with that, but my desire for Strange basically went down to the point where there wasn’t enough motivation for me to care, and I kind of just shifted. I feel like I just stopped playing that game and got interested in playing a different game, which is like the business game, the getting good at golf again game, which golf was my passion. That was my entire life up until the end of college. And I didn’t even focus on girls at all. And then once I realized I wasn’t going to be on the PGA Tour, I was like, all right, well, let me play a new game. That’s when I got into pickup and dating and all that stuff, and I became obsessed in the same sort of way. And now it’s back to golf. So my desire for all the things that I used to do and all the fun and all the craziness, all the trips and parties, I just don’t care. And I guess that’s I mean, I’m glad that I don’t care because it’s just something I don’t have to spend a bunch of money and time and effort on. But it’s also like I’m sure if something happened and I found myself single again, I’m guessing I would just dive right back into that.
Yoni [00:35:32]:
I’m actually looking for that. I’m looking like you to find something more interesting. And I don’t know, man. Work is my main, basically for the last two years I’ve been like headfirst into work and working twelve hour days and stuff like that and investing a lot of time, energy, sweat and tears into it. But I don’t know. And then Friday comes around and you’re like, okay, maybe I’ll go on a date and then fuck it. I just want to make a small party, forget about what’s going on during the week. I just want to forget about all that. Let’s drink a little bit, let’s hang out with some girls. I don’t know, but I think if any time is good, it’s this time. So, yeah, the autumn coming up and then I don’t know, we’ll see. We’ll try to find somebody that maybe is going to make me like you. Maybe make me forget about all this nonsense shenanigans that we’ve been doing for so long.
Robbie Kramer [00:36:45]:
Well, the shenanigans are fun. There’s so many guys that you and I know that kind of had an interesting path where they effectively know had a baby, got married for a second and then kind of just like left that and went back to the single life talking about obviously, V Stefan. It was almost like I felt like they planned that in a weird way.
Yoni [00:37:26]:
I think a lot of people do, or a lot of people are trying it and then they leave their babies and their baby mamas. They leave them. I’m not like that. It would be very hard for me to do that. For me, it’s not okay if I commit. It’s very hard for me to it’s not backstab, but disappoint. The person that believed in me and dedicated their life to me and brought a child with me, I couldn’t just leave like that. So maybe that’s why I’m really picky about who. So I don’t really click for that long to have that next step to say I don’t want to, I’m not do, but I want to be responsible. And if I do, I want it to be meaningful, at least for a long time, not just to pop a baby and try to pay child support and not being able to fly up.
Robbie Kramer [00:38:39]:
To Dubai and party.
Yoni [00:38:43]:
I’m not like that in my nature. So if I settle down, it’s going to be for a long time with a lot of responsibility. And it might sound weird from a person like me, but till death to us part would be like that. I would want to stay until then. This is what I’m looking for. And that’s why most of the girls that all of them until now that I meet don’t interest me that much. That I’m sitting there and I’m thinking, okay, this is it. I would like to be for a long time, at least, if not forever. So until I find that one person, I don’t want to just pop babies and be irresponsible. There’s enough babies in the world that need fathers, man. I don’t want to make another one like that.
Robbie Kramer [00:39:29]:
Sure, yeah, I’m in the same boat as you and yeah, I mean, I can’t really sit here and say that was intentional or whatever. I’m sure it wasn’t. I’m sure at the time.
Yoni [00:39:40]:
Never say never. You never know. Never say never. Yeah, you never know.
Robbie Kramer [00:39:45]:
It’s just this sort of popular thing. Maybe I’ve seen it’s like a trend. It’s like you’re the playboy and then all of a sudden you get someone pregnant, you play dad for a little bit, and then once you have that set up, it’s like you go back to the playboy lifestyle. I’m like, I don’t know.
Yoni [00:40:01]:
It’s not sincere, man. Almost like you said, it almost seems like they planned it ahead of time. And I would never plan something like that. I would never promise somebody to be with them forever when I don’t mean it. I could mean it, and then things could change. But I cannot plan ahead of time. Oh, I’m going to pop a baby in some time and I’m going to go to Dubai to party. No, I can’t do that. I would want somebody that I would want to stay with if the situation changes and stuff like that. I would hope that I can deal with it and not let it fall apart. But if it does, I tried. I didn’t plan ahead of time to pop a baby and disappear.
Robbie Kramer [00:40:46]:
Can you give any insight know, obviously before the war, know, Ukraine was like Disneyland for single dudes. Especially like Western single were who were looking to date know, the ratio of men to women was always very favorable. The nightlife was insane.
Yoni [00:41:07]:
Obviously.
Robbie Kramer [00:41:08]:
Now I’m sure things are radically different. I know a ton of Ukrainian women have left and gone to Warsaw, Germany, Berlin. It’s like I’ve got lots of clients in Berlin. I’ve got a few clients that are in Warsaw, and they’re running around talking to girls, doing their day game approaches. Whatnot? And most of the girls that they meet that they actually like are Ukrainian refugees. So I guess my question is.
Yoni [00:41:39]:
Have.
Robbie Kramer [00:41:39]:
You seen anything interesting about that? Is there any sort of dating scene? Do you think those girls will come back once the war is over? What do you think is going to go on from there? Perspective.
Yoni [00:41:50]:
Look, at the beginning, a lot of people left right now. A lot of them came back still. The numbers are still crazy of people that stayed. But also at the same time, a lot of the guys here are just in the army here, right? So still the ratio of guys to girls is still, I think, the same, if not even more. But right now, meaning there’s more women because the guys are on linear still more women. It’s different because it’s very hard to be not even party, but to be extra happy. It would look weird if you say in a restaurant and everybody is laughing and stuff. Yeah, you could laugh, obviously, but you read the news every day and you see what’s going on in the front lines and then sirens are going out once in a while. Some of the life happiness is a little bit missing. So it’s not like we used to go to a restaurant, sit around laughing, nonstop music, girls picking up girls, like inviting them to the table. There’s not of that vibe anymore because it would look weird, like a local girl. I became local also. I stayed here, even though I didn’t have to, I stayed here. And I understand that a local girl could not be seen in a club, like party, stuff like that. We used to karaoke, singing songs and stuff. It’ll be very weird right now and I understand that. What are you going to do? Family, friends, bombs are flying on buildings. You probably have some family in occupied territory somewhere in the south. A little bit of that lovely happiness about life is a little bit drained or a little bit on hold for now. But as far as dating, you can always go on the date here. Badu is crazy. I don’t go to because I don’t have the energy or I don’t really.
Robbie Kramer [00:44:10]:
I thought Badoo was more like a Russian site.
Yoni [00:44:14]:
No, it’s worldwide. And here it’s pretty oh, yeah.
Robbie Kramer [00:44:18]:
I guess it’s in Southeast Asia, too. Interesting.
Yoni [00:44:21]:
Yeah, it’s over Tinder wide. I don’t know. I’ve been blocked from Tinder a long time ago, so I couldn’t tell you. I had a girlfriend at the time. We were looking for a threesome, so they blocked me forever, man.
Robbie Kramer [00:44:36]:
What about seeking?
Yoni [00:44:39]:
Seeking? What’s that?
Robbie Kramer [00:44:40]:
You haven’t heard of Seeking? It used to be called seeking arrangements.
Yoni [00:44:44]:
No.
Robbie Kramer [00:44:45]:
It’s a Sugar Daddy sugar Baby site. It used to be, but now it’s kind of more mainstream. I just saw an ad on LinkedIn for it.
Yoni [00:44:55]:
Right.
Robbie Kramer [00:44:55]:
If they’re advertising on LinkedIn, you know, they’ve gone mainstream. And it’s like where successful men go to meet beautiful women.
Yoni [00:45:04]:
Is it?
Robbie Kramer [00:45:05]:
Oh, yes. It’s become incredibly popular. I mean, still, most people haven’t heard of it, but if I meet a hot girl in La and I ask her, do you know what Seeking is? Nine out of ten are going to say yes, and probably five out of ten might have a profile. Maybe they won’t admit it because there’s a little bit of a stigma there. But it’s like a link to only fans, right? First you get on Seeking and then you explore the Sugar Baby, Sugar Daddy world, and then you’re like, fuck it, I’ll just build an only fans and become a full. Right? So it’s a fast track. It’s the gateway drug to.
Yoni [00:45:47]:
See. I’ll look into that. I’ll see if it’s what’s going on here.
Robbie Kramer [00:45:53]:
It was relatively popular in Kiev. Before.
Yoni [00:46:02]:
I’ll look into that, our next podcast, I’ll fill you in on what the situation with that is. Badu here is pretty famous. Tinder I don’t know because I haven’t been so I don’t know what’s going on. But even on the streets, in restaurants, and you always see girls, couples walking around. Lots and lots and lots of stuff going on. I just don’t have the patience. I have 80 workers now, so my head is completely filled in with this stuff. So I don’t really go on dates and stuff like that. But you the potential.
Robbie Kramer [00:46:36]:
You’ve got a social circle. Extraordinaire still kept some of it.
Yoni [00:46:42]:
Yeah.
Robbie Kramer [00:46:44]:
Remember when we were in Odessa and we’re just like, all right, we’re leaving tomorrow. We’re leaving tomorrow. We’re leaving tomorrow. Just kept staying, moving from airbnb to airbnb because we’d get kicked out for partying. And then it was just a revolving door of girls coming through.
Yoni [00:47:03]:
I think we started off your birthday and it came back a week later or something like that.
Robbie Kramer [00:47:07]:
Something like that, yeah, exactly. I never left.
Yoni [00:47:11]:
Eventually, actually, I’ve heard that Odessa opened up a few of their swimming beaches up, right? So I might actually go next month at the beginning of September, which is still like, good season. I might go check it out. I’ll let you know what’s going on there. But I hear Odessa is still pretty bumping.
Robbie Kramer [00:47:33]:
Even if it’s going to bump. Odessa always partied harder than Kiev. In a lot of ways. I felt like it’s more of that party destination beach town.
Yoni [00:47:45]:
Yeah, it’s like nobody knows me. I’ll fucking do whatever, and I’ll go back without any shame back home. I’ll leave the shame over there. I’ll come back home, clean slate, nothing happened. I think I’ll try to go check it out. I’ll let you know how it goes. Also in Kiev. I’ve been into Kiev a few times. Like I told you, I couldn’t pick myself to go to Jessica Fair or something like that to a party. But still, people want to do something at night. And hotel parties. By the way, I’m pretty sure you heard that last winter, the Russian motherfuckers start blowing up our power supplies and power plants and stuff like that. So ever since then, I live in hotels, man. Like, I’m in a hotel right now.
Robbie Kramer [00:48:37]:
Because they have their own generators, right?
Yoni [00:48:39]:
Yeah. The five star hotels, they have generators. So I live in hotels now because it was impossible, man. The experience I’ve never experienced in my life, man. You’re sitting at home minus five outside, minus three inside. You’re eating something from a can you open a can? You eat something. And then you’re like on your phone if you have connections. Because when the power outage, usually the Internet connection also falls if you’re lucky. And there’s some Internet. So you’re on YouTube watching Ukrainian propaganda. And then in the middle of the night, you’re like, oh, fuck, 2%. You’re like, okay. When it runs out, I’ll go downstairs to the car to charge it. And then the phone dies. And then what happens? You can’t find the keys, man. Pitch Black. Everything is completely black. And you’re like, oh, no, man. And you’re like you’re like scrambling to find some matches or lighter to look for keys for the car. Bro, I’ve never been in a situation like that in my life, man. The craziest, craziest thing. You sleep With Your Jackets with a whole bunch of blankets and Then oh, man. In the morning. You go into the car. You all like this, trying to plug in your phone into the song. It’s crazy, man. They got us good on that, man. The winter was not a joke. And the winter was luckily, the winter was relatively compared to all the other years was really hot. The worst that it came down to is, like, minus five. And you know how he can get here. He can get to -25 if it Was -25 would have been eating shit Here. You won’t believe. Yeah.
Robbie Kramer [00:50:24]:
You forget how much you rely on electricity until you don’t.
Yoni [00:50:27]:
You forget how you get it for granted. You take it for granted, man. Like, Electricity. Who would have thought? And I’m Telling you, once you Realize.
Robbie Kramer [00:50:36]:
It’S fine if the power goes out, I could just stay on my Phone. It’s like, oh, until your phone dies. And Then you forget to use your Phone as a flashlight. And then that’s done.
Yoni [00:50:45]:
Exactly.
Robbie Kramer [00:50:46]:
Every night I get up to Pee.
Yoni [00:50:48]:
In the middle of the night.
Robbie Kramer [00:50:48]:
I use my phone as a flashlight. I rely on that thing. And you forget. Second brain. You forget.
Yoni [00:50:55]:
And you forget because you’re on the Phone. You’re like. Oh, he’s going to die. I’m going to go downstairs. And you’re like, okay, died. How the fuck do I get the keys now? Holy Fuck.
Robbie Kramer [00:51:05]:
I can’t where my keys are. My air TAG’s not working. What’s going dead. Everything’s Dead. I’m going to freeze to Death.
Yoni [00:51:12]:
Crazy. No. Crazy, crazy situations.
Robbie Kramer [00:51:16]:
What I’ve heard. One of my buddies who is still living in Kiev, he was just back visiting La. He thinks they’re going to go after the power Grid Again. Super know for the will.
Yoni [00:51:35]:
They Will. They’re Already Scouting the places, and there’s a lot of their Spies here and stuff like that. I think they will. I hope they don’t have much firepower left to actually implement a lot of it. But these bastards yeah, that’s what they’re going to try. They’re going to try to freeze us to death.
Robbie Kramer [00:51:54]:
With all the 100% missile defense that Ukraine has received. Is that helping significantly?
Yoni [00:52:01]:
It’s helping. But it’s a huge country, man. You know how many patriot systems you need to cover, even just like Lviv and Kharkiv. And there’s so many air defense systems in the world to cover Ukraine. So whatever they send us, we thank them very much for. Whatever they send them. But it’s not enough to block the skies and to actually get, like, full power, full coverage. And then they start hitting other stuff. So probably they’re moving the air defense systems to other places and then it’s a game of hide and seek kind of thing. They’re doing a good job because from whatever happened at the beginning of the war that they were just hitting whatever they wanted at any time they wanted. Now we give them a fight for it. So now they got a thing. But still rockets penetrate the defense systems and then they hit something and when they hit something, it’s a miss.
Robbie Kramer [00:53:10]:
What’s the sentiment towards have you noticed a shift in sentiment at all about the war or about how things are being conducted in terms of policy? People supporting Zelensky still?
Yoni [00:53:26]:
Totally, yeah, it’s still like 100% behind Zelensky. Zelensky did an amazing job. The fact that he didn’t run when they told him to evacuate everybody, it’s not even about Zelensky now. It’s about how the west wants to have peace talks and stuff like that. Zelensky doesn’t have a say. People here are not willing to give him an inch of the land because it’s too deep in what they did to Ukraine. They’re not going to forget this for generations, man butcher and herpen and Kharkiv area. They raped kids, they slaughtered people, they executed people in their head with their hands tied down behind their backs. It’s going to be for generation. There’s absolutely nothing you can do. And as far as conducting the war, yeah, there’s some questions, but everybody’s doing their maximum. So like the counter offensive right now that’s been talking about it for so long, it’s not going so well, but we’re hoping that something is going to give. Right, but everybody here is in one opinion, like there’s absolutely no other opinions. Not Crimea, not don’t bust, nothing. We’re not going to give them an inch. And if it takes five or ten years or whatever, we’re already used to the war, we’re used to the thing. There’s absolutely nothing stopping us right now. Every rocket that hits instead of what they think that they’re going to get us to surrender or something like that. No, it gets us even more mad. As soon as people leave their shelter, they donate to the army, to drones and donate to the thing just to get these bastards back. Nobody even says, I’ve never met somebody or heard of anybody saying, oh yeah, maybe we should stop. No, we’re not going to stop until we finish it once and for all. Because otherwise if we stop now, they’re just going to keep on coming. They’re just going to regroup and going to come in five years, ten years, it’s just going to play to their advantage.
Robbie Kramer [00:55:53]:
I feel like Americans really miss that point. I was at a Shabbat dinner recently. My uncle’s a rabbi and he’s close friends with Dennis Prager, if you’ve heard of him. He’s a nationally syndicated radio host, very conservative, and the conversation at dinner got political. It was a really interesting conversation because they were very conservative. I don’t even have an opinion in terms of where I’m at. I don’t know, I’m maybe lean a little bit more conservative, but I’m also sort of a liberal. I don’t know. I obviously support everything Zelensky’s done and the efforts there. And the conversation turned to supporting Ukraine. And now with the elections coming up, I feel like whoever the Republican candidate is, is going to run anti Biden in terms of support for Ukraine, like, why are we supporting this war? Why are we sending money? What’s happening? And I think that’s totally fucked and shitty. But that’s the reality of reality.
Yoni [00:56:56]:
That’s the reality of politics. I think that actually the right wing, like the Conservatives actually more against Russia and stuff like that. But right now, before the elections, they’re playing, as usually politics are. They are going against Biden’s stand. I believe that even if there is a regime change in the States, I don’t think much is going to yeah, I believe so, because that’s the opposite.
Robbie Kramer [00:57:29]:
Sentiment that I’ve heard. It’s like, if the US stops supporting, they think Ukraine is fucked. But of course, Americans are saying here.
Yoni [00:57:40]:
Yeah, we are fucked. But at the beginning of the war, when Russia had a lot more power, a lot more power than they have now, and we had a lot less power than we had now, the sheer willpower and the will to protect your home and your loved ones, that’s what got us to the point that the west started helping us. Before that, what did we like? They gave us helmets. It’s not going to be a complete thing. We’ll have to rethink how to fight them. But even if tomorrow everything stops, like the aid from the West, I still think we will manage. It’s going to be much harder. But at the other, like, you can think about it. The other hand, too. Why the hell takes them so long to help us properly? Right?
Robbie Kramer [00:58:38]:
Like, why not give them planes? Day one, we’re scared Putin’s going to nuke us. It’s like, come on.
Yoni [00:58:44]:
Exactly. So all these Ukrainian soldiers, young boys that are dying, what, you don’t care about them? You can understand both sides. We thankful for what they give us. 100%. We think that they could do more. But at the same time, it’s the state’s money is the state’s thing. Even though you know what realistically, what they give us is like, old stocks. The money that’s been thrown out in the news, it’s not actual money. It’s a value of a Humvee that hasn’t been used for two decades, is not $100,000.
Robbie Kramer [00:59:22]:
If people think America is giving state of the art equipment or anything like that, not even come on. Yeah, they’re giving shit that they would probably have never used or sold to never use.
Yoni [00:59:34]:
It’s been concentrated. It’s been written off. So when they tell you they send 3 billion, they sell you the MSRP for a Humvee. You know what I mean?
Robbie Kramer [00:59:46]:
Right.
Yoni [00:59:46]:
They’re not sending you $3 billion worth of equipment. Yeah, if we’re lucky, from the MLRS. Like, the high Marsees are like, 80s developed weapons that nobody used them ever. The truth is always somewhere in the middle. Yes, there is a big help from the States. Yes. But it’s not all that that they say, and we’re obviously thankful for that. But by taking it back to the elections, I don’t think much will change. I even think that it will be somebody if there’s a regime change, I believe it will be somebody more like the guy from Florida or whatever. What’s his name? Santis. And he has to say something against Biden because his agenda needs to be against Biden. But I think if he gets into the office, I think there’s going to be even more help for Ukraine to finish it faster. And this is the funny part, we can actually finish it faster. Give us some planes, give us some this, give us some that. We can finish this.
Robbie Kramer [01:00:56]:
What doesn’t make sense is the quasi support. It’s like either support or don’t. And if you’re going to support, just give them everything, because obviously they’re not going to give everything. But I think they gave, like, 50 Abrams tanks. What the fuck are you going to do with 50?
Yoni [01:01:13]:
Not even 15.
Robbie Kramer [01:01:18]:
And I think the US has 5500 of them or something. I could be way off, but the amount of tanks they gave was laughable. Just the amount of Abrams tanks laughable. It’s like, and what the fuck is going to what are you going to do with 15 tanks? Right?
Yoni [01:01:35]:
It’s these stupid politics, man. It’s politics. Give them enough, but don’t give them enough to do that. And they don’t want Russia to fall apart and then having nukes all over the place. But if you’re talking about lives, like, okay, you have these politics in the offices and kids are dying. The it’s one of the clear cut wars since World War II. It’s very black and white. There’s no if so buts they rolled into here thinking that we’re going to accept them and be their slaves and stuff like that, and you just don’t do that. And then the world is coming together to help us, but just enough for us not to fall. It’s frustrating, but at the same time, I believe that Ukraine needs to deal with these bastards alone and then say that we beat them alone, like Ukraine beat them. Not all of these narratives that they try to push through the things that they’re fighting against, all NATO and stuff like that.
Robbie Kramer [01:02:46]:
NATO soldier yeah, there’s equipment not good enough, but who cares? You need to operate the equipment.
Yoni [01:02:51]:
It’s not good enough. At the end, when everything is said and done, the victory needs to be on Ukraine, not on NATO, not on the United States. Ukraine needs to say we are the clear winners. That’s it.
Robbie Kramer [01:03:05]:
Yeah, well, that’s certainly the case. Have you noticed any changes in dead soldiers coming back since they started the offensive? Or as time goes on, obviously, because you see these body counts. I’m on a few different telegram channels. Of course it’s mostly Ukrainian propaganda, but the stats I’ve seen are like 250,000 dead Russians. And they say that obviously the Ukrainians are significantly less, but still significant. But they say every dead soldier affects like 100 people. That’s some stat I heard.
Yoni [01:03:47]:
This is the sad part. Yeah, this is the sad part. And here, I think they’re dealing with it because at the beginning when I was living here, you would see trucks every morning that break dead soldiers. It’s called 200. 200 means dead soldier. I think now they’re dealing with it a little bit more to bring it down for people not to see it, because it raises up a lot of emotions. So I think maybe they start moving them at nighttime or something like that. It’s very sad, man. It’s uncalled for all these young Ukrainians. Not only young, know what they say here? That Russia is losing all the absolute no good people. And we’re here losing our best, our finest. And this is very sad. I know a lot of people that went, a business owner beside my office is like this young guy, entrepreneur, very good. And one day he just broke, probably. He didn’t even say why, but he wasn’t planning all of a sudden all of a sudden he’s like, tomorrow I’m going to the front. I’ve had it. And this is what he said, it affects 100 people. You never know, he heard maybe one of his friends fell or whatever, one of his relatives in the occupation got forbid, like raped or something like that. And it just affects people. Very crazy. And we’re losing the best people here. Even your friend there, Roman, the young guy. Yeah, I see him on Facebook once in a while, bro. He’s in some dangerous situations, man. Oh, yeah? I don’t know.
Robbie Kramer [01:05:40]:
I hope he’s been on CNN a few times because he’s a great blogger. He’s on the front lines. He’s a sniper, but he films a lot of content and he’s very good about posting it. And yeah, I’m scared from all the.
Yoni [01:05:55]:
Time because I don’t know him that much, but I’m very scared of him because this is a fine guy, man. And look what they send here, man. Did you see the fucking what they send here? Like the garbage of the garbage. Like these drunk fucking assholes that want to rape children and stuff like that. So this is the harsh reality, man. I hope that once the dust settles and everything is fine, I hope we’re going to have the good guys left here, that we can rebuild the country here and make it really what it’s supposed to be. But right. Now. It’s very sad, man. Very sad. Really. I see some very good guys that are going to the front, and you never know when they’re going to come out or not. I see a lot of Israeli guys that a lot of Israeli died here. Guys with special ops and stuff like that. They were training, then they were fighting. Very sad, man. Very sad. And then we see their fucking generals, like their fucking drunk fucking faces. Like fucking, like puffy fucking faces. You see that? He’s been drinking fucking all his life. This fucking motherfucker sending fucking their young fucking drunk kids to fucking die. The injustice here is ridiculous, man. Ridiculous.
Robbie Kramer [01:07:10]:
Yeah. It’s so sad because it’s like, at the end of the day, it’s like, for what?
Yoni [01:07:16]:
Absolutely nothing, man. Absolutely nothing. Absolutely. I still try to sit with myself once in a while and understand what the fuck made them. What the fuck? For what?
Robbie Kramer [01:07:32]:
Yeah, I’m curious. I listen to all the John. I think it’s mershheimer or meshmeyer. He was one of the big political professors talking about analyzing Putin, and he had a bunch, know, talking about NATO and how the west shouldn’t intervene. This was many, many years before the war, and he kind of predicted the war, so there’s that, and there’s a bunch of different YouTubers and guys talking about why it’s happening or what Putin’s motives are. The one that makes the most sense to me just taking, like, Occam’s razor, which is the likely answer, is probably the answer. But when Putin’s had very low approval ratings, he’s always started a know, Chechnya, Syria. And I felt like his approval rating was definitely hurting because of Navalny. He was gaining a lot of popularity. And the thing that makes the most sense to me and I’m no fucking expert, of course, but it makes the most sense to me that he may have started the conflict as a way to rally the country behind him. And obviously he’s a corrupt, selfish dude. Him and his cronies are all on their yachts and just essentially raping the Russian population of their money. He knows if he loses power, he’s dead. Maybe that played in, I don’t know. What are your thoughts on that?
Yoni [01:09:02]:
Okay, but then all this huge country with these vast resources didn’t realize that we’re not going to roll over and let him in or what.
Robbie Kramer [01:09:11]:
How is that no, just as a motive. Like, why did Putin start the war?
Yoni [01:09:16]:
Well, I believe the motive, honestly, I believe that he’s been in power for too long. Like, a lot of the world leaders currently, like Bibi Netanyao, for example, they lose touch with reality. They lose touch with things. They just absolutely surround themselves, absolutely corrupts. And then they surround themselves with people that only yes men, and they lose complete touch with reality. He actually thought they actually came in the first waves came in here not to fight, but to manage crowds, you know that, right? The soldiers came in first, and then they were bringing in the crowd management with these shields and stuff like that. And how can you be so detached from reality to actually think that you’re going to roll in here and you’re going to be in Kiev in three days and you’re going to have to manage some uprisings and stuff like that, like minor ones? So I think that he’s been in power for 30 years. I believe that for him it’s already a game him and it was basically like a power trip that he wanted to I don’t think it was some kind of bro. They’ve been rigging fucking elections for so long, he doesn’t even care about his power. Because for the first elections maybe also with a lot of manipulations with the blowing up with Chechnya and stuff like that. So he got to power to that. That was manipulation. The second elections he didn’t get elected, they were just drawing numbers, whatever they wanted to so I don’t think that moved them one bit. I think that is craziness and detachment for reality and wanting to be one of these great Tsars of Russia, the conqueror of lands and stuff like that. And I think it was like a big computer game for him, even though he’ve never seen a computer in his that’s that’s in my opinion, because it’s unrealistic that they didn’t know, they should have known. But he was so arrogant that he’s so powerful and big and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that he thought he’s going to roll in here, everybody’s going to accept him and he’s going to be the next Tsar of Russia. Honestly, the elections, I don’t think it bothers them one bit, man, their media is controlled, everything is controlled, their voting is controlled actually he made himself such a stupid move that if he didn’t roll into Ukraine he could have lived with Crimea for another 10, 15, 20 years. He could have actually went down in history as like the conqueror of crimea because there was no, ukraine wouldn’t attack crimea if this didn’t happen. We wouldn’t yeah, we would have gathered some conferences and said, oh, it’s bad that crimea is in Russia, blah blah, but nobody would have attacked. So he could have actually kept it. But now you opened a big can of worms that it’s not going to shut down, it’s not going to close until it’s over and hopefully we’ll get crimea back and everything back and we’re going to teach this motherfucker a lesson.
Robbie Kramer [01:12:37]:
Hope so, yeah, who knows why he did it or what but hopefully I think he regrets it. I hope he regrets it now it’s too late. Bad man, I feel like too late.
Yoni [01:12:54]:
For regrets, man, too late for regrets now it’s paid time, it’s payback time.
Robbie Kramer [01:13:00]:
Now hopefully he knows he’s made a huge mistake yeah.
Yoni [01:13:09]:
He’S detached from reality I think just now he start understanding. He start digging and start understanding that he did a fucking the stupidest mistake since Napoleon Hitler times. This is up there with the thing. But actually this is one of the things that a lot of the comparison to Hitler. Did you see that? It was amazing. Did you see the book that he wrote? No. Did you see the book that he wrote? My Struggle. You never really like mindcomp, bro. I thought it was a meme first. He’s doing a judo. Like, there’s a book he’s doing a judo fucking swing. And My Struggle, man, I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a prank. I thought it was a Russian ukrainian propaganda. Look it up. And he’s got a book called My Struggle in the bookstores. Fucking crazy.
Robbie Kramer [01:14:07]:
Wow.
Yoni [01:14:08]:
Very crazy. Very crazy. So this guy, I think Hitler is actually his role model or something like that, because he attacked Kiev at 04:00 in the morning and fucking this and that or like a whole bunch of parallel fucking things, man. This guy’s crazy. Nuts.
Robbie Kramer [01:14:24]:
So what’s your plan next? You’re going to stay in Lviv? Eventually maybe move back to know where would you move back if the war ended?
Yoni [01:14:36]:
Well, well, now I have an operation set up here, like a business set up here. So I think I will leave that here also. And I think I will branch out to, I think Kiev first and then because Kharkiv is still too close for comfort, man, these bastards, they’re throwing rockets for breakfast, man. Like these motherfuckers, man. So I think soon, I think either probably next spring, I will start thinking about moving into Kiev also opening a branch there, opening the company that I told you about, business development here and yeah, probably Kiev. And then Kharkiv really entered my heart. So I do miss it. And I do really want to do something there and rebuild it when the time is right. But right now, in this kind of war, man, it’s one day at a time. And I’ll be honest with you, all the plans that we’ve been planning has been just been shifted. Every rocket, every new situation, everything has been shifted. So trying to plan ahead of time, but it’s more of future goals than actual business plan. Step by step. But we’ll be really glad to Kiev I will come back to for sure and be really glad to also come back to Kharkiv eventually.
Robbie Kramer [01:16:07]:
Yeah, I’m excited to go back. Know, the reason I haven’t been back yet is because my wife can’t leave the country until she gets her green card appointment. It’s been over a year. The bureaucracy is so know. Unless we went to the office and got like a special permit for her to leave. But my car is still sitting in Berlin in a parking lot with Ukrainian plates on it. I love that car too. I still have like half of my worldly belongings, including my laptop in my safe in my apartment in.
Yoni [01:16:46]:
Help. Yeah. If you need any help to recover anything, let me know.
Robbie Kramer [01:16:51]:
I had a bunch of stuff shipped back from my Airbnb tenant was nice enough to help me pack it up. But yeah, I’m doing a live boot camp. I’ve got the guys in my community coming in this weekend to get some infield experience. And we do a bunch of exercises where we bring in models and the guys get feedback from the models. I used to do all that in Kiev as you oh, man, it’s doing it here in the States compared to doing it in Kiev, it just fails in comparison. It’s just the nightlife so much better, so much more fun. You could walk around, you leave the street and sorry. You leave your apartment, you go down the street. It’s like every 20, 30 seconds you break your neck looking at a beautiful.
Yoni [01:17:40]:
Woman here for milk. You go for milk, you get three numbers. Yeah, that’s all it is here.
Robbie Kramer [01:17:48]:
I’m living in West La. And the amount of people you see are like the non binary or whatever the fuck is that a man or a woman? And you’re not allowed to say because and it’s just like you never even see anyone unless you go to the nice restaurants or clubs. It’s like you’re walking around. It’s like what happened here. Did a bomb go off? No one takes care of like, you can’t even go to maria went to a hair salon down the street and they wouldn’t even blow dry her hair. It’s like the attention to beauty and to detail and the amount that people give a shit about how they look in a place like La where you think those sort of narcissistic qualities would be high. No, it’s like nothing, right? It’s like people don’t take care of themselves. No one gives a shit. They don’t care if they’re a man or a woman or they’re confused.
Yoni [01:18:45]:
You know my theory about that? You know my theory? I’m sure I told you that before on our podcast. That when a girl gets hit on a million times a day. Just like in Israel and Canada, where I used to know, when a girl just gets hit on, like a million times a day, she starts letting it go. And then she sees I’m still getting hit on. Same amount of time. So I’m going to let that thing go and then not get makeup and then not do my hair. And then I still get the same amount, guys. So why should I buy that? What, should I go to the gym? Why should I get dressed? Why should I get this? And it’s that’s the reality. In Israel, it’s also same like that, because there is more guys than girls, so they get the attention anyways, whether they try or not.
Robbie Kramer [01:19:35]:
And here it’s still the theory is, as the ratio gets more and more.
Yoni [01:19:40]:
Skewed towards supply and demand.
Robbie Kramer [01:19:42]:
Women stop caring and taking care of.
Yoni [01:19:45]:
Themselves because supply and demand comes easy. Right, exactly. Supply and demand. The basic supply and demand. Man. If you have more women, they compete for less guys. So they try. They go to the gym, they get their makeup done, they get their hair done, and if they see, oh, I didn’t do my hair done today, and I still get picked up everywhere, like, stuff like that, so why should I get it the next day? Right. So it’s evolution. It’s pickup evolution, I guess.
Robbie Kramer [01:20:14]:
Pimponomics. Evolutionary psychology, if we’re being PC, I guess.
Yoni [01:20:20]:
Exactly. That’s the world you live in and the world I live in now, it’s still the same. But I will be very glad to see you, man. If you come for a visit, it will be very nice.
Robbie Kramer [01:20:35]:
Yeah, man. Definitely.
Yoni [01:20:38]:
I don’t encourage anybody right now because the obvious reasons, you never know. But I will be glad to host you here, and anybody that wants to come will be great. We really need visitors here.
Robbie Kramer [01:20:54]:
No, thanks. Got to drive from Berlin to Kiev, and Lviv is on the way.
Yoni [01:21:01]:
I just drove last month. I told you I drove to Croatia. That was a fun drive.
Robbie Kramer [01:21:09]:
Wow. You drove from Lviv?
Yoni [01:21:11]:
Oh, yeah. From Lviv, I drove to Budapest. Hung out in Budapest for a few nights, then drove to Croatia to Rica. Amazing place, man. Oh, my Lord. Like the nature. We rented a villa on the mountain with a view over the Gulf there. It was amazing. Then I drove back through Serbia, through it was also an experience.
Robbie Kramer [01:21:36]:
Did you drive to get to Belgrade? Did you go over the mountains from Croatia? Because there’s that big mountain range, the.
Yoni [01:21:45]:
The Adriatic the Adriatic Sea and then the Balkans. The Balkans.
Robbie Kramer [01:21:52]:
Balkans, right.
Yoni [01:21:53]:
Balkans.
Robbie Kramer [01:21:53]:
Did you go through Sarajevo or Montenegro or you were further?
Yoni [01:21:57]:
No, I went to reka through Zagrev, which is Croatia and Zagrev straight to Belgrade.
Robbie Kramer [01:22:05]:
Okay. Belgrade. Yeah. I also drove back in 2012. I did a big sort of Euro tour, euro trip with my buddy, and we rented a car in Barcelona, drove to Paris, north through Germany and Belgium, all the way over to Poland, down to Budapest, and ended up in Croatia and Split. Did you make it down to Split was?
Yoni [01:22:30]:
No. Yeah, it’s down south more. We didn’t really have time. But Split also here. That’s way too touristy. Because of the music festival? No. The HBO series with Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones? Yeah. People say that it’s hectic. So I don’t like those touristy places.
Robbie Kramer [01:22:53]:
A lot of that is Dubrovnik, which.
Yoni [01:22:55]:
Is where they yeah, Dubrovnik and Split also. So I don’t really like these hangouts. I like more of a local vibe. So Rekha was amazing like that. There was a lot of tourists, but, like, chill, like, not these fucking crazy fucking, like, the old money tourists. I guess. And yeah, it was fantastic, man. The nature there, like the Adriatic Sea and the Balkan mountains. Wow.
Robbie Kramer [01:23:23]:
I love Belgrade too. The thing that I found interesting about the women in the Balkans, or I guess former Yugoslavia I met in Croatia, I think I met three or four beautiful police officers who were also studying to be doctors. Really educated. Same in Belgrade. Like the Serbian women, the Croatian women, they’re tall, they’re beautiful, they’re smart. Obviously the guy population there is more competitive than I felt like Ukraine was. Guys are taller, a little bit more alpha, a little bit more edgy.
Yoni [01:24:07]:
Not only that, in the situation today, you know, Serbia is very pro Russian. So me driving my truck with the Ukrainian license plate, I was a little know, a nice know also alpha with tattoos and stuff like that at the window. They didn’t really like me there. But I don’t know, I had that too of a Soviet vibe there. It’s like a lot of gray buildings and stuff like that. I didn’t really like it. The Croatia was amazing, the orange rooftops and stuff like that and the small streets, it was very from the movies, was very nice. Serbia was too great for me, for my liking. Maybe because of that feeling right now, of the war and stuff like that, maybe that also contributes.
Robbie Kramer [01:25:00]:
What about Budapest? Because they have a Russian influence too.
Yoni [01:25:05]:
No, Budapest, they’re a lot more they only have that urban fucking dude that fucking their president. He’s the only one. Actually, they were very sympathetic towards Ukrainians. They really give us a good feeling about us coming.
Robbie Kramer [01:25:23]:
But also I was there after the war started as well, and I think I was there in April and yeah, I mean, I’m driving around with my car with Ukrainian plates on it. So didn’t have any problems in Budapest. But we decided not to go to Belgrade for that reason, because we were driving from Turkey. So we just skipped Belgrade because we knew it was very pro Russian.
Yoni [01:25:48]:
Yeah, you did smart. Also like Budapest. Too touristy for my liking. It’s way too touristy. It became like a tourist big thing, lots of good for them, good for them. But I used to go to Budapest.
Robbie Kramer [01:26:06]:
Every summer from like 2012 until 2017. I would go and I had lots of friends there. I’d go back every year, I would even run events there. And they have two big music festivals, they have ballatone sound and they’ve got Zegit. And over the years, from starting in 2016, 2017, I just saw Budapest transform into such a tourist trap and it.
Yoni [01:26:31]:
Just became and this is what I’ve seen now. And I’m telling you, I don’t like those vibes. I like locals, I like local vibes, I like the local culture. It’s good that they have a lot of tourists and I’m sure they’re making good money, but it loses the thing. I mean, every taxi driver is trying to rip you off, and we’re trying to go to a strip club. There some lady heard us. Oh, you want to go to a strip club? Sit here in the car, go there. They bring us to a strip club. Oh, my fucking Lord, man. I’ve never seen monsters like that in my life, man. So it’s these tourist traps, man. My face, I look like a bulldog, so they can’t really rip me off too, thing. But they don’t look like pigeon sheep. Yeah, I don’t look like a sweet guy, but still they bring me to this club, and I’m like, oh, my God. Come on, man. I don’t like that. I feel like a cow that’s walking through a milking station and they’re trying to milk you. It’s not my thing, man. That’s why I still like Kiev and even Lviv, which is a touristy place by definition. It’s still so much more gullible and so much more even that sense. They don’t see you as a dollar sign walking around, and you can actually enjoy the actual culture, like the local culture. And in Budapest, you don’t have that. There’s nothing local. Everything is touristy. Everything is to get as much money from you as possible. And they have the Jebby Oliver’s, and I’m not going to Budapest to eat the Jemmy Oliver’s or the Burger Kings and stuff like that. I want to see the local attractions and the local food and the local people and stuff like that, and it’s not my thing, man.
Robbie Kramer [01:28:34]:
Yeah, I feel you on that. No interest in going back to Budapest.
Yoni [01:28:39]:
Yeah.
Robbie Kramer [01:28:39]:
Well, dude, this has been awesome. Appreciate you sharing your wisdom about all the Ins and outs.
Yoni [01:28:47]:
So happy Ukrainian for you having we’ll keep in touch, man. I would like to do one of those more, maybe closer to the end of the war and fill you in and fill your viewers on the situation and maybe invite people here to come and visit when it’s safe enough that I can feel comfortable with inviting people to visit Ukraine and yeah. Thank you very much, man, and thank everybody.
Robbie Kramer [01:29:18]:
If people want to reach out, how can they find you Instagram?
Yoni [01:29:23]:
You can write down my Instagram. It’s easy, dagesh. Always been, always will be. If anybody is interested, please DM me for anything. Like, if you want to know anything about Ukraine, anything about business here or traveling here or whatever, I’ll be glad to answer any of the questions. Yeah. And if just anything pretty much you can ask me, I’ll be glad to answer.
Robbie Kramer [01:29:49]:
Awesome, dude. Thanks so much for coming on, and thanks for everyone for listening. Give us some love. Give us a, like send me a comment. Tell me I’m ugly.
Yoni [01:30:00]:
Do all the things yeah. Find me on Instagram. Also tell me I’m ugly. All right, it’s been a pleasure, man.
Robbie Kramer [01:30:12]:
Yeah, man.
Speaker C [01:30:13]:
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Robbie Kramer [01:30:26]:
All, and that’d be great.
Speaker C [01:30:27]:
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