Today morning started with bad news — our office was destroyed. The vacuum bob, forbidden in the whole world was sent to the Kharkiv City Hall and the second largest square in Europe — Freedom Square. As result, all windows in our office were broken. We hope at least the walls remained. How in the world is it possible, that we are facing a real war in the 2022 year in democracy world? How is it possible by the end of the day around 50 people are dead and 17 children too only in our city — Kharkiv. How is it possible?

Nobody could believe the war is yet to come. I recall that day very well — people at work were stressed out and my biggest fear was panic among the studio designers, so I was doing my best to calm it down. Who in the world knew the very next day, I and the co-founder of the studio will be evacuating documents and laptops from the office. Well, lucky we were to be in time to do that since starting from today we risk never seeing the office as it was.

The very first day we felt so shocked, that the only thing we could do is inform our clients, that they will have to wait for a small period until the conflict will be calmed down a bit. All of the employees of the studio remained in Kharkiv, Ukraine and decided to stay strong and stay together till the end.

A week before the war we have formed an anti-crisis budget and anti-crises management plan in case the war will come and we will need to survive. I hoped my employees will never face the reality are in now:

• we have unstable Internet since bombs are flying all over the city and just now 3 of them burnt a few buildings down;
• all the time you don’t know what will happen next moment, so it is extremely hard to make any plans even for the next 10 minutes;
• you sleep 3 hours per day as maximum because you can’t predict will the bombs fall next few minutes or not;
• you also have to deal with panic in bombs hiding places, deal with people who start stealing food and water from each other and deal with personal stress just to keep yourself well;
• also, you are starving since the food ends and you have nothing to eat.

In all these conditions our studio still decided to keep on working. We have supported all employees with full salaries the very first day of the war and have never lost connection since the first awful day. This was a heroic decision.

Days 2–5

The next few days all of us were getting ready to start working again and come back to normal life. Work is a perfect way out in the situations like that because it helps you to focus and believe you’re doing something useful.

Since we work in IT Sphere we have joined the Ukrainian IT War as it called to conduct informational war and support our country with it. Moreover, we started donating for the army’s needs and helping people next to us with food and other stuff like medicine and water. 4–5 interviews per day, official posts, announcements to volunteers — we were doing everything possible to let people know what is going on in Ukraine.

What is even more inspiring — all of this was happening while we were sitting under the ground — in metro stations, parking lots and hiding places. A good leader should master the courage at moments like this and let people know that the common goal will only help them feel better and feel united. What is even more important, a good leader should think about the future. War is not eternal. One day it will come to an end and we will have to live further. And there are 20 people in our studio, who still need and will need food, who will be able to feed their families who lost their workplaces. So saving company and business is a critical mission. Moreover, your money in situations like that can help the country to recover.

We are working for 2 days at the moment and I still can’t believe the war is going on there. Every day we hear expositions and bombs. There is no place to hide to ignore all of that. But still, we have a common goal here, that lets people stand together: we want peace and we want our Ukraine to remain calm and safe.

All Ukrainians are fighting these days. Many of them escaped to Poland. But we are staying in our city. It may cause some interruptions in the work process, but all of us will save Ukraine as it is now and will help it recover to become an even better country after. We believe in our victory and the fact, that the crimes of Putin should be stopped.

If You Want to Help

1. You can donate to our army — https://uahelp.monobank.ua
2. Gather humanitarian help: children food, water, porridge, meat — anything you can and send it here;
3. Join the informational and cyberwar and spread the news and air information you know all over the country; If you have journalists you know, give them contacts of our CEO — [email protected] to have an interview on the situation happening right now;
4. Join protests and demonstrations happening in your city to save Ukraine;
5. Join foreign legions for those who want to fight in Ukaine: https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3415272-how-to-join-international-legion-to-defend-ukraine-algorithm.html

All together we can survive this.

Special thanks to all employees of TheRoom and all clients who are ready to wait and support us. Each of you is a hero. Thank you. Ukraine needs you right now!