Taken from here ...Interview with Roman Konovalov (
Tolyanych ).
Tell us about yourself. Where did you grow up, where did you study?
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I was born in Penza. When I was 6 months old, my parents moved to Estonia, the city of Narva. Then it was one country. I grew up in Narva and graduated from school.
In the first year I studied in St. Petersburg, at BSTU (formerly Voenmech) at the Faculty of Physics and Mechanics, Department of Laser Systems. Then just began the exit of the republics from the Soviet Union. After completing the first course, they called for the dean and offered a choice - either to take Russian citizenship, or to transfer to Estonia. As a result, transferred to Tallinn, where he continued his studies at the Faculty of Informatics.
Computer education and directed the entire course of my work. All my work is related to IT.
Mom from the Tver region, dad come from Leninsk-Kuznetsk. Now they live in Narva.
Why did you decide to leave Estonia?There was a desire not only to leave Estonia, but to leave just to work abroad. Like all my friends, I was going to leave for America, and even started to prepare documents for departure. In the meantime, I began to look for a new job, so that I could learn more about the versatile. I stumbled upon an ad in a newspaper about a job as a programmer in Sweden. As a result, turned out to be in Sweden. And with America, somehow the idea has not advanced further.
You lived in Sweden, went on a business trip to India , now you are building a business in the UAE. Which countries have been able to visit, and which have not been, but I would like to?
Been in many European countries, often traveled to the States. There was a period in the work when during 9 months it was necessary to spend two weeks in Sweden, two - in America. I would like to visit Asian countries and countries of Latin America.
My classmate once said that he wanted to visit Australia, look at the kangaroo. I then thought it was a great idea - to go to Australia one day, you would see a kangaroo together :). So the list of countries where you want to go, is quite large.
And meet in Australia with Max Krainov ?Why not?! Moreover, he learns to play tennis, you can hold a friendly match. :)
How did you manage to get to work at Siemens? Connections?Just an ad in a Swedish newspaper. Initially, I worked in Sweden in the IT department of a textile company - we made a new information system for them. After a couple of years, when all the technical solutions were invented, the routine for adding new functionality began. It became boring. Here and caught the eye of the announcement of the set in Siemens. At that time, I didn’t speak Swedish at all, and I got on a project in which there were about 5% of Swedes. Our office in Gothenburg had employees from 9 different nationalities. The language of communication was English.
You probably know English perfectly already. What other languages ​​can you speak?I can in Swedish. This means that you can communicate with the Norwegians and, with a sin in half, with the Danes - Danish is a little harder to understand if you know Swedish. Previously, he could also in Estonian. But Estonian has almost forgotten due to the fact that there is no practice. To prevent this from happening in Sweden, I try to actively communicate with local Swedes and Swedish organizations. Especially from the Swedish business clubs in the UAE is real support.
Do foreigners have any special attitude to the Russians? How did this manifest itself in Sweden, India, the United Arab Emirates?
There is, and, unfortunately, it is not always positive. There is a typical confusion with concepts. If you speak Russian, it means from Russia, forgetting that they speak Russian both in Ukraine, and in Estonia, and in Uzbekistan. As a result, any problems associated with Russian speakers are automatically perceived as problems with Russians.
In Sweden, sometimes there is a very cautious attitude towards the Russian-speaking, since there is a lot of crime among the Russian-speaking population. The same is true in the UAE - crime, prostitution. If the prostitute speaks Russian, then for the locals it automatically means that she is from Russia.
But nevertheless, both in Sweden and in the United Arab Emirates they recognize the fact that there are many talented programmers among the Russians. Although I do not consider myself to be a particularly talented programmer, it’s still nice when an equal sign is put between you and the virtual “Russian talented programmer”.
I was pleased with the attitude towards Russians in India - cooperation with Russia has traditionally been strong there since the time of the Soviet Union. I used this fact to establish contacts with our Indian colleagues. If the contact is not established at work, you begin to communicate more informally and in one of the conversations you mention that you are not really any Swedes, but Russian. Often after that, many things were solved much faster.
I got the impression that Muslims and Arabs in particular are very conservative people. Is it so? Do women still wear a veil and do not open their faces to strangers? What other traditions, strange from the point of view of the Russian people, do they manifest?
There are not so many women in the UAE with closed faces. Mostly local women wear black traditional clothes and headscarves. Another thing - Saudi Arabia. They will not be allowed into the country if the woman’s head is not covered and their black clothes to the toe are not worn. There are a lot of women in the burqa, when only the eyes are open or the whole face is closed. Imagine you are sitting in a meeting, and among the interlocutors - women with closed faces. Emotions are not visible, the reaction to your words, too. What does she think about your words? It remains only to guess.
What was unusual for me at first was a break for prayer, even at meetings. You sit, talk, say, on the subject of sales, and how many percent who will receive it, and suddenly the interlocutors apologize and go out into the corridor for prayer. If there is no special room for prayer, then simply lay mats on the floor and kneel.
You lived among different nations. Is it possible to argue that each has its own characteristics, its own mentality?Sure you may. For example, it really gives me pleasure from time to time to sit in a warm company and drink cold vodka under the right snack. If I tell my partner to this Arab, then at least he will not understand me. In Sweden, I took colleagues to a Russian restaurant several times, it seemed that they realized that vodka with borsch or pancakes with caviar is very correct. So the Swedes are not all lost. :)
It is more difficult with Hindus - their culture is far from understanding for us. With the Arabs and the more Swedes, we somehow closer, or something. Hindus even have another sign language - turning their heads from right to left means “yes” for them, but for us “no”.
In the UAE, in particular, many tourists from all over the world come to Dubai, are there many Russians among them? Do they somehow differ in their behavior from other Europeans?There are a lot of Russian, or rather, Russian speakers. A distinctive feature - people do not particularly bother with the English language. They simply approach the seller or the taxi driver, and begin to speak Russian. Moreover, if suddenly an Arab answers them in Russian, this is not surprising. He recalls that the bearded anecdote about the new Russian, who after the first visit abroad was asked if he had any problems with the language. He answered: “I didn’t have - they had”.
I have a friend, so he generally knows only a couple of phrases in English. However, it does not cause him any problems, nor any complexes. Even being at the position of the General Director of a diamond processing plant and constantly rolling around in different African countries where diamonds are mined, he somehow manages to come to an agreement with everyone. How he does it is really a mystery to me.
How can you hurt an Arab, a Hindu, a Swede?
You can offend an Arab, and not only - you can be particularly angry with your head - with any jokes about religion. Last year, when caricatures of Islam appeared in one of the Danish newspapers, Danish goods instantly disappeared from the counters. They don’t understand jokes on the subject of religion, and I think it’s not worth joking at all if you want to build a long business relationship with the Arabs.
Hindu - talking about castes, especially if he is not from a higher caste. Although the caste system in India has been officially abolished, it is still present at the household level.
What can offend a Swede? I do not even know - probably, like all other people. And, the Swedes can be offended by the loss of the Russian national hockey team. :)
You came to the UAE to open your own business. So you are the owner of your company or do you have any other role in it? Do you get a Swedish company? How many employees are there, what is its turnover?I am a co-owner, and I still have partners who also own a part of the company. Yes, it turns out a Swedish company - with this it is easier to live in the Arab world, because here for some reason there is more confidence in European and American companies than in Arab ones.
We are a typical startup. We are engaged in the development of software, and its sale. We are not yet two years old, and only a few months ago, sales began to feed the firm. So there is still a lot of work ahead. The company has only a few people. Two in the Emirates, two in Saudi Arabia and several programmers in Egypt.
You talked about outsourcing issues . Do you hire freelancers from Russia?Honestly, before this question, I didn’t even think about using freelancers from Russia. If everything goes as planned, then during the year it will be possible to consider this idea more seriously. Nevertheless, I support the idea that the people with whom you work are in your office. To do this, they need to pay decent wages and provide decent working conditions - this is expensive, but we are striving for this.
What are the main obstacles to doing business in the UAE?
The main problem in the Emirates, as I see it now, is that decision-makers came here to quickly cut down money. Therefore, if you offer him some kind of solution that is beneficial in the long term, he is not interested. A year later, he may come back home, and he will be in parallel, as his former business partner is doing there.
What are the main advantages of starting your own business there?The main plus is that there are not many difficulties in Europe or the States. For example, what we do is simply not possible in Sweden or America, because this market is very busy a long time ago, and in order to move everyone with your elbows, you need serious cash investments. And here no one is involved in this.
Or another example. Estonia has an excellent parking system. Park, send SMS and specify the limit for the money. I went with friends to drink lemonade in a bar. When the limit comes to an end, an SMS reminder arrives for you - and you can add a limit without leaving the bar and without interrupting communication. There is no such thing - so I burned the topic :).
The absence of taxes is, in my opinion, not a plus, since in fact there is no tax, but you pay yourself for something that you don’t pay in Sweden. But, as I wrote recently, the very fact - the opening of our company in Dubai - was based on our false assumptions that in Sweden there is no opportunity to build a normal business. All this is nonsense, of course - a business can be built always and everywhere.
What does blogging give you? Do you consider a blog as a source of additional profit?I started a blog in Russian two years ago, when I was on a semi-annual business trip to India. At first I sent my friends long e-mails about our life there, then I came to the conclusion that it’s much easier to tell a blog. After India, I did not write anything there. In May of this year, I started a blog in English - I wanted to record everything that happened and is happening with our business here, because many things were forgotten. And then the thought came, why not reanimate the Russian-language blog. Besides, having written a post in English, you write it in Russian - some new thoughts come.
Expressing some thoughts, it is always interesting to look at the reaction and discussion. I may be wrong in something, or my experience does not allow me to come to some conclusion, which can lead debate.
In general, a blog is a place where you can formulate your thoughts. It's one thing when you think about something, and quite another when you say it out loud or write about it. Thought polished.
I do not see the blog as a source of additional profit. To put paid links, even if it will ever become very popular, I will hardly. And finding customers through a blog seems doubtful - the product is too specific for us, besides, it is for a specific geographic region.
What blogs do you read? Do you have contacts with other bloggers?I read
Max Kraynov ,
Sergey Kornilov and many other bloggers.
In general, it is always interesting to know the experience of people who actually built their business. Max has such cool articles! I translated a couple of them into English for my colleagues, and soon I will translate a few more - he is now writing on topics that are very relevant to us. Same with Sergey. When I met him in the States a few years ago, I didn’t even guess what interesting work he was doing.
How much should I get to live in the UAE? Is there expensive housing and life in general?

To live from paycheck to paycheck, you need $ 3,000 per month. This is on condition that you want to live in an apartment without neighbors in a more or less decent district of Dubai. With a salary of $ 5,000 - $ 6,000, you can already live beautifully.
Housing is expensive - in an area remote from the center of kilometers 30-40, one-bedroom apartment costs about $ 1,100 per month, plus water and electricity. In a good area, prices start at about $ 2,000 per month for a two-room apartment. There is always an alternative to renting an apartment for a couple with someone, but this option may not suit everyone. When hiring an employer usually provides housing - but this is unlikely to be a separate apartment, rather a room in an apartment or villa with its own shower and toilet.
It turns out that there are no taxes - but housing prices eat a good part of the income.
Do you consider yourself a rich man? Can you afford anything you want?No, I do not think and can not. The period is now such - everything that was and is invested in the business.
Tell a funny story from your life in the UAE.On the issue of restrictions in the country. Once I met an American, told him what we were doing. His idea interested us, and we agreed to have dinner together. We had lunch and talked. He mentioned his girlfriend several times. After the meeting, he offered to throw me home, and in the car I joked on the topic: “how is that - there is an Islamic country, and you have no wife, but a girlfriend”. To which he said: “you know, this is actually not a girlfriend, but a friend - I’m blue”.
I have nothing against blue, but then I really wanted to jump out of the car. Just the first instinctive reaction was this. On the way, I casually said that I enjoy boxing - just in case. Then it turned out that the friend of this American is Iraqi. How they joke - they compensate America’s aggressive policy towards Iraq.
So religion is a religion, and the blue ones are also there, as well as prostitutes, and alcohol, and drugs - everything, like everywhere else, is only “quietly”.
By the way, this American helped us with a few very useful contacts, for which I am very grateful to him. Now we are friends with “families” - he is with his friend, and we are with my wife and child :).
Do you make far-reaching plans? What are you dreaming about?
There are two big dreams - to give birth to several more children and develop the business to a level in order to grow everyone adequately :). Well, that is, I will not give birth myself, of course, but I will entrust this honorable duty to my wife, but I am ready to actively participate!
Dear readers, if you have any questions for Roman, you can ask them in the comments, or directly on
his blog.Interview took
Kopernik.