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Hello and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.
And I'm Joe Wysenthal.
Joe, do you ever order stuff online?
Yes?
Don't mean just like Amazon day to day stuff. I mean like, do you go out looking for interesting things to buy online?
Every run's a log at the edge. You know what I bought yesterday?
What a guitar?
No, I thought I have bought guitars online too many?
Uh.
A hat from the nineties from the Bureau of Reclamation celebrating like the fiftieth anniversary of the building of the Hoover Dam. Wait, and I'm going to win.
I want one.
Yeah, it's really it's a baseball cast. I'll show it to you after this. It's really cool. I'm gonna wear it at our next concert. I think it's really cool looking.
I'm very jealous.
Yeah, it's good ones.
All right.
Well, I buy stuff all the time. My husband does a similar thing and buys lots of vintage not baseball hats, but Rugby shirts.
Oh it's cool.
And the other day he ordered a Rugby shirt off of eBay and it showed up a few weeks later, and to both of our surprise, it had come from Ukraine and specifically a place called Zapporosia.
Huh. And it was not like a Ukrainian jersey or something like that. It just happened to be sent for It happened to be sent from Ukraine. I can't remember exactly which jersey it was, but I was kind of surprised because it was in this like perfect little box.
You know.
It took a while to get to the US, but not an inordinate amount of time, and it piqued my interest and it got me thinking, how in the world is the Ukraine still shipping things in the middle of a military conflict.
Yeah, I mean it's pretty striking.
You know.
We talked one time about palettes in the context of the war and this idea that like logistics is the key to keeping everything and going and good disciplined logistics,
et cetera. But the idea that you could quickly get a pristine package from eBay to the US in the middle of an ongoing conflict does extraordinary and raises questions about like, how do you keep day to day operations of a sort of crucial delivery infrastructure such as postal service, whether shipping internationally or just shipping domestically, going under such extreme conditions.
Right, and also, how does the role of the postal service actually change during wartime? I imagine shipping rugbys to my husband in the US is probably not an essential service at the moment, but Ukraine is using the postal service to send medicines and aids and cash and things like that. So we should talk about this. I'd love to, and I am very pleased to say we do, in fact have the perfect guest. We're going to be speaking with
Igor Smolanski. He is the CEO of the Ukrainian National postal operator uker Pushta, and before heading Ukraine's postal service, he also worked at KPM and Boston Consulting Group. So really a perfect all thoughts guest, a supply chain expert with a side interest in finance. That's how I'm putting it. Let's do it all right, Igor, Thank you so much for coming on.
All thoughts, Thank you for inviting me.
So first of all, thank you for getting packages to me. I appreciate it, my husband appreciates it. I have since ordered things that came from Kiev as well, knowingly ordered stuff from Kiev, and those also came in pristine condition. Can you describe maybe just the challenges that the postal service is facing at the moment. How much have things changed now versus you know, pre twenty twenty two.
I mean, obviously had changed a lot, Like as an example, we used to have five flights per week to New York, which would allow us to quickly deliver parcels to the US. And by the way, parcels to the US is about fifty percent of our expert volumes.
Wow, over one point three.
Million Ukrainian SQUS assault on Amazon, eBay and Etsy. Huh, So it's actually thousands of small businesses, jobs, people that do things for the dogs.
Fashion Ukrainian fashion is very popular, things for the houses.
So and we understood that if you stopped delivering, these people will lose their jobs.
And you can imagine during the war you cannot get the jobs easily.
And so we had to face in one day that there are normal flights, there are no flights from Ukraine. At the same time, if you don't deliver on time on eBay or Amazon or Etsy, you're eating as a seller drops.
So which is.
Why we had to do what we could to make sure things are delivered, and we moved to new logistical routes. So during the war, hopefully not that many people know it, but during the war you have a curfew which means you cannot drive at night, and usually the mail is delivered overnight.
So we recalled that. Twenty five years ago we moved the mail via train.
So I met with a friend of mine who's ahead of Ukrainian railways, and in five days.
We're zoom moving a mail by a railway.
So we're moving, for example, from Kiev to Leviev and from there we take the truck and it goes to Warsaw or Frankfort or London, and from there it flies to New York and then it's delivered to you.
Right now.
We strive to deliver to any points in the US within two weeks maximum, which means we have twenty four hours turned around in Ukraine, about two or three days on the road, and then it gets on the plane.
It's challenging, but we're making things happen.
So, for example, be a railway, we've already moved over twenty million parcels.
Talk to us about the domestic need. I think you mentioned it's not just a postal service, but a pharmacy as well. Talk to us about the main internal priorities of delivering the mail.
Sure, I mean Ukraine is the largest country in Europe, and not it's only the largest. There are twenty seven thousand cities and villages in Ukraine, and many of those very small, up to one hundred people or five hundred people. As you can imagine, during the war giving refugees, they did not get any larger. What it means is in those villages there are no pharmacists, there are no banks. Actually banks only remain in four percent of cities in villages in Ukraine, and you have to make sure these
people do geir stuff. Plus, when we talk about the occupied areas, Russians destroyed the entire infrastructure, which means when Ukraine the occupies these villages for about five to six weeks, you don't have mobile connection, you don't have electricity. But we have to work because you cannot leave people in
the vacuum. Not to mention, they would operate in Russian rubles and you want to bring them back to Ukraine, so you have to bring them Ukrainian currency and we at the first company they see, we usually come two three days.
After the occupation.
We just give time to the miners to demine the fields so we cantively safely operate and very structured our operations so we can work with or without power and electricity.
Thanks to starting from Milan masks and.
About fifteen hundred generators, we now have built a system which can work whenever under any conditions. So we had to change our processes to make sure we deliver pensions in cash because obviously if there are no electricity of ATM doesn't work, well, post terminal doesn't work. But people still need to live. I mean they have little bazaars, they work. So we basically create the ecosystem of life around those small villages and we keep it going.
What's the labor situation like at the moment, I mean you mentioned d mining. It sounds like this is a risky job. Here in the US, we have a postal worker shortage, even without having to worry about military conflict.
I mean it's a severe shortage. You can imagine.
First of all, we have to separate mail and feel works right, and you can imagine there are many male populations in the army. Second, we have lots of refugees and so I mean we understand it's a big problem. So for example, now to attract personnel, we have to make sure that our offices are equipped for people with disabilities so we can get them to work. We're trying the best we can to implement automatic sorting lines.
Our goal for this ya.
I know it sounds weird during the war, but we want to be one hundred percent digital even when there's no digital meaning we build a system where in the morning our mail carriers will download through startling and generators the data worker during the day and then upload the data at night, which means again we are not dependent on the infrastructure. If rustions you know, shut down the electricity or mobile or anything.
So we're doing.
Our best to increase efficiency to maintain as normal life for people as possible.
Why, you can.
Imagine there is no rush of new stores opening in Ukraine right now, there are no rush of new banks and pharmacies. So the e commerce becomes this tool to maintain a sense of normalcy even on the front lines.
So for example, we have lots of soldiers that would order something on Amazon or on Alibaba, power bank or the sacks or stuff for whatever they need and they'll delivered, So you know, the e commerce becomes the tool to keep you connected to the world even when the world is in a difficult situation.
I'm actually curious you mentioned starlink. I don't know that much about it, but I'm curious. Are there efficiency gains or infrastructure gains that you've discovered with the use of starlink satellite internet such that when there's a proper rebuilding phase that there are things that will never have to be rebuilt in their original form because of I guess they say some sort of leap frogging or efficiency that you've discovered out of this period of dress good question.
No, absolutely, I mean, you know, we don't want to discuss Elon and his views, but the Starling has been really a saber to us. You won't be able to run internet cables in those areas, right, I mean, it just will be millions of dollars. Probably it will run through the field which you need to demine, and then Russians can vum it again and it can.
Go off, et cetera.
So via Starling you're flexible enough, then you well, when you combine Starling and the generator, when you combine the two, you're basically no longer dependent on the central infrastructure and you can provide civil height services right away, not you know, not five months after the occupation, not three months after Russian destroyed the buildings today like for example, it was in our case, so very built it. They put up the startling generator and they get back to work. So
you know, it's like a theory of broken windows. You cannot have that. You should have the services, and the starlink allows you to have that connection to the world.
So I take the point about starlink and also switching from driving the mail to going by rail. But there must be areas that you just cannot get mail to at the moment, I mean the occupied areas for instance, how widespread are those I guess pockets of non service?
I mean roughly twenty percent of Ukrainian territories occupied by Russians. We try to be creative. If you talk strictly about the law, there is a Geneva Convention, so if Russia occupies certain area, they're responsible for wellbeing of people there. Obviously, annoying Russia the world responsible is you know exaggeration. So for example, in her song when her son was occupied by Russians. We wanted to keep Ukrainian pensions going because we wanted.
People feel the part of Ukraine.
So what we've done is, for example, we knew we could not get cash to the occupied area. What we did, for example, we agreed to small shops like in a bakery shop or gas stations or barbershops that they would give us cash and we would pay the bills in Ukrainian territories and we would use that cash to pay you know, grand grandma and grandpa the attensions, so they would come back again to the store. And this way we kept Grivna operation Ukrainian currency going even under Nursian occupation.
They did not understand how the grin uh you know, got to the occupied area. But you know, when youre creative enough even make things happen.
How do you protect cash? I mean, obviously in the US and we have the instructions and there's a whole separate infrastructure for cash management that's separate from the normal postal service and their guards on the trucks and all that has cash delivery always been an important role that the postal service is played in Ukraine. And how do you think about protecting those packages versus sort of more normal mail.
No. Absolutely, they always been important.
Why because you know, in small villages, if you don't have banking infrastructure, the cash is the king in you know, in reality, because if for example, if you have a bank card but no way to use it, you're not going.
To use it, so you're going to stay in cash.
We always had, I mean, we have lots of people with guns to protect it. When we talk about the areas close to the front lines, we get help from the army that you know basically drives is our trucks to make sure they're protected and make sure we delivered. So we have the whole entire system of controls, of monitoring of our armed guards to help.
Us deliver deliver cash.
I mean, that's the reason I've set a goal to build one hundred percent digital infrastructure and every single village so we can reduce the cash. So for example, right now in the village, you cannot use the bank card. We are now trying to get the banking license and certain basically devices that we're building that people will be able to use banking and e commerce infrastructure and every single village. You know, basically it's like ecosystems. So right
now we pay pension in cash. You know, you get your retirement payments in cash, and then you pay us for utility bills, you pays for the food, you pays for the medicine. So we can convert all of it into a none cash format. Will it happen right away now? But slowly once we build this digital infrastructure we can.
That reminds me a project like that, it sounds like it costs money, So how is that being financed? And then more broadly, how is uker post a finance Because here in the US there is a perpetual, ongoing discussion over the financial health of the US postal service and whether it should be treated like a private enterprise or a public service. I'm curious how it's done in Ukraine.
Well, I mean, coming from the US, you know, I'm a big proponent of a non socialist way of working. So the more independent you are from the government, the most successful you are. So in Ukraine we are a joint stock company where we are not financed by the government.
We're actually paying dividends to the government.
So anything we do, even during the war, we have to finance ourselves.
One of the reasons.
We went to the Parliament and we had asked to reduce regulation. So, for example, in Ukraine, only first class mail is now regulated, So only the first class letters are regulated by the government, meaning the tariffs and the newspapers. Everything else is a market base, which means we set the tariffs which we believe cover our cost plus.
Profit, and that's how we finance separation.
So our goal is to reduce number of state related revenues to less than ten percent.
You know, I was reading something not in preparation for this episode specifically, I was actually but I was reading a little bit recently about US postal history and the importance of the US post office and US industrial development. And you know, a post office obviously has a postal service, obviously has a distinct, unique perspective on the sort of geography and territory of a population, and you probably have some of the best visibility on where people are at
any given moment. And the name of every road, the name of every address, how valuable is the information that must be contained within your organization into the broader I guess war effort right now of the government, even if it is sort of formerly disconnected. The sort of ability of the government to essentially have the insight that only a postal service can have about where people are at any given moment.
I mean in the more than the world.
Obviously, there are different ways of getting that information. Probably the most reliable is the mobile operators, because vis signal you can exactly say how many people are in the area in any particular point, and even track.
Down how they move.
Obviously, we're probably the next best choice because we physically see people, We know how many are there, we know the age, so compared to the mobile operators, where they just track the signal, we actually know that for example, people here older, or people here on retirement, or here it's a younger population, because you know, for example, you have five hundred and hundred people in two villages, but one can have all the people on retirement and the
other can have people of the younger age. For example it's a farming village. So we have a better.
Understanding of the economy of a particular area of.
Particular or how fast people are coming back. We see it, for example, in how they pay utility bills, because for example, you can pay utility bills online even when you left the create right you can be right now in New York as a refugee and paying your electricity bill online, which means if you just track down the payments, you won't be able to see what the person is actually in the village. Look in Harky, Finzo, Parisia or there
in New York. We know when we take the payments, we know exactly how many people are there, because when we bring utunity bills, we know they are received or not.
I mean, it does sound like you are working closely with the Ukrainian military. So you mentioned the demining operations, armed escorts in some cases, I imagine that wasn't the case pre twenty twenty two. Could you maybe talk about how you built up that relationship with the military, Like what were those conversations actually like and how do you start formalizing a structure of cooperation or information sharing.
I think that's where Ukraine is stronger than Russia. Russia is all about vertical rules and all about you know, rules written, there's one sar and then you go all the way down. So the reason Ukraine was overcoming Russia at the beginning because we are flexible. For example, our million thy commanders have a right to make decisions. Russians don't. I even had to negotiate with Russians. It's impossible. They don't make any decisions on the ground. Every time they
have to check this mascot. So Uoker POSTA was working from day one throughout the war. The only day we did not work was February twenty fourth because I stopped all the operations because I could not understand what I can do to secure lives of people. Every single day thereafter we continue to work, never stopped, and my day starts.
We designed the procedure where my day starts.
We check with the military where it's safe or not safe today to deliver. We unfortunately lost a few lives because we thought it was safe and the military thought was saved. But Russians extended too fast the first days of the war and we lost a.
Few people because they attacked.
So it's a standard procedure where we check with them house the situation on the ground today, where do they think it's okay to go and where we should for example, se the operations. I just an hour ago I got a note from the military in Highkief region that we should not go near certain areas today because it will be dangerous. And that's how we work in you know, chats, in messengers, in communication where you have to quickly make
a decision. The most difficult part was, you know, it's a war, so where do you delegate and where you make decisions like in the army. So I had to find the balance between decisions that I make and I am physically able to make.
Because in terms of the US, we have like twenty.
Four states, so I had to make decisions each each and every one of them, and where do they delegate? So I build a system where I have kedo regions and they allow to make certain decisions, certain decisions. They have to agree with me in different messengers you know, signal, telegram, et cetera, and we make it quickly and then we go. So we're trying to be as informal as possible and as efficient as possible.
Going back to some of the external aspects and how we started this conversation and you mentioned that, did you see fifty percent of Ukrainian exports are to the US, And you know there's so much conversation about commodities exports, particularly wheat and sover but in terms of actual value, half of it is sort of various sales of goods to the US.
You know, it's the postal experts so to speak, you know, e commerce.
Opt pocastal experts.
Yeah, it's e commerce mainly.
You know, if you know it, it has to be only handmade, right, so it cannot be mass produced. So it's the handmade things. Not sure whether they you know, the baseball sir was handmade.
But it wasn't.
But I am aware. On Etsy there's like amazing handmade like fabrics and embroidery that come from Ukraine. Dog clothes. I'm not saying I'm buying dog clothes for my core hey, but I know they are there.
But I also noticed that on your website you have there's a whole section right on the front page start a successful International Business, and it has guides and videos like how to set up a business and sell on Etsy, how do you set up a business and new Shopify? So right there, Like, have these long been things or is this something that you helped accelerate and implement or has this been a long part of one of the services that the post office focuses on.
No, I mean it's actually the project we're very proud of.
We actually got award as the best sustainable postal operator in the world because that's how we get people. Imagine people in the smallest village sometimes they do wedding dresses for five thousand dollars and sell it in uk or in the US.
You can imagine it's a huge part of the local economy.
Or right now, many of our military guys in the trenches, they dream after the victory to set up their own business. So they're watching those videos in the trenches and think about the business that they will open once day back. So you know, it's a huge part of the success, and we plan to extend this project, especially for example, for people with disabilities. You can imagine Ukraine losing a lot of people, you know, people losing limbs in the war.
But they can work from home, they can set up shop, they can do this embroidery at home. We can send the courier to pick it up and they sell it on Edsy.
So they don't.
Feel like they have to get social subjects. They feel like a part of the society. So you know, it's very important. That's why we understand how important it is for us to deliver quickly the kind of hope. No, No, it's been two years. As I'm trying to launch a
postal training to Europe. So for example, I can get down the time to deliver to the s to seven days, so I'll get to for example, overnight from Kiev to Warsaw, and from Warsaw the plane will fly to New York and you will have the shorts not on floteen days, but in seven. That's a sort of our goal and we're trying to strive it. But it's been a part of our work for a long time. Some of it has been helped by the war. Because you probably heard about how famous stems I was about.
As speaking of new businesses, you also sort of have one in the form of these new edition stamps.
Yep.
And we actually got the price from eBay as the rising Star because we maintained delivery standards global worldwide.
We sold millions of stamps.
We had the joke I met with the Postmaster General in the US and he joked that we probably the only postal service that makes money on the stems.
We talked to us about the design of the stamps. Describe maybe the most famous one.
Well, the most famous obviously is Russian worship.
Go f yourself.
You know, we're breaking any possible rule there is in philately, so we're doing the stamps. Usually the postal service has like two year plan to issue stamps and we don't.
We just issued them. So for example, when Ukraine bummed the.
Russian crimea bridge, we issued stamp in one hour, which tend Russian TV to believe we knew about the operation.
And prepare the stamp in advance. I mean, I've just lit it.
And there are some other stems like the Russian Moscow ships, so we issued stamp and then.
The ships was three days after, you know, but it helps.
Yeah, we precede some of the events. Let's put it this way. Screaming a bridge. We have a few more surprises, we have sixteens and other things. But you know, it's a huge moral boost and it's a good part of the revenue for us. It's an image of Ukraine. We had the only postal service that has our own stores on Amazon and eBay, so you can check there's only one. It's just for our postal operator, and we have global sales.
People come from all over the world to our stores buying the stamps and we ship them and given the ratings we have, we deliver it within very short periods of time.
Joe, I have to say, I think the Russian warship Go f Yourself stamped. That must be the only stamp in the world that has a depiction of a middle finger. I think I could be wrong, Yeah, but I would guess.
Well, we made it to the Daily Show, so you know it probably was the only stamp that made that.
Let's talk more about the mail by rail, and you mentioned in the beginning that you know, there used to be several flights direct to New York each week and owother or none, and so you have to go by rail. What happens at the border? What are the challenges? Just sort of the nuts and bolts, so to speak, of establishing that link between Ukraine and Frankfurt.
I mean, obviously the main challenge is that, you know, the border was made for the trucks, and the huge part of the Ukrainian experts and imports was done by the sea, because Ukraine is the sea country, right we have a black Sea was done by air and once that was canceled by the war, imagined the entire flow, including the military aid and military supplies had.
To go through the small window of few roads.
To Europe, which by the way, obviously everyone was concerned that Russians will bump and the railway, so you left to two choices and you had to squeeze the entire volume through those few roads to Poland, to Romania, to Slovakia, etc. So that's the challenge remains, it will remain going forward.
I do hope that we win soon and imagine during the reconstruction the flow will increase several times, but the roads won't, which is why we're trying to do the best the best we can to move certain clothes to railway because railway is more efficient, you don't have to stay online in the border, and you can basically run
on schedule. So the reason we've been so successful because we connected our postal cars not to the carget trains, but to passenger trains, and passenger trains you can imagine run on schedule, so it allows us strict predictability as to when your parcels will arrive when we have to unload it.
And really, what's been the most creative solution that you've deployed during this time period, Like is there a particular workaround or decision that you're especially proud of.
The two things.
One is the system that we built with the Startlings and the generators, and the second is the combined logistical chain train car plane to make sure that we delivered
across the globe. I think that was the key. We use it at the beginning of the war to bring back to Ukraine humanitarian needs for example, which chartered the plane during the first week of the war, which chartered our own plane in Poland, and we brought all those parcels to New York and obviously we did not have that big of a flow on the way back, so well loaded that plane with humanitarian systems, with medical supplies,
some of the military supplies. So we use you know, we don't fly empty and we use the most efficient way of transporting it.
You mentioned that other than first class mail and newspapers, your pricing is totally deregulated. Can you talk about some of the decisions that you've made around pricing. Are there certain types of goods? Is it sizes? Like how did you are there? There must be low priority things that you sort of like want to discourage people from using your capacity. Talk to us about like some of the decisions you've made around pricing and how the war has changed those.
There are a few things.
Ukraine is a very competitive market, so we have analog of FedEx and UPS which are dominating the market. So that was our argument to the regulators. Why want to regulate us when the market will.
Take care of ourselves. That's the first thing.
Second, what we learn is, you know, if at the beginning of the war, people were thankful for us that we in generally work, right, because when I talk to my colleagues and other postal services, they amaze that we in generally work and that will probably last for.
About a few months. But then people move from okay, thank you for working.
Now I want my next day delivery, and you know, the expectations grow, which means we have to deliver. We have two sets of tariff, which is next day and two five days.
To make sure we distinguish between between.
Cheap goods and I guess more immediate needs which people need fast. So that's our sort of value proposition that you can choose. Our competitors have only one tariff, so it's just expressed as the next day. So imagine how competitive the market is even during the war we're striving to achieve next day delivery, even the country as large.
As in Ukraine.
So for example, for me to deliver from Ushgrad, which is close to Poland and Hungary, to Pakrofsk, which is close to the front line, we're using the truck to take it to Vive, loaded on the train, the train brings it.
To NeuPro At ten am.
We sorted for two hours, we get it on truck and the three pm it's in Pa Crops, which is the other side of Ukraine.
I think a few thousand kilometers.
But again that's what people expect and that's what we need to delive.
We just try to price it. I mean, in general it's very cheap.
So for example, it's like one dollar next day delivery for up to one killer.
Do you get any pushback from people in terms of price increases or is it generally accepted that these are exceptional times and so the price is sort of justified.
You know, it depends on the price. So for example, when person pays five hundred dollars for a computer, do they really care whether delivery is three dollars to five dollars.
No, they don't. They want it to be delivered next day.
If it's a mom that you know, moms exchanging clothes for the kids, they're okay to wait. Or if it's a medicine, So if it's a medicine that you need the next day because you're really seek we need to deliver next day.
If you have some kind.
Of chronicle illness and you get your medicine every month the same day, we can plant it in advance, right, so we can. The reason we have to be flexible is we offer the client to choice. You can pick cheap or you can pick more expensive, depending what fits you need. But people do want quality, know e commerce, it's an immediate gratification, So I ordered today, I want to get it tomorrow, even if it's a war.
You know, obviously we're having this conversation about the extraordinary challenges of delivering the mail during a war. When the war started, the entire world was still in the throes of the broader I guess supply chain crisis Spring twenty twenty two. Who's still all kinds of parts for every type of thing we're missing? And palette scarcity, container scarcity
due to COVID and everything. How did that affect you and what have you seen on that front since then in terms of parts that you need, equipment that you need and so for just to run your operation.
You know, I thought we prepared during COVID and we adopted, but then when the war starts, the situation becomes even worse. For example, we've been buying trucks from Belarus. Now Belarus is an enemy. Yeah, how do you get the parts for the trucks? How do you get the parts for Russian drugs? We're now running a procurement for the new trucks. The issues do you let China company participate or you don't? Do you let them participate if they stay in Russia?
Do you deal with companies that stay in Russia? So you know, you have much wider range of issues that we need.
To handle and make a strategic decision on.
I mean, we made a strategic decision that we have to get rid of Russian made vehicles as soon as possible. We made a strategic decision that is probably not a good idea to have trucks from China because if tomorrow they become, you know, big friends with Russia, we don't We're not going to get parts and we're just going to be stuck, so you have to think a few
steps in advance. We're buying some other equipment from China, which we think strategically will not be endanger our operations, but we'll learned that in the modern world, as you correctly pointed out, you know, would be various of things affecting the supply chain.
Igor Smeliansky of ukar Posha, thank you so much for coming on odd Lots. That was such a fascinating conversation.
Thank you very much for having me.
So Joe. I found that an absolutely fascinating conversation. Not to get really philosophical, but the theme that kind of jumped out at me is it's sort of like simultaneously globalized and also deglobalized. There's nothing more deglobalized than war
and a country invading another country, it feels like. But at the same time, hearing Igor describe the importance of e commerce to the Ukrainian economy, the idea that there are soldiers in the trenches who are coming up with business plans for a small business on Etsy is it kind of blows your mind in some ways. And there's such a tension there between the war zone and then that like globalize. You order something online, you expected to get it the next day, kind of aspect of the economy.
Yeah, thinking about villagers in Ukraine going online and figuring out how to set up a at sea shop or an Amazon shop or your shopify makes the world feel very small and feel very familiar, And so I thought that was striking. Also the idea of you know, starlink and how crucial that's been and that you can sort of essentially, as you put it, seemingly in a day or to recreate destroyed infrastructure with a combination of starlink and generators, and you have to imagine that like some
of that will become the norm. I don't like the generator, you know, I think.
They probably not the generator, right, But like the.
Idea of like, well, will you really rebuild an entire wired infrastructure if satellite internet works? Well, like that's like really sort of interesting. You could see how that could like reshape society or reshape.
Infrastruct Yeah, I'm glad you asked that leapfrogging question because it sounds like that's kind of what's happening or what could happen once reconstruction actually begins. But overall, super interesting conversation. The switch from driving the mail to rail was really interesting. Just the idea of I guess post office workers who are having to think about stuff like minds on a day to day basis and communicate with the military about
where is safe to go pretty interesting times. Yes, and I should just mention Joe if anyone is interested in learning more about Uker Poshta and how Ukraine is delivering the mail at the moment. There was a really brilliant profile of Igor by our Bloomberg colleague Todd Shields. I think it came out in twenty twenty two. You should definitely go check that out. And a big thank you to Todd as well for helping us arrange this interview and putting us in touch with Igor in the first place.
Shall we leave it there, Let's leave it there. Okay. This has been another episode of the Odd Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.
And I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart. Follow our guest Igor smel Yansky. He's at smel Yansky Igor. Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Arman Dashel Bennett at Dashbot and kel Brooks at Kelbrooks. Thank you to our producer, Moses Ondam. Form more Oddlogscontent, go to Bloomberg dot com slash odd Lots, where we have transcripts, blog and a newsletter and you can chat with fellow listeners twenty four to seven in the discord discord gg slash odd Lots And.
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