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The past year was marked by the life of a digital nomad—full of unexpected relocations, travels, and challenges. I’m writing this post mainly for myself: to reflect, process, and clear out some of the clutter from my mind.
Cyprus — Three Times Over
The year both started and ended in Cyprus. After three visits, the island feels almost like home. The perfect spot to warm up the bones and take a break from civilization’s gifts. Closer than Southeast Asia, cheaper than European resorts, and way warmer than my home country.
I traveled the island inside out and wrote two posts about the coolest spots. Check them out if you plan to visit:
This time I plan to visit the few remaining sights, which I’ll definitely write about too.
A Little Bit of Russia
All in all, I spent just 4 months in Russia. I finally realized I can’t survive in Moscow. Moved out of a rented apartment and went looking for a new home. Only one post and a handful of photos remain from the capital.
Visited my hometown Yekaterinburg twice: in spring and during the football championship. I left Yekaterinburg back in 2016, but it never left me. Always happy to return to favorite places and people, bringing along a couple of posts and some decent shots.
During the World Cup, the city’s vibe was fantastic. The restobar culture in Ekb also never fails to impress — Moscow just doesn’t have such cool spots. Next time I’ll come back in a couple of months, looking forward to seeing everyone.
Czech Republic — Twice
We fled from Ekb to Prague. Planned to hang out for a month, but ended up staying three because springtime Prague is just bomb. Would have stayed forever, but Czechs aren’t exactly thrilled about immigrants. Came back in December — for mulled wine and klobasas.
We toured all the interesting Czech towns: Krumlov, Ostrava, Karlovy Vary, Budějovice, Brno, Kutná Hora — but only the first three really matter. Someday I’ll write about each, but for now there’s just an old post about Český Krumlov and a few photos.
Moving to the Czech Republic is now the goal for the next ten years.
Europe — Many Times Over
From the base in Prague, we made it to Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Dachau, Neuschwanstein, Vienna, and Hallstatt. Six countries, about 30 cities total. That’s too much.
Poland — Once
Spent three months on the ruins of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, saw three cities. Warsaw felt cold and unfriendly, Krakow’s air was awful, so we chose Wrocław for the future.
Visited Auschwitz-Birkenau and were pretty shocked. Went to the Tatras — mountains on the border of Poland and Slovakia.
I need to write a lot about Poland someday, but not now. Started the process of getting a residence permit and started getting used to the new reality. Now we wait for the papers to stay for good.
Creativity and Self-Development
Life on the move doesn’t do long-term projects any favors — there’s never enough time or energy for creativity. Wanted to write a lot for the blog, but only managed 8 posts. Besides the ones above, check these out:
About 20 photo posts from various cities and countries are marinating in procrastination — I hope to get to them this year, unless I find another excuse to mess it all up.
Photography is also sad. Lots of shots, but only a few good ones. On the road, you snap everything, but really you should focus, work on technique, try new genres.
To keep myself in shape, I kept inventing challenges. For example, I post one photo every day on my Instagram. In spring, I posted something every day for 60 days straight on my Facebook.
Read 36 books out of 30 planned, plus about 800 articles of varying nonsense — wrote about that on Facebook too, to rake in some likes.
Now I want to find a home and peace soon, so I can spend more time on photography and writing. Hard to set other goals for now.
Business and Finance
In January, Outmarketing will turn two. Things aren’t going too great, but they’re not total crap either. Among our clients are Yandex, LEGO, and a major social network, but so far we’ve mostly been leveling up our own skills—what we really need to do is grow the business and the team.
Anton and I have both worked at some pretty cool companies, but nothing really prepared us for entrepreneurship. We made a ton of mistakes and came this close to shutting down more than once. Feels like we’ve figured some stuff out now and actually know what we’re doing.
On the side, we accidentally became serial entrepreneurs—we launched a fun side project called sameshirt*—five black T-shirts with delivery. It turned out great, but doesn’t really bring in much money since we barely have time for it.
At the beginning of the year, I got into personal investing. Built up a solid financial cushion and started putting 20% of my income into stocks. The market’s been shaky lately, so I’m in the red for now, but stats say that unless you panic and flail around, it’s pretty hard to lose money over a ten-year stretch.
Toward the end of the year, I realized that setting goals gives you at least some sense of control, so I got really into planning. Hoping to learn and do more than I did last year.
The End
Rang in the New Year in the mountains, with amazing people. Hard to imagine a better ending. I’ll look back at this post 365 days from now and be amazed at how damn awesome it was.
Leaving the link to last year’s post too—just for those who like digging through other people’s lives: 50 photos from 2017.
See you around!
