Zhenya, that is it. I am definitely flying out

Three months in Manavgat: leaving Russia in spring 2022, furnishing an empty flat, getting Upwork back and slowly adjusting to a different reality.

"Boy, bring us some vodka"

After the "special operation" began, I had no mood at all. It was not sad or dark. It simply was not there.

I remember being surprised by clients who spoke with the same pre-war enthusiasm about their business processes and the website they desperately needed so that money would finally flow in their direction. Those conversations were difficult. I replied with phrases that had long ago been burned into muscle memory. It felt as though a clear outcome would arrive any day, after which we could calmly analyse everything and adapt.

Time passed, and no outcome arrived. In early March, my working day looked like this: drive to the office, open the news feed, realise how much time has passed, drive home. I tried to turn productivity into a game: complete as many tasks as possible before the news swallowed me again. Friends and relatives did not participate in the game. They regularly sent links with the words, "No, but have you seen this? Have you?" That usually ended the round.

On 7 March, the news broke that Upwork was finished for citizens of Russia and Belarus.

Upwork was over.

The marketplace was not an important source of leads for us. It was more like a reserve parachute that we never had time to open. Our thinking went like this: "We will improve the process, improve our English, finish the proposal deck, and then we will storm Upwork properly, for love and for the long term." We had been preparing for about three years and would probably still have been improving our English. Yet being disconnected from the global industry became the final trigger.

On 8 March, with the phrase "Zhenya, that is it. I am definitely flying out," I informed a colleague that I intended to leave the country.

The Discord conversation.

For Evgeny and Polina, everything was simpler. Their bags were already packed and they were waiting for my confident yes, which appeared only that day. For the next two weeks, Aviasales and Sahibinden, the Turkish equivalent of Avito, became our most visited websites.

I defined the purpose of the trip like this: reset mentally, open an account with a foreign bank, restore Upwork, buy a local phone and SIM card, and leave a laptop abroad for remote access. If I completed the whole checklist, I could keep working internationally even after returning to Russia.

We knew little about the towns on the Turkish coast, except that the Russian IT community had filled Alanya and Antalya. We bought tickets quickly, around 100,000 roubles for three people, but could not find a flat. Landlords did not want to wait several days for "a married couple and a brother." Even a month's advance payment failed to inspire them. Listings appeared and disappeared within two or three hours.

By an accident of fate, everything was resolved on the final day. A reply appeared on Sahibinden in Russian: "Artem, call me on WhatsApp and we will discuss everything." Karina, a Russian-speaking estate agent, became indispensable over the following weeks. The only complication was that she worked in a town called Manavgat, a name that somehow sounded suspiciously like Magnitogorsk.

Manavgat's location looked suspicious.

After a short meeting and the argument, "Why do we need Russians there? Are we flying out for a holiday?" we decided that the farther we were from the crowd, the better. A moment later I was already at passport control, shamelessly explaining that I was flying to Turkey "to look at the sea."

"I left for St Petersburg and ended up in Manavgat"

I disliked Turkey immediately. I now understand that what I really disliked were the enormous backpacks loaded with three monitors, a desktop computer and, God help us, a speaker system. I disliked the airport, the view from the minivan and the part of the town where we were dropped off. At the time it was easier to blame Turkey. Unlike the luggage on my back, Turkey could not answer.

A few minutes later we were sitting in a local cafe, watching the town wake up and take shape in the first Turkish sunlight. The place was popular. People came in to buy pastries for the working day and paid little attention to us, apart from an occasional glance at the mountain of bags. Fresh bread lifted the mood immediately, and Turkish coffee steadied us for the first day in a foreign country.

A couple of hours later we met Karina in person, withdrew cash and went to the flat. It was a large four-room apartment, a Turkish 3+1, five minutes from the centre. It was also completely empty, without even basic appliances. We knew that beforehand and reassured ourselves that we would make it our own.

The irritating chair.

Evening arrived. Great achievements were clearly not beginning that day because no strength remained for them. A shower and something soft to fall onto became the highest priority. Karina offered us a night in a short-let apartment in nearby Side. We gratefully agreed.

Coastal Turkish homes do not have radiators. If you think that does not matter because the coast is always warm, you are badly mistaken. The apartment was freezing. After waking several times to the sound of my own teeth, pessimistic thoughts began to form: "Why are we doing this? Perhaps we should go home. It is warm there. People love us there and reheat soup for us. Here it is cold and nobody loves us." This was the first and last day when relocation felt like a possible mistake.

Working from another country

The next day, clean and restored, we toured the shops and bought furniture. The flat moved from "empty walls" to "minimalism."

At the exchange rate then, every price had to be multiplied by four.

Functionally, the apartment split into four zones:

For the first few days we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at the cafe next door. Soon we knew the menu by heart and our stomachs demanded variety. Appliances were more difficult. The relocation fund had run out. It was time to save money and work.

The office occupied the largest room.

Karina's resourcefulness solved that too. Tenants nearby were moving out and urgently selling almost new appliances. We bought the whole set and arranged delivery.

There were few obstacles to productive work. The start-up atmosphere, exploring unfamiliar places and long conversations over Turkish tea after hours made life interesting again.

Compared with Russia, the only persistent problem was the cost of using a Russian mobile number abroad. I rejected almost every incoming call and immediately sent a prepared text message.

Almost every incoming call had to be rejected and answered by text.

We worried about the future of digital work in Russia and were trying to find our own place in the new reality, so evening meetings became compulsory. We called them Crazy.talks: two hours of discussing where the studio should go, how to redistribute resources and what the technology market would need next. Every meeting eventually turned into an argument about politics and space, but a few ideas survived and still work today.

Upwork. Restoring access was one of the reasons for the entire move. A formal rental agreement and residence permit removed the ban from the world's largest freelance marketplace.

Partnerships. We wondered whether large digital agencies and web studios might simply be sitting around, waiting for us to write and offer to share their workload. Our prices were close to freelance rates, while our quality could compete with many studios. A partner would get passive margin and extra capacity; we would get work and experience. By the time this article was written, partnerships had become a significant part of the business. We ended up outsourcing almost as much work as we accepted ourselves, but that is another story.

LinkedIn. The world's main professional network is badly underestimated in Russia. It was third on the list. I cannot yet share a positive or negative result because we had only begun developing it.

Getting Upwork back

Restoring the account was one of the stated reasons for relocating, so it deserves a section of its own even though the process itself was boring and predictable.

First, we collected documents confirming our location. Then we uploaded them through the form Upwork had created for unfortunate cases like ours.

Three or four days later, the happy letter arrived.

The happy letter.

After returning to Russia, I continued working with the marketplace. My setup required three things:

There are probably more elegant solutions. I did not want to experiment because getting an account restored after another ban would be nearly impossible. A VPN with a changing IP address was rejected immediately. I assumed the platform took these violations seriously and checked suspicious activity manually.

Manavgat City

Manavgat is a wonderful place to live if you are able to leave it. When expectations are modest and the journey happens in spite of events rather than thanks to them, it is a good town in which to put your thoughts in order and feel like a citizen of the world.

It is a resort town that never became attractive to crowds of tourists, even during the wave of relocation. Russian speech was heard mainly on the central street at rush hour, usually from people for whom Manavgat had accidentally become an intermediate stop.

Like many people in IT, by the end of the working day our eyes had bunched together and our heads had become square. We needed a ritual that would pull us away from the desks and return some life.

The ritual had three mandatory conditions:

We found it: a walk along the river, ten minutes from home. The view compensated for the accumulated fatigue. Water ran through the centre of the town under the same melodic name, evening cooled the day and a nearby restaurant supplied coffee. We called the ritual "the power of the river" and returned to it again and again.

The power of the river.

I discovered something else during the trip. I still do not know whether it applies to every traveller, but it certainly applies to me. The best illustration is familiar to anyone who played the old classics.

The fog of war.

It is the fog of war from Heroes III. The more of the neighbourhood you discover and the more unknown territory around your castle, or home, you reveal, the more comfortable you become. A conventional tourist tries to reach every unfamiliar place before the holiday ends and take home the maximum number of bright impressions.

When the goal is quick acclimatisation and there is no return ticket in your hand, pleasure comes from smaller things entering your routine: remembering the route home from the edge of town, recognising the face of a shopkeeper. It turned out that knowing the territory was an important part of comfort.

Interestingly, only we discussed politics, and only in the kitchen. At times it felt as though we were on neutral ground, where nobody intended to discuss why so many of us had suddenly arrived. The only direct local opinion came while we were waiting for residence permits. An elderly Turkish man became interested in our situation, announced, "Putin, shit," and left the room with his head held high. It was the only political statement we heard from a Turkish person in three months.

Time off

Working in Turkey was pleasant and easy. The start-up atmosphere and constant brainstorming gave us extra energy. We worked productively, did not cut corners and came up with several ideas that proved useful.

A timely push towards returning came from a conversation with my wife. She reminded me, quite reasonably, that she and our daughter were waiting for me at home. Once the checklist was complete and I had experienced both the pleasures and the problems of relocation, it was time to pack.

We decided on one final move: spend two weeks travelling along the coast together as a family, then fly home. I planned a route from the farthest eastern point towards the airport. We visited Alanya, Side near Manavgat, Belek and Antalya, enjoying the sea air and new places together.

A holiday in Turkey.

After visiting the larger coastal towns, I reached a conclusion: Manavgat really was a lovely place. From the summit small hill of my experience, I can say with confidence that relocation does not have to mean a city where life never stops and Russian speech is heard everywhere. Everyone can find a town that fits their character and preferences.

The money is running out. Time to go home.

"Boy, bring us some juice. We are flying with a child"

After landing and reaching home, I felt an irresistible need to drive to a coffee shop and check whether this drink of the gods really was better in Russia. One sip. It was.

This photograph shows happiness.

A brief feeling of happiness arrived that is almost impossible to convey in writing. You sit in a car park, look around and enjoy ordinary things. There is the pothole nobody has repaired for ten years. The restaurant opposite is where we signed a big contract. Someone has stepped into a puddle and is swearing in our own beloved language.

Somewhere in your head you even begin defending yourself: "I did not really leave for good. I only went to see how other people live." Another sip of coffee: "Actually, everything is f#cking great." Great enough to announce it to the whole car park. You are not an idiot, so instead you send a photograph to your colleagues on Telegram. You are back, drinking coffee and ready to return to work tomorrow.

They do not understand your state of mind, but you do not need them to. You only want to share a little happiness, the kind that appears under difficult circumstances and lasts for a very short time.

Three months later, I was home.