About Appsulove

The company was founded in 2016 in Minsk. During five years of its operation, it has released more than 35 mobile applications and games for iOS and Android. The most famous are UNICORN, Numberzilla, 3Tiles, Catris, Lava, Castle Rush. According to the company, these games have over 250 million downloads on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

There are currently over 130 employees working at Appsulove.

About the office in Kyiv

The first Appsulove office in Ukraine was opened in the middle of October 2021. It is located in Business Center “Arena City.” The company is planning to employ 50 specialists in the nearest future. The company has already posted ten job openings for Kyiv: Senior Mobile QA Engineer, Senior Unity Developer, Project Manager (gamedev, office), Lead Graphics Developer (Playable Ads), Lead Motion Designer, Game Producer, UI Artist, Motion Designer, Lead Monetization Manager (Head of Monetization).

As the company told the magazine, they have been working remotely with Ukrainian professionals for several years, and not only developers.

As Oleksii points out, such recognizable Kyiv locations as the KPI sports complex, as well as the square in front of it, appeared in the Apple presentation.

There were also obviously Ukrainian residential skyscrapers — users recognized them by their so typical balconies and local insulation of the facades.

Some other frames in the commercial can evoke nostalgia, but it is uncertain whether they show Kyiv. In the comments to Oleksii’s post, users note that their Ukrainian friends appeared in the presentation.

If you can recognize Kyiv in any other episodes of the Apple presentation, write to us, and we will add them to the article.

This is not the first time Apple films its product commercials in the capital of Ukraine. Back in 2017, the Apple Watch presentation was filmed at the Kyiv railway station and the Golden Gate metro station. In 2019, Apple released a commercial dedicated to wireless headphones AirPods. There you can also see Kyiv. Ukrainian studio Radioaktive Film was responsible for the shooting on the Ukrainian side.

Here and below are pictures of Olha Zakrevska, special for AIN.UA.

This year, it is third Comic Con Ukraine: in 2018, it has gathered 20,000 participants, and in 2019, there were over 30,000 participants. Last year, the festival was postponed due to Covid restrictions. Finally, in September 2021, it happened: visitors came to a large (37,000 sq. m) territory of the Platforma Art Factory, wearing masks — both medical and festival ones. There is no official number of visitors yet, but we saw massive lines of people starting at the Art Factory entry and almost reaching the Darynok market.

If you were there for the first time, you would not miss it — everywhere were people with their kids in superhero costumes, people with light swords, elven hears, and horned helmets.

On the territory of the former Darnytsia silk factory, after you passed the entry of Comic Con Ukraine, you could easily lose yourself, in particular, if you stood in a line of other pop culture and games fans. But in general, the location was divided into zones as in past years: photo zones; food court; the main and other stages; board and computer games zones; merchandise zone; kid pool with Lego, etc.

Many visitors were wearing masks, wigs, and make-up. At every comic con, you always want to enjoy cosplayers — people who are ready to spend so much time and energy to craft a costume and attributes of their beloved series, anime, or game characters.

And every time, you can see new looks and classic ones — Star Wars fans, for example, have cosplayed Boba Fett, the best headhunter in the Galaxy, several times.

Always popular universes and heroes were also there — World of Warcraft, Marvel, DC, and different avatars of Joker. To be honest, we recognized not all of them.

The most beloved character of Comic Con Ukraine 2021 was Loki from the Marvel universe, thanks to the recently aired Disney series. There were Loki-president, Loki-god from Asgard, Loki-girl, and even Loki-crocodile.

Have you ever wondered who these characters are in real life?

We interviewed some cosplayers about their looks and preparations.

Cosplayer — @somnium_vita, look: Dark Sun Gwyndolin, an optional boss in Dark Souls game:

I love Dark Souls games so much, and I always wanted to play a boss from there. So, I chose a character hated by half of the fans, and the other half thinks he is too easy:)

His costume was a challenge to me; it is very complicated because it has so many small details and elements like beads wings, expensive materials, and different types of lace. I could not use a cheap fabric because anyone would see it for sure. Only fabrics cost me about 10 to 15K hryvnias. I have put the costume together for two years and spent about 300 work hours on it. And it is very complicated to wear it actually — I merely can’t see because of the mask 🙂

Cosplayer — @karindos345, look: Scrap Baby from Five Nights at Freddy’s 6:

I worked on the costume for six months. The hardest part was the head. Its framework is made from foam rubber covered with EVA foam [Editor’s note: ethylene-vinyl acetate foam, similar to rubber and often used for cosplay costumes], plus fabric and LEDs for eyes. When I watched a video on YouTube about a girl from Italy who has made a similar costume, I was so excited and decided to make one for myself. Why not?

Cosplayers — a couple of @Liorra and @Matagot, looks: Iris and Olgierd von Everec from the Hearts of Stone add-on to the Witcher 3 game:

We wanted to make these costumes in the past year, but it took us about nine months to manufacture all the details. The hardest part was the fabric. We needed to embroider the whole of it for our costumes. All the furniture was crafted only for these costumes. The coat [Editor’s note: for Olgierd’s look] is handmade; it took five months.

We also tried to be maximally similar to the characters because we like their love story so much.

Cosplayer — @rekfelus, look: Tirion Fordring, Paladin from World of Warcraft:

I have chosen this character because I look like him because of my body parameters, and I like him. He is the honor and justice itself, and a cool guy, by the way 🙂 The costume manufacturing took me about two years, including small pauses. The hardest part was pauldrons; it was a disaster. It was so difficult to replicate them.

Besides the Cosplay Show (the winners are listed in the official public), there was an unbelievable number of other activities at Comic Con Ukraine. There were interviews, autograph sessions, and photo sessions with stars: Richard K. Morgan, a British sci-fi writer, author of Altered Carbon novel, which was adapted into a Netflix series recently, and Natalia Tena, a Game of Thrones and Harry Potter star.

On the first festival day, the main stage was headlined by the Polish Percival Schuttenbach band — they wrote the soundtrack for The Witcher 3. The band was named after a character of one of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books about Geralt the Witcher.

At Comic Con Ukraine, you could take a picture with the large Tor’s hammer and Jabba Hutt, on the throne, under Dune sands, and even as a Funko toy in a box. You could play board games with your friends, shoot a bow, watch real knight fights, and also find a girlfriend.

We at AIN.UA hope that comic cons and other geek events in Ukraine will live long and prosper.

What happened?

April 5 in Kyiv became the first day of another strict lockdown, which the city authorities announced earlier, on March 31. As part of the lockdown, the use of public transport was limited, and the residents of Kyiv had to use minibusses, buses, trolleybuses, and the subway only if they had special pass-tickets issued to critical infrastructure workers. Overall, around 500,000 pass-tickets were issued in the city with a population of almost 3 million people.

“And, of course, Kyiv cab services immediately took advantage of this,” says Khmelnitskyy.

Indeed, in the conditions when the use of public transport was restricted, the residents of Kyiv, who didn’t have a car, were forced to travel around the city by cab. That resulted in incredible demand and, thus, made the prices of popular services skyrocket. In some areas, for an Uber or Bolt ride from the Left Bank to the Right Bank, a tariff over UAH 1,000 (approx. $35) was fixed. Facebook users also actively discussed this phenomenon and were indignant at it.

Taras Potichny, a ride-hailing market expert, told AIN.UA why this had happened. He assured that it was not the greedy cab services that were to blame but the pricing algorithms. He also added that the market would soon stabilize. Indeed, the very next day, when the tide of interest subsided, ride-hailing service prices stabilized and returned to the pre-quarantine ones.

However, officials came in on this situation.

And what about the AMCU?

According to Khmelnitskyy, the AMCU received a lot of complaints from the residents of Kyiv about a sharp spike in prices. They were particularly indignant at Uber, Bolt, and Uklon.

“We cannot ignore so many complaints. Moreover, the situation may indicate possible violations in the actions of ride-hailing services covered by Part 3 of Article 6 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Protection of Economic Competition” (concerted anticompetitive actions of business entities) and/or Part 1 of Article 13 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Protection of Economic Competition” (abuse of a monopoly (dominant) position),” writes the chairman of the Kyiv territorial branch of the AMCU.

In this regard, the Kyiv regional territorial branch of the AMCU launched an investigation as to compliance with the legislation by the participants of the car-hailing market (as well as companies that provide services in these markets).

In the comments to this post, users note that cab prices from the mentioned companies have already returned to normal, and the sharp spike, which the AMCU regarded as a malicious attempt to capitalize on the coronavirus situation, is a completely normal reaction of the market to the phenomenal demand. However, some praised the initiative of the officials and spoke in favor of taxi price regulation by the government.

Why this is interesting: Probably, the AMCU wants to know how the algorithms of international and Ukrainian services work and to study the laws of the market economy when demand exceeds supply exponentially.

About the job

The Country Field Staff Manager leads the sales team that works with Apple’s partner retailers. This specialist reports directly to the Country Manager. He/she will be accountable for setting and realizing the quarterly business plan and targets within the relevant program channel partners in Ukraine. The main tasks also include: finding specialists and building the sales team, working with retailers, etc.

Key requirements

• The specialist must have experience in a leadership role in a multi-layered and dynamic, results-driven work environment.
• The specialist must know how to deliver the best possible customer experience and understand the needs and values of users of Apple products.
• The specialist must be able to solve problems creatively and think critically.
• The specialist must have excellent communication skills and know how to build advocacy with store staff and key partners within the store through communication, collaboration, and training.
• Bachelor’s Degree is preferred, with excellent English verbal and written communication skills.

Why it’s important: Apple has already posted the third position for its Kyiv office. Officially, the company has not yet opened a representative office in Ukraine, but it has already registered a legal entity. The company still has a job opening for an Indirect Tax Analyst. This year, Apple also began to localize the Ukrainian version of its website.

In compiling the ranking, the authors took into account, among other factors, the following ones:

• availability of specific Digital Nomad visas
• availability of the best co-working spaces, friendly professional communities;
• the cost of accommodation and food;
• infrastructure.

Kyiv is ahead of Dubai and Krakow in this ranking. The authors of the list say that Kyiv is a good choice for those who can handle a cold winter and don’t mind learning a bit of Ukrainian.

“This vibrant capital city is perfect for every type of remote worker looking to explore a unique culture over a long stay period. Not only is the wifi solid but there are loads of coworking spaces, and Kyiv has great connections to the rest of Europe, making it a practical option for those who want to indulge in budget travel,” the city description says.

The top 20 is as follows:

1. Tallinn
2. Tbilisi
3. Belgrade
4. Bali
5. Chiang Mai
6. Berlin
7. Singapore
8. Buenos Aires
9. Hanoi
10. Ljubljana
11. Vancouver
12. Saint Petersburg
13. Istanbul
14. Austin
15. Shanghai
16. Thessaloniki
17. Malta
18. Vilnius
19. Playa del Carmen
20. Kyiv

The article about Kyiv was published in the English version of Wikipedia in February 2002. The spelling of the name was based on the transliteration of the Russian-language name of ‘Киев,’ that is ‘Kiev.’

For a long time, Wikipedia refused to use the correct transliteration from the Ukrainian language, Kyiv, because the online encyclopedia uses the version that is more common in authoritative sources.

In 2018, the KyivNotKiev campaign was launched, promoting the correct spelling of the Ukrainian capital’s name. After that, many authoritative English-language media (BBC, The Guardian, etc.), the U.S. Federal Government, dozens of international airports, as well as other agencies switched to the correct spelling.

Thus, over the past few years, in the English-speaking world, the correct spelling of Kyiv has become more popular than the old, Kiev.

Finally, after “long discussion,” the English Wikipedia team decided to rename the article about Kyiv in the English-language edition.

“We still can’t believe this happened and are waiting that somebody will say that it’s a joke, but…in the nineteenth year of the article’s existence, after many blocked users, and fifteen archive pages discussing the name, the thirteenth attempt resulted in the article Kiev in the English version of Wikipedia was renamed into Kyiv,” a message by the press office of the encyclopedia’s Ukrainian version says.

Coworking space parameters

• The coworking space is located in the business center Avenue 53 on Peremohy Avenue.
• The total area is 1,681 sq. m.
• The capacity is 295 workstations.

Rates

The cost of renting a workstation starts from $169 per month, VAT not included, and depends on the size and type of the chosen premises, the duration of the contract, and other conditions.

Design and infrastructure

• The location is an industrial-style space. 
• There is a park inside the business center and a terraced garden on the rooftop.
• The building is equipped with separate conditioning and ventilation systems for every premise, allowing the clients to manage their office climate individually.

According to the opening, the company needs a person who will be responsible for finance, with experience in accounting and strong analytical skills.

The requirements for the job seeker are as follows:

• Diploma in Accounting with minimum 5 years of proven experience in Ukrainian accounting and tax.
• Ukrainian and English languages.
• Excellent knowledge of SAP, Excel, and Keynote.
• Knowledge of financial reporting systems such as Tableau, EDW, BW.
• Strong analytical skills, ability to evaluate, analyze, and present data to a broad audience.
• Proactivity, excellent communication, and presentation skills.
• Attention to detail and proven track record to meet tight deadlines.

Such a specialist will be responsible for:

• Compliance of all statutory and tax reporting with Ukrainian GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Rules), US GAAP, and tax laws.
• Work with tax audits.
• Continuous legal entity oversight.
• Preparing quarterly reports for management, including balance sheet and income statement reviews.

You can apply for the position on the company’s website.

Thus, Kyiv became the second city, where the cost of living for expatriates has increased significantly over the year. San Jose made the highest leap, moving up from 131st to 78th position.

Ranking Methodology

The Mercer ranking was compiled based on data about the cost of goods and services collected in March 2020. Besides, the analysts also took into account currency fluctuations and inflation. In total, the ranking includes 209 cities, and more than 400 cities around the world participated in the survey.

The most expensive cities

Hong Kong tops the list as the world’s costliest city for the second consecutive year. Together with it, the top ten of the ranking includes:

1. Hong Kong
2. Ashkhabad
3. Tokyo
4. Zurich
5. Singapore
6. New York
7. Shanghai
8. Bern
9. Geneva
10. Beijing

The cheapest cities

According to the ranking, the cheapest cities in the world for emigrants are:

• Tunis
• Windhoek
• Tashkent and Bishkek, which shared the 206th place
• Karachi
• Banjul
• Tbilisi

The drop in the ranking was made by Luanda (from 26th position to 115th), Santiago (from 79 to 134), Rio de Janeiro (from 121 to 160), Buenos Aires (from 133 to 153).

The Mercer study is one of the most extensive in the world and is designed to help multinational corporations and governments develop compensation strategies for their expatriates.

The capital of Ukraine climbed 22 places and now shares the 86^th place with Moscow. The Economist experts explained the rise by strengthening of the hryvnia exchange rate, as well as the growth of the minimum and real wages.

The capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, soared in the list partially due to a record crop in 2019, which strengthened the export earnings rate and strengthened the hryvnia against the dollar. Also, Kyiv became stronger amid rising demand from the population. It is provoked by an increase in the minimum wage and an overall increase in wages, albeit from a very low base.

Assessment procedure

For the study, more than 400 prices are compared for 160 products and services: food, drinks, clothing, household supplies, and personal care items, home rents, transport, utilities, private schools, domestic help, and recreational costs.

Prices in all cities are compared with New York – the price index in the city is set at 100 points. Kyiv scored 58 points.

TOP 10

• The first place has been shared between Singapore, Hong Kong (a special region of China) and Osaka (Japan) with 102 points.
• New York comes fourth with 100 points.
• Followed by Paris and Zurich with 99 points each.

• Tel Aviv scored 97 points and is in the seventh position.
• The eighth place was shared by Los Angeles and Tokyo with 96 points each.
• Geneva closed the top ten with 95 points.

Istanbul showed the biggest leap, having risen by 24 positions. Now the city is in 96^th place.

The cheapest cities

• Damascus, Syria with 25 points is the city with the lowest prices.
• Followed by Tashkent with 30 points.
• And in the third place, is Almaty, Kazakhstan (34).
• The fourth position has been shared between Argentine’s Buenos Aires and Pakistan’s Karachi with 35 points each.
• Venezuela’s Karakas closed the cheapest five with 36 points.

Sofia, Bulgaria made the biggest leap down the list (from 90th position to 106th), Casablanca, Morocco (from 92 to 106) and Reykjavik, Iceland (from 15 to 29).

The full text of the study is available here.

In the three-minute video, you can see the Soviet-era Flying Saucer building on Lybidska Square in Kyiv, Vernadsky National Library, part of the road junction on Demiivska Square, and the building of Taras Shevchenko National University near VDNKh.

London agency Wieden+Kennedy worked on the project.

Why Kyiv was chosen

Reddit has offices around the world, in the U.S. and Europe, and many remote employees. “We chose Kyiv because there are a lot of technically skilled engineers who are interested in product development. They aspire to do more than only coding. We need people who are ready to contribute to the product,” Pavel says.

So far, the company has no plans to open offices in other cities of Ukraine, although there are no restrictions for this either.

When and where the office was opened

The office has only recently opened in Kyiv. The first employees work in Creative Quarter Gulliver, and there are still only two of them. “When I get back from San Francisco, we’ll start interviewing and hiring people. We are interested in top performers in a particular field,” Aleksey says.

What kind of specialists are you searching for

So far, this is an engineering office. We are looking for backend and frontend engineers. There may be job openings for mobile developers in the future. Currently, there are two available positions in Kyiv: senior frontend engineer and senior backend engineer. We plan to hire up to 10 people by the end of the year.

The team will be recruited to the Special Projects division, which works on the future of the platform. “Our team can be compared with a startup “We are working on experimental technologies and products. The company gives us a lot of support, and we have the opportunity to hire the best people,” Pavlo says.

First of all, specialists will be searched through the network.

What will they do?

The company cannot yet disclose all the projects that the Kyiv team will work on.

“We are conducting a huge number of experiments in different directions. One of them is alternative sources of revenue, the second one – everything about the future of the Internet. Reddit is a community united by interests. At Reddit, absolute anonymity is possible, and we want to depend less on users’ personal data,” says Aleksey.

According to representatives of the company, Reddit does not yet have so many users in Ukraine and outside the English-speaking world. A lot of users in Europe get to Reddit with Google search engine, but users in the U.S. have accounts there and go there to communicate in communities (subreddits). 

“We are interested in telling Ukrainian users about Reddit, what it is, why we are not a social network, not Facebook. Usually, they think that this is a place for memes and GIFs with kittens, but our users generate a huge amount of unique content on serious topics, ranging from relationship support  to the personal finance,” Pavlo explained.

About Reddit

It is one of the most popular platforms in the world for communication and discussion of issues that are interesting for users. As of November 2019, Reddit has about 430 million unique users per month, 130,000 active communities on topics ranging from computer games to personal finance and politics. In February 2019, the company raised a $300 million D Round, in which the Chinese Tencent became a lead investor. The company was valued at $2.7 billion.

AIN.UA editors handpicked 10 most important events of the year 2020 that will get you acquainted with the Ukrainian tech scene – find employees, customers, startups, investors, journalists, and much more.

Type of event: The second largest technical conference in Ukraine where speeches are delivered only in English. Held annually since 2015. In 2019 the event gathered 5,000 attendees.

At IT Arena attendees can choose from five streams, an exhibition area for startups, a competition with a prize fund and 40 closed meetups on the last day. 

What to expect: Many top managers and decision-makers come to Lviv – it is a good chance to mingle and make new acquaintances. The conference throws a huge private party annually: an informal networking ‘without ties’ for company owners and C-level executives.

Type of event: The largest IT-conference in Ukraine with preparations beginning six months in advance. In 2019, the event brought together 13,000 attendees from all over Ukraine as well as other countries. The conference is eventful. The conference is held for only one day.

At iForum, there are 6 streams to choose from and a huge exhibition area, where both startups wishing to make themselves known, as well as successful companies collecting leads are represented. 

What to expect: If on the day of the conference you plan to be in Kyiv and want to meet with someone, you can’t avoid a trip to iForum – all the representatives of the creative class will be there. On iForum you can meet almost anyone – even the President of Ukraine, and chat in an informal setting. The main thing is to know where to look – and for this, we recommend that you check out the event schedule.

Type of event: The main event of the year for Software-as-a-Service businesses. It has been held annually since 2017. It will be interesting to SaaS-founders, top managers, investors and anyone engaged in the development of product companies.

What to expect: First of all, check out the speeches. SaaS Nation has a lot of useful information for SaaS industry representatives, practical cases and highly specialized networking. 

Type of event: Games Gathering is the largest event in Eastern Europe devoted to the development and publication of games, as well as the creation of game content. The gathering is held annually since 2015. 

The conference gathers more than 3,000 attendees. There you can listen to about a hundred interesting speeches and presentations on game development, as well as demonstrate your own product in one of the free stands for indie teams.

What to expect: First of all, it presents an opportunity to meet new business partners – publishers, investors and service providers. And also listen to interesting presentations and ask questions to experts. After all, it was in Ukraine where such game masterpieces were born as S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Metro, Cossaks, Warface, Sherlock Holmes, etc. 

Type of event: The largest analytics conference for multichannel projects in Ukraine. The presentations are done in two streams: Business and Technical. Here they tell how to make the site successful using real-life case studies, as well as workshops and discussions.

What to expect: Analyze! is traditionally attended by the top representatives of Ukrainian e-commerce projects, market managers and leading experts of leading promotion agencies, Google representatives, including the directors of the company’s office in Ukraine. Here you can learn a lot, and at the same time get to know savvy people who can become your partners in the future.

Type of event: The Kyiv International Economic Forum in 2019 brought together 2,000 attendees and 110 speakers from 30 countries. It is a discussion platform that aims to formulate a strategy for the economic development of Ukraine. The event brings together large businesses and officials, bankers and lawyers. 

What to expect: At KIEF you can talk with senior Ukrainian officials. At the last forum, among the speakers were the prime minister, both deputy prime ministers, the finance minister and the president himself. However, the platform is also suitable for business networking.

Type of event: The largest developer conference in Ukraine and the world. Previously held under the brand name JavaDay, but then it joined the global community of Devoxx (17,000 attendees, 14 cities in Belgium, the UK, France, Poland, Morocco, and Ukraine). It has been held annually for the past 7 years.

What to expect: Learn the latest development trends, chat with colleagues and find new partners. In a nutshell, Devoxx is a universal international networking platform for programmers of all trades and specialties. There you can meet top developers, even the creators of programming languages and other development tools.

Type of event: Outsource People kicked off in 2013 in Kharkiv. Since then, from a small local meeting, the conference has grown into an annual two-day event with 1,000+ attendees and has become the largest in Europe in the field of service software development. Outsource People was held in Minsk and Krakow, and in the past few years, the conference was held in Kyiv.

What to expect: Most of the attendees are owners and managers of IT companies, and it can be useful to get to know them. Outsource People is also attended by top managers, sales representatives, marketers, developers, and other stakeholders. In 2019, at Outsource People 2019, they also organized a bonus third day and arranged tours of the offices of Kyiv IT companies.

Type of event: The event is held since 2011 on the coast of the Black Sea. The event is designed for CMO and Internet Marketers – SEO, PPC, Affiliate, PR&Brand.

What to expect: In addition to networking and insightful presentations, the main advantage of 8P is that it is held in Odesa. Over the years, the organizers threw pool parties, beach parties and came up with activities for attendees that you will not find at any other industry conference. 

Type of event: ITEM is an international conference held in the central part of Ukraine and is devoted to the development of a successful IT business. The conference has been held for the 8th season in a row twice a year – in Kyiv and Dnipro. It brings together attendees from more than 200 IT companies and speakers from around the world. 

What to expect: The main thing the conference has to offer is networking and mingling. Therefore, ITEM organizers promote networking in every possible way, come up with suitable formats, and at the end of the event the attendees are invited to an afterparty with a bar and live rock music.

The top cities of the ranking are Singapore, followed by Zurich, Oslo, Geneva, and Copenhagen.

The ranking is based on how cities consider ‘smart’ initiatives and what problems they see around.

Kyiv

Residents in Kyiv highly appreciate the availability of bars, museums, and other entertainment places. The worst, according to residents, is the situation with traffic, air pollution, and waste recycling.

Top 5 key issues for the city:

• corruption;
• road congestion;
• affordable housing;
• basic amenities;
• security.

Among online services, respondents rated online ticketing and booking as well as job search sites. However, many people doubted that online access to budget spending helped to reduce corruption. Also, residents are dissatisfied with applications and websites for effective air condition monitoring.

As for personal data processing, 73% of Kyiv residents are willing to share information to improve traffic congestion. 81.8% are comfortable with face recognition technologies to lower crime.

The full results of the report can be found here.

Couriers’ position

According to “Informator”, Glovo raised salaries for its couriers, but also increased the number of deliveries to receive bonuses. Now the courier needs to make more than 100 deliveries per week in order to earn decent salary. In addition, the participants of the protest noted that couriers themselves pay for fuel costs, depreciation, and insurance.

Company’s position

The company replied to the request of the editorial team of AIN.UA about the protest that starting July 20th, Glovo had changed the bonus system for the formation of the courier’s income.

“Now the income of the courier is formed as follows: there is a basic income and bonuses. An courier receives basic income for each completed order. Bonuses are counted for a number of completed orders. At the same time, their size may change, about which couriers are warned,” the company stated.

Also the company noted that couriers are always warned about such changes on weekly sessions and through other channels of communication.

• More than 50 people will move into the new office. By the end of the year the team will expand to 60 people, says Taras Potichny, Bolt regional manager in Ukraine. According to him, the company is increasing its footprint in Ukraine, which has become the main reason for opening a new large office.
• Bolt already has a local office with several dozen people.
• By the end of the year, the company plans to launch an R&D center, and then it will begin hiring developers.
• A year ago, in June 2018, Bolt service restarted in Ukraine and started operations in several cities: Kyiv, Lviv, and Odesa.
• Taxify has already tried to tap into the Ukrainian market. The first launch of the service in Kyiv took place in 2016 under a franchise agreement with Estonian entrepreneurs.
• The service re-branded in March 2019 with Bolt replacing Taxify. The old name limited the service, putting taxi services at the forefront. In the future, the company intends to increase the number of scooters, add new travel options, support public transport, etc.
• Bolt is a unicorn startup valued at over $1 billion with the total investment exceeding $177 million.

According to the publisher, the video in Ukraine was filmed by the Kyiv production company Radioaktive Film. Ukrainian street football players took part in the shooting.

The game FIFA 20 will be released on September 27. The street Volta Football mode will appear for the first time in it. Within its framework, users will be able to play on small fields with teams of three to five players.

Smart Locations of the Future is a ranking of the most attractive cities for investment. Singapore, Dublin and London top the list.

General ranking of the most attractive cities for investment

Kyiv (in fifth place) and Lviv (in eighth place) made it to the list of cities with high economic efficiency. As stated on the fDI’s website, these are locations where investors can invest less and make greater profits.

Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, tops the list in terms of economic efficiency. Also in the top 10 are two Polish (Gdansk and Wroclaw) and Lithuanian cities (Kaunas and Vilnius).

Ranking of cities by economic efficiency

Assessment of economic efficiency takes into account the cost of renting offices and production facilities, the level of wages and hotel rates, as well as tax rates and the cost of registering business and facilities. A complete list of winners and methodology is available on fDI’s website.

Compared to the previous version of the ranking for 2017, Kyiv has risen by 29 places, overtaking Munich, Helsinki, and Shenzhen. In total, the list includes more than 1,000 cities. At the same time, Ukraine rose by 4 lines, taking 31^st position among 100 countries.

The selection methodology is based on StartupBlink’s own algorithm. The position of the city depends on the strength of the ecosystem, and the country – on the number of projects, their quality, and business environment.

In addition, the ranking of cities also included Odesa (235), Lviv (299), Kharkiv (435), and Dnipro (561). San Francisco, New York, and London are the top three cities in the ranking. The top three countries are the USA, UK, and Canada.

In related news: GrowJo released a list of 10,000 fastest growing technology companies, where Ukrainian companies are included.

Photographer Sergey Ristenko managed to capture the moment when the ground around the Motherland Monument was covered with fog. The Ukrainian is one of the winners of the People’s Choice Prize.

The main prize was awarded to photographer Derik Baumgartner. He filmed the landscape of Mont Saint Michel, an island in France.

The compilers of the rating note that in Kyiv you can plan two nights in a 3-star hotel for an average of 36 euros. Beer and cappuccino also cost less than 1 euro. “You can plan a weekend for two in this city for less than 250 euros. Numerous churches with golden domes give the city a fairy country look,” the magazine informs.

The first ten rankings looks like this:

• Kyiv, Ukraine
• Krakow, Poland
• Warsaw Poland
• Belgrade, Serbia
• Budapest, Hungary
• Riga, Latvia
• Dresden, Germany
• Berlin, Germany
• Bratislava, Slovakia
• Hamburg, Germany

Earlier AIN.UA reported that Lviv was recognized the most comfortable among the Ukrainian cities, according to Numbeo.

How did the idea appear?

In LUN they say that the company has a huge amount of data on the real estate market of Ukraine. The service has long collected statistics on various parameters: the history of price changes in the primary and secondary markets, the speed of sales and resale of apartments, and so on, up to information about what materials for wall insulation are preferred by developers in a certain price category.

“Now, when urban issues are becoming increasingly public, we see the need to share knowledge with the public. We want to talk about what people care about when choosing an apartment: about the indicators of the houses themselves – height, density and age of building, as well as the quality of life in the areas. These are safety, environmental friendliness, transport accessibility and the dynamics of infrastructure development.”

Where will the data be taken from and how will it be analyzed?

Among the sources of LUN are information from developers, as well as state and third-party resources — the State inventory, norms of the State Architectural and Construction Inspectorate, reports of the Department of Statistics, the Open street map service and so on. “The problem is that, individually, these resources do not give a complete picture. LUN learned how to collect information from different sources and process it,” they say in the company.

For completion of the analysis, LUN cooperates with the Geo Design company, which uses its groundwork to interpret data and compile mathematical models of calculations. Besides that, the service plans to work together with Kyiv urbanists, who will be able to use ready-made infographics for analysis in the sphere of urban sciences.

Why does the company need it?

LUN comments on this as follows:

“The project “LUN Mіsto” has a mission to generate demand for quality housing. The infographics are visual aids for those who choose an apartment. They reflect the quality of life in a given area. Already, the demand for real estate is not just “price per square meter,” people realize that they want to live in a comfortable and pleasant environment.

Most developers are struggling to reduce the cost per square meter, instead of improving the quality of housing. Their ads are no different from the slogans of supermarkets that sell milk at low prices. But the apartment is not a box of milk, it’s a place where a person will live.

Thanks to the “LUN Mіsto” infographics, people will be able to understand which type and where housing in Kyiv meets their requirements. This approach to choosing an apartment changes the market as a whole and increases the demand for quality housing. Developers can no longer build high, dense and cheap apartment complexes, they will need to build it so that people want to live in such houses.”

In November, LUN launched the first such information project about Kyiv, a noise pollution map. With the red color on the map, the company shows which streets have more noise and which have less noise. In LUN they point out that this opportunity has become important for a certain type of users, for example, families who want to improve their living conditions when they decide to have children. Now about 30 thousand people use the noise pollution map.

As usual, the compilers of the study also provide salaries for the main specializations of the developers:

Salaries of Java, C # and C ++ developers:

Non-Android Java salaries and Android Java developers:

Salaries of Android developers: Java vs Kotlin:

Salary Objective-C and Swift-developers:

Salaries of PHP, Python and Ruby developers:

JavaScript developer salaries:

QA salaries:

Salaries of system administrators and DevOps engineers:

Salaries of managers:

Let us remind that earlier we published data about the salaries of C-level managers in Ukrainian IT.

The overall assessment consists of 8 indicators:

• purchasing ability index (the higher, the better);
• pollution index (the lower, the better);
• the ratio of the cost of housing and earnings (the lower, the better);
• cost of living in the city (the lower, the better);
• safety index (the higher, the better);
• health care quality index (the higher, the better);
• an index of time spent for trips (the lower, the better);
• climate comfort index (the higher, the better).

New York indicators were taken as the benchmark for estimating the cost of living. The index includes the cost of rent, the general price level for consumer goods, the cost of food, the high cost of restaurants and local purchasing ability.

For example, if the index of a city on rental housing is 120, then renting an apartment there is 20% more expensive than in New York. More details on the Numbeo methodology can be found on a separate page.

As of the beginning of 2019, Lviv was recognized as the most comfortable city in Ukraine. The city is on 174th place out of 226. In total, 5 Ukrainian cities were included in the rating and almost all of them have deteriorated since the last final assessment, conducted in mid-2018:

• Lviv, 174th place (previously – 165th place);
• Kyiv, 192nd place (previously – 174th place);
• Odesa, 193rd place (not previously evaluated);
• Kharkiv, 195th place (previously – 167th place)
• Dnipro, 201st place (not previously evaluated).

Map of the participating cities. Ukrainian cities – mainly in the “yellow” zone.

Canberra, the capital of Australia, was recognized as the best city to live in. The worst is the capital of Venezuela, the city of Caracas. A complete list and ratings can be found on the Numbeo website.

The most common reason for Ukraine’s weak position is low purchasing ability. Kharkiv, Odesa, Lviv and Dnipro were in the list of 20 worst cities by this indicator. However, the total costs (cost of living) are small: Lviv, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Odesa were included in the top 20 cheapest cities. At the same time, Dnipro closed the list of top 20 most polluted cities.

For the guests, this is a restaurant in the centre of Kyiv. It includes 4 parlors named after Kyiv districts. Peker and Partners was in charge of the interior design.

The menu is represented by the European cuisine with a focus on healthy nutrition and minimum meat dishes. The restaurant will work every day from 07:00 a.m. till 11:00 p.m. It is situated at 9, Boris Hrinchenko Str. nearby Kyiv Architect House, in the former building of the music school. The average bill in Urban Space will make UAH 200-250.

Urban Space 500 is particularly interesting from the organizational point of view. The project has 500 co-founders each of whom invested $1,000 for opening the location. They will not get return on their investments and will not have any profit. The co-founding organizations call it an attempt to draw together the Kyiv community and facilitate the development of the civic society.

The total period of preparation for opening was over 2 years. 500 investors have been gathering for 1 year and 13 days. The repair of premises took over 9 months.

Basic information about investors:

• 87% of co-founders live in Kyiv;
• 29 of co-founders are from abroad;
• co-founder average age is 34 year old;
• 40% are women;
• every fifth is an entrepreneur;
• every tenth works in the field of public and charity organizations;
• every tenths is an IT specialist.

Who are among 500 investors

The list of all investors is published on the project web-site. Among them are:

• Roman Khmil, the former CEO of Ciklum and co-founder of Creative Quarter;
• Nazar Shymone-Davyda, the founder of Tesla Club Ukraine;
• Max Yakover, the Managing Partner of UNIT.City;
• Aliona Kalibaba, the Manager of Chasopys coworking network;
• Roman Apostol, the co-founder of Preply startup;
• Yaroslav Azhnyuk, the founder of Petcube startup;
• Dmitry Derkach, the co-founder of Planeta Kino cinema network;
• Artem Borodatyuk, the founder of Netpeak agency;
• Lyunomir Ostapiv, the Financial Consultant;
• Vlad Voskresensky, the founder of Invisible.io startup.

What the earned money will be spent on?

The restaurant is characterized by non-standard income distribution model. It is planned that 80% of the net profit will go for financing of social municipal initiatives, and 20% – for the benefit of the management company and additional initiatives coverage.

The priorities of the first year are as follows:

• transport solutions and improvements;
• development of city planning culture;
• inclusive projects;
• environmental education projects;
• progressive training for people of all ages.

In addition to incoming criteria, a special commission will select the project applications. Then the financing priority will be solved by the preferential voting of 500 co-founders. This is the only privilege in the project as no allowances or special provisions are provided for co-founders of the restaurant.

Urban Space 500 will also provide a free event site. Nadia Parfan will be the supervisor, and any inhabitant of Kyiv can submit an application for using the site. The top priority is for lectures, discussions, music events with open access and without any commercial item. Political propaganda and discrimination are prohibited.

In the course of time, Urban Space Radio studio will start working. They promise to broadcast qualitative Ukrainian music and make themed programs.

Previous Experience

Kyiv Urban Space has a predecessor – Urban Space 100 restaurant in Ivano-Frankivsk. As can be easily guessed from its name, it has 100 co-founders. The project was launched in 2014. It has been successfully working for the benefit of the city since that time.

According to the Teple Misto platform Manager, Yuriy Fylyuk, in 2018, Ivano-Frankivsk transferred about UAH 1 million for social projects financing. He says that the amount was gradually increasing as the initial first-year financing was considerably lower.

Yuriy Fylyuk

How Urban Space 500 is organized from the business point of view

$500,000 invested by the co-founders is not the project final cost estimate. According to the Member of the Board of Insha Osvita public organization, Alyona Karavay, the final amount invested into Urban Space 500 has yet to be calculated. The managers cannot declare it now.

Firstly, some of co-founders invested more than $1,000 under the terms of the interest-free loan or donation. One of the options is ordering of individual engravings of tables (UAH 25,000) and chairs UAH 10,000). The inscriptions willbe made in the nearest future.

Secondly, Oschabank opened a preferential credit line for the project, and Western NIS Enterprise Fund allocated funds under the Social Business Undertaking program. Close to opening, some partner companies provided  pro bono services, some – with a considerable allowance.

Alyona Karavay

The project co-founders say carefully about outgoing financing yet. According to Alyona Kavavay, they are not ready yet to declare specific amounts the project could compete for, and, first of all, in order not to raise the level of expectations too high. As the experience of Ivano-Frankivsk shows, the first year will be adaptation for the business. She notices that:

The restaurant in Ivano-Frankivsk is three-times smaller, and we cannot just multiply the project economics by 3.

The other Urban Space 500 co-founder, Valentin Desyatnik, also makes fun of this:

The more coffee you will drink here, the more money will go for the projects.

However, the project lease terms are fully known.

The premise with the area of 471 sq. m. owned by Suspilne Movlennya PJSC was leased through the platform zakupki.prom.ua, linked to the Prozorro public purchase platform.  The lease rate is 375 UAH/sq.m., the contract amount is 176,625 UAH/month, inclusive VAT.  The platform (zakupki.prom.ua) gained 3% of yearly lease amount.

The agreement was signed in February 2018 for a validity period of 35 months. The preferential price was given for first three months – 1.2 UAH/month, and then the declared terms came into effect. The lessor (the National Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Company) has the right to increase the price by 10% times per year.

Full terms and documentation are available on the auction web-site.

What the Management Company will get

Liabilities, at a minimum. Druzi Cafe & Bar guarantees Urban Space 500 working for two years after opening. Also, the company is a co-borrower under the loans got for the restaurant development. In case of force-majeure, they will pay money under the 3-year credit line.

According to the Druzi Cafe & Bar representative, Yevgeniy Lavrenyuk, they are interested in the project not from the point of view of its profitability, but as an experiment in the field of socially responsible business undertaking.

Our work can be described in two words: organization and control. We must build the business so that it gives the maximum profit but conforms to initial purposes.

As compared with standard commercial projects, we will earn not too much. 80% of the net profit will go to public activities, and  20% will remain for us but partially repaid by the costs. As the result, we can count upon 7-8%  from 100% profit. This is more like a pleasant compensation for our efforts.

Such terms for the project provide for possibility to substitute the management company. If we fail to fulfill our liabilities, wish to withdraw  from or terminate the business, Urban Space 500 will be able to involve the other management company.

Lavrenyuk also complained that 90% of the restaurant business in Ukraine is “shadow”, and only large companies like McDonald’s are large and fair market players.

Yevgeniy Lavrenyuk

Urban Space 500 intends to become an example of the responsible and fair organization. The restaurant will pay all applicable taxes and employ the personnel on a legal basis. However, this will slightly reduce the marginality as compared with the average market indicators. But, according to the entrepreneur, if the standard restaurant projects are intended for 2-5 years, people want to support Urban Space 500 operating for decades.

Methodology of evaluation consisted of 17 indicators. It was developed by experts of Transparency International together with foreign investors, Ukrainian enterprises and social divisions of city governments.

The top three rankings included Ivano-Frankivsk (15 out of 20 points), Kyiv (12.7) and Vinnitsya (12). The authors noted the work of the Investment Portal of the city of Ivano-Frankivsk. For reaching the highest point of performance, the city was recommended to imbed seasonal trade e-auctions, to connect the city to a platform that helps people open their own business, publish a list of current regulatory acts, and include entrepreneurs as members of the executive committee.

To improve investment transparency, Kyiv needs to post data on engineering networks, resolve the conflict of interests of the executive committee members and connect the city to a platform that helps people open their own business. A system of electronic auctions for the sale of rights to place seasonal trade was recognized the best practice in Kyiv.