The Ukrainian devs who are making games in a bomb shelter: \u201cIt\u2019s our duty\u201d Nordcurrent, DexertoAs bombs fall from the smog-ridden skies of Ukraine, the lives of everyday civilians have been altered beyond repair. For Nordcurrent\u2019s CEO, Victoria Trofimova, and Dnipro Office Director, Tatyana Margolina, game development has to go on despite the challenges the country faces. Here are their stories. On February 24, 2022, Russia initiated an unsanctioned invasion of neighboring Ukraine, fanning flames of tensions that have existed between the two nations. Trapped at the heart of a nation under siege, the lives of everyday citizens have been altered beyond recognition. While the once-bustling streets of the capital city, Kyiv, were a vibrant hubbub of business professionals and leisure facilities, they now lie amid the fog of war, forever tainted by the scourge of conflict. Attempting to retain a sense of normality amid mass evacuations and constant fighting is Nordcurrent\u2018s Tatyana Margolina, the Office Director for the company\u2019s Dnipro facility. As sirens blare and the eyes of the world continue to scrutinize the invasion, Tatyana is working alongside CEO, Victoria Trofimova, to show that, while industry may have ground to a halt, Nordcurrent stop for no one. A city in flames With offices in Dnipro and Odessa, Nordcurrent is a developer with a focus on mobile games. Known for titles like Cooking Fever and Sniper Arena, Tatyana heads up the company\u2019s Dnipro facility. Despite a vague awareness that something wicked lurked on the horizon, Tatyana recalls waking up in slight disbelief. \u201cOn the morning of the 24th I went outside to the fire escape to have a cigarette,\u201d she recalls. \u201cThere was smoke rising from my home city, it looked like a movie.\u201d As it became clear life as they knew it had been turned upside down, Victoria (currently stationed at Nordcurrent\u2019s head office in Lithuania) was quick to act when the news reached her. \u201cI learned that the war had started about two hours after Tatyana,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI was woken up by my father who told me to turn on the TV.\u201d While she was quick to get to the office, she notes that her first steps remain somewhat unclear. \u201cThat day is very blurry for me; as well as the entire first month following the invasion. We contacted Tatyana, as well as the manager of our other studio in Odessa to find out what the situation was on the ground. Both cities were bombed on the first day. \u201cWe started to figure out what we had to do, and what we could do; how could we help our employees? How will the studios be affected?\u201d As the conflict continued to rage over the weekend, Victoria notes \u201cwe arranged the first bus going out of Odessa, and we\u2019ve continued to organize buses for people who want to leave. It\u2019s all very individual, but our Dnipro studio remains open with essentially little interruption.\u201d Game development from a bomb shelter With Dnipro thankfully has been spared much of the violence, Tatyana\u2019s office is equipped with an underground bomb shelter where the employees have been spending a little more time than they would like. She states \u201cemployees are mostly in the office right now. The nearest frontline to Dnipro is around an hour and a half away by car. We don\u2019t need to go to the basement that often these days \u2013 there have only been around 33 bomb hits in the suburbs.\u201d \u201cOnly 33\u201d \u2013 words Tatyana likely never would have believed she\u2019d been saying so casually. As she spoke to me, however, she confesses \u201cthere are sirens on right now, so right now I should be in the shelter, but we don\u2019t really go there unless we actually hear bombs dropping.\u201d While all of this has simply become a fact of life for her, it\u2019s shocking to hear another human speak so freely of being in constant danger. Even miles away in Scotland, a feeling of hopelessness and terror started to well up inside me, so how do Tatyana and her employees cope with that sense of discomfort every day? \u201cWe support each other, we have a friendly team, and we are united in our work because it is our duty as citizens. This is one of the few things we can do and that we can affect. Bombs don\u2019t fall all the time in Dnipro, so we tell each other not to be down and share jokes \u2013 and we sincerely laugh at those jokes.\u201d While Victoria notes that the company\u2019s games \u201ccontinue to perform well\u201d despite \u201cissues with upgrading and issuing updates for the games.\u201d She highlights that \u201cthe business has been affected more on a personal level. Our employees are under an enormous amount of stress, people have had to relocate \u2013 we opened a new office in Warsaw, Poland, for the relocated staff \u2013 so it\u2019s more those kind of things, and of course, uncertainty. \u201cIt\u2019s not a business kind of issue; it\u2019s a personal tragedy.\u201d Hope in the hour of despair Despite our conversation being about one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent history, there\u2019s an inspiring poise about both women. When I asked what the future looked like for them, their answers left me speechless, but also full of hope. \u201cI think we all have to be optimistic,\u201d says Victoria. \u201cI\u2019m an optimistic person. I believe that, especially in business, it\u2019s an essential, but also as a citizen and as a human being I need to believe things will return to normal; otherwise how can we proceed? \u201cWe certainly believe and hope that this insanity of war will end soon and we will all go back to normality. I certainly look forward to, one day, being able to fly back to our offices in Ukraine and visit our staff. That is something I definitely want to do in the near future.\u201d \u201cWe believe in victory,\u201d echoes Tatyana. \u201cWe believe in the Ukrainian army, the economy, and the people around us. People have lost an understanding of their future, they have lost their dreams, but we stay here in Ukraine and help because it is our country \u201cI want to express my gratitude for all of the help the world has given Ukraine, and I ask for continued aid to help us win this war.\u201d If you wish to aid the Ukranian war effort, you can donate to the following charities:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ukrainian devs who are making games in a bomb shelter: \u201cIt\u2019s our duty\u201d Nordcurrent, DexertoAs bombs fall from the smog-ridden skies of Ukraine, the lives of everyday civilians have been altered beyond repair. For Nordcurrent\u2019s CEO, Victoria Trofimova, and Dnipro Office Director, Tatyana Margolina, game development has to go on despite the challenges the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}