Hi, I'm Oleg...
My Olchik calls me ‘Scherbinka’…and my Mushka calls me ‘papik’ Those two are the most beautiful girls in the world for me — my wife and my daughter…
I was born in spring of 1975 in a small Ukrainian town. The most challenging question I had asked myself by the age of 10 or so was: «Why I was born in Soviet Union?» Being so young I already realized that I did not appreciate equality in a way it was imposed on us in a Soviet regime — I always felt that I could do better than just being a «put down» citizen of a
I became a student of Odessa State Economic University, Faculty of Accounting and Audit and this is where I met my future wife. When two of us met, she was a first year student and I was only 18 and we married exactly in 2 years after our first date — November 4, 1995. By that time I already been working for some time as a part time accountant, but when I asked for Olya’s hand, her dad made a very good point «So, young man, and how are you going to support your family?»
We got married and spent unforgettable time living as a young married couple of students in a rented bachelor, with a single income of a part time accountant/student, but I was very persistent in finding a decent job, so «to support my family». And I did! I got a job as a Controller in an International Construction company and I am still thankful to that Greek guy, who believed in me when I was 20 and gave me an opportunity to start my professional career. Starting from that time I always wanted and worked in international business. I guess, this is where I got my second serious thoughts of «why don’t we go to another country?»
Back to my girls… Do you know that my wife and my mom have the same first, middle and last names? Yes, it is true — Olga Grygorivna Scherbina, isn’t it amazing? And my daughter has the same name as her grandma — Masha? I guess it became a tradition — calling women in our family Olya and Masha. Masha is an amazing creature — I never got tired looking, listening or spending time with her — she is very funny and smart and I am terribly proud of being a dad to such a beauty. They say she looks like me and it is the biggest compliment I got so far with respect to my appearance… In reality she does look like her mom — it really depends on what we mean by ‘look’ — she speaks, thinks, walks, and smiles like her — it is amazing to see our commonalities and differences in this little girl, who recently started to answer «yes» in French, sounds like «we». Well, she goes to French emersion school — one of the benefits and options parents have, raising a child in Canada.
As I already mentioned, at the end of 90s, I started exploring our options to emigrate from Ukraine — actually not a very long list of options: Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada. Eliminating one by one countries on our list we came to the conclusion that Canada was our very best bet — established immigration procedure, beautiful nature and «stable [at that time] economy plus world known tolerance to immigrants were some of the factors which made up our mind. I can talk for hours about reasons we decided to move to this country of freedom, security and opportunities, but actually those last three words are three main factors: to get a freedom for my thoughts and actions, security for my family and opportunity to get a better life for all of us.
It took us about 2 years from the time we applied to immigrate to the moment of landing in Vancouver on March 27, 2001. So, here we are — a family of three starting a new life in a new country with a new language and new friends and look forward for new challenges, opportunities and new experiences.