Chemists in Ukraine revisited: Olha Konshyna

Olha Konshyna

Source: © Sam Kerr @ Début Art

Reagents freeze and power cuts dictate working hours in Kyiv

I came back to Kyiv with my child in September. It took a while to find a babysitter and organise everything for the baby, and I’ve been working since December in the laboratory at my previous job.

Aside from the war going on, not much changed. In our R&D lab in Kyiv, we are developing cosmetics for our production line in Lithuania, just as before. The lab officially closed for a while but it didn’t move. Obviously, the conditions are not that good, but we are adapting. We don’t have power generators, and it’s 14°C in the lab, so some reagents freeze, and we need to adapt to power cuts. Not that convenient, of course. We do our best.