Important To Me: Episode 1. Kateryna Yuschenko

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Important To Me, a podcast where leaders from around the world fear their experience of ethical values-based leadership. I'm your host, David Benger, and I'm very grateful to the Nizami Ganshavi International Center who has made this podcast possible. Our first guest is Katerina Yushenko, former first lady of Ukraine. This interview was recorded on June 2nd, 2020, and released on July 2nd, 2020. Katerina Yushenko, it's such a pleasure to have you with us today. I have something I'd like to say to you. I'm going to try to say it. I'm going to butcher the pronunciation, but Shanovna, Katarino Mikhailovna, Shiro Vetayovas, Ivel Mediakoyo, Shopogodilise, predilite, mini-chas. Thank you, Dave. You said that perfectly. I'm very, very honored to be here. Thank you so much. I was thinking we would start with just a conversation about how we met and the NGIC organization that you take such an active part in. Can you tell us a little bit about it and what it means to you? Yes, I'd be happy to. The Nizami Ganshavi International Center is a nonprofit organization that was started in Baku in 2012. It's dedicated to the 12th century poet Nizami Ganshavi, who's considered the greatest romantic epic poet in Persian literature. The reason they chose him, he was ahead of his time. Even in the 12th century, he already talked about tolerance to people of all religions. He talked about the rights of women. You could say that he was a precursor to Shepchenko, the Ukrainian poet laureate to Shakespeare, the British poet laureate. The NGIC mission is to promote learning, tolerant dialogue, understanding. What it does is it brings together foreign leaders from many different countries to discuss pressing issues of the day. We talk in various formats. We talk in conferences, in small conferences, large ones, in meetings, to now more and more online. And talk about issues that are very, very important, whether it's food, globalization issues, security issues, economic poverty. But what I especially like about it is that it brings together people with varying views. You could have Arabs and Israelis come together. You could have people from former Yugoslavia public. So you have Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, all sitting at a table talking together. You have, when we're in the United States, we have Republicans and Democrats talking together. And I think that's a very, very important, particularly in this day and age, where we tend not to talk to people who think a little bit differently than we do. Very important indeed. But can you tell us a little bit about your life story and what brought you to this point growing up in the United States and how you became the first lady of Ukraine? All right. Thank you. My parents were both Ukrainian. And you could say that their lives mirrored the 20th century in this part of the world. My father was born in 1917. So he lived through the revolution, the Bolshevik revolution, which turned Ukraine upside down the Holodomor, which killed up to a quarter of our population. It was a great genocide of our people. He barely survived that. Most of his family did not survive that. He only lived because he went to stay at the apartment of a sister in a city where all his relatives who lived in the village died. Then my family went to war. World War II. My father was a soldier. And then they were both my mother and my father, my mother as a teenager, my father as a young soldier, taken as host arbitraries, which were forced labor workers into Germany during World War II and that is where they met. So you could say they lived through revolution, famine, slavery. And then they, after some years, came to the United States and they then lived the immigrant and the diaspora experience, which was very difficult. I was already, my sister was born in Germany. At the end of the war, I was born in the United States. In Chicago. And so I lived through the immigrant experience, the diaspora experience, in a family that taught me that in the United States, anything is possible if you get an education, if you work hard. At the same time, they taught me that you have a great responsibility to your homeland because they left Ukraine not out of economic reasons, out of their own volition, but because of a war, because of political reasons. And they always had the dream of coming back to Ukraine. And they taught me that I had a great responsibility to help the country from which they had come. I was, I then tried to fulfill their dream. I got an education at Georgetown Foreign Service School at the University of Chicago MBA program. I then went on to a career, which was a little bit, you could say, a duel in the sense that I was deeply committed to human rights freedom, Ukraine, those kinds of issues, issues of liberty and justice. And at the same time, I studied economics. So I also was in favor of promoting economic development, free markets. And so my first job straight out of an MBA program, which was an unusual choice instead of going to banking or events, been banking, which was one of the career paths. I decided sort of the State Department. It was the Reagan administration. And it was President Ronald Reagan who spent, who really paid attention, spent a great deal of his time working on the issues of freedom for people behind the iron curtain. And so it became, I decided to choose that position because I knew there was no other time better in history to work on issues of human rights and liberty behind the iron curtain. I worked in the State Department human rights bureau, human rights and humanitarian affairs for two years. And that was a fascinating time in my life when I had the opportunity to actually prepare some of the materials that President Reagan used when he spoke with Gorbachev. And which was a very moving experience, I have to say, for me to be in my 20s and have that opportunity to be there, I then moved up for the last year of the Reagan administration into the White House and worked in President Reagan's White House on relations with diaspora communities. And talking to them about the President's policies and foreign policy, defense policy, economic policy and also very, very exciting experience, I have to say when I left the White House, I thought that was the end of my interesting career. I worked then in the Treasury Department and the Congress for a while before moving to Ukraine. And then-- >> Just quickly, when you said you liaased with diaspora communities, was that specifically focused on Ukraine or is that all kinds of diaspora communities? >> All those all kinds of diaspora communities. >> It was in the Office of Publicly ASEAN and I was one of the people that headed up a department there within that office. And we had people, some people who worked directly with Hispanic communities, so I did not deal with that. But I dealt with most of the other communities and it had to deal with setting up meetings for the President, writing the proclamations, writing the speeches, dealing with them, making sure that the White House was aware of important events, commemorations of diaspora communities around the United States. And so it was a very important outreach and I'm very happy that the White House had that kind of outreach because it showed that they cared about what issues very much interested whether it be the Polish community, the German community, the Bulgarian community or others. >> That must have been a remarkably interesting job. I can't imagine the amount of different histories and stories you must have had to learn to do that job well. That sounds amazing. >> Yes. Yes, I have to say for someone who didn't have very much experience at the time, I was in my 20s. It was a very educational experience to learn about what these people cared about and try to reach out to them, try to inform people that we're at a higher level in the White House, why these were important and suggest possible opportunities for the president to address a certain event, to write a certain letter, create a certain proclamation. So it was an exciting and it was a very, very special time because I think that at that time the United States had a president who truly cared and the people around him truly cared. After that I went to the Treasury Department and worked in the Secretary's office and then after that I went to the Congress and worked in the German Economic Committee finally going into my field which was economics. And that was very interesting experience. Obviously I worked for Senator Roth, who I believe was a very fine senator. And then, 1991 came. And everything we had worked for, the diaspora community, all those years was coming to fruition in the sense that the Soviet Union was falling apart. Eastern Europe was declaring it depends, they are in curtains falling. And I decided with a friend at that time to begin working on issues dealing with Ukraine. In '89, '90, '91, there was a group of Ukrainian activists in Ukraine dissidents who were representing a new Ukraine. They were for independence, for human rights, for liberal values. And they were part of something called Ruch, the popular movement. And we began translating materials for them. We began working with them. We organized in the foundation that a friend and I, an Adyama Colantno, and I organized together the US Ukraine foundation. We began bringing some of these people to the United States so that they could start studying the experience. They were very excited at the time, because they had never been abroad. They didn't know how Congress worked. They didn't know how media worked. They didn't know how laws were made. And we helped them learn about processes, about laws. We translated a lot of materials for them. And at that time, we decided that it's important to have somebody in Kiev. So in '91, even before the Declaration of Independence, I moved to Kiev to help these reformist members of the parliament to really try to create positive change in the country. And I was here. I had just gone home to gather things when the coup happened, '91. And I thought that everything we had worked for had. It was gone, that it was the end. And then five, six days later, Ukraine declared its independence. And that I just was probably the best day in my life, the best day in my father's life. And so it was very important. And after that, I came to Ukraine and basically stayed here since. And you moved to Ukraine as a private citizen, right? Not as a representative of the US government. Oh, no, no, no. I came definitely as a private citizen. I worked for the first year in the offices of Ruch, the popular movement, trying to get materials to them, trying to help them, organizing visits to the United States. We worked on some grants. We worked on private funds. And so the first few years, yes, it was very much a private think tank we created here. And we hired translators and we translated everything. We translated constitutions from around the world. I remember one night we got a very strange call saying, this was after independence, we're creating our Department of Defense. What's the law that created the Department of Defense in the United States? They said, oh my gosh, I have no idea. And we found it on a very primitive internet at the time. Somebody sent it to me after dialing in for half an hour. And I got it, had it translated within a day. And we gave them the law that showed how you create a ministry of defense. That's fantastic. That's fantastic. And so you were sort of at the beginnings of the creation of the state. How did you decide who you wanted to support, who felt like the people who inspired you? I'm sure there are a lot of people buying for power and for influence at that time. How did you decide who you would ally with? Do you know it? At that time, it was a lot more black and white. And it was in Ukraine, you had those who were very much trying to support the old system and a return to the Soviet Union, a return to Russian control of the country. And those who had proven themselves over the last two decades by being dissidents who had been imprisoned, they were journalists, they were writers, they were lawyers, and some of them had spent many years in the Gulag. And not only in Ukraine, but that was the case in the Baltic countries and in others, you had clear leaders. And Poland, clear leaders, people who put their lives on the line for freedom, for justice, for independence. So it was very clear who to help at that time. And what we provided was it was not financially, it was educational. We provided them with materials, knowledge, the ability to learn abroad, the ability to learn within the country. And so it was easy at that time to see what was right and what was wrong. And from just a purely sort of day-to-day life perspective, what was it like moving from the United States to Ukraine at that time in the early '90s? You know, it was an interesting time to be in Ukraine. You know, at the time, it just seemed a natural move. I was fulfilling a dream of my fathers, of my mothers. I celebrated at the time the differences. I would say that in Ukraine, the people were moving forward. In some ways, I felt like I was in 1776 in the United States, the ability to work with people who are making tremendous changes who are changing the course of history. Ukraine had very highly educated people, which I enjoyed. You know, you could have someone who was working as a trucker or a cleaning lady talking to a bar opera or poetry. And that to me was fascinating. Our get-togethers were in Washington, most of the get-togethers were receptions that were a little bit superficial. In Ukraine, they would be sit-down dinners where people would quote poetry, and everyone around the table would have a toast where they would talk about meaningful things. And that was one of those were the things I loved about Ukraine. I loved that there was very strong interest in culture, theater, museums, opera and ballet. Obviously, there were things in the United States I missed very much. And when I first moved here, and I'm not talking just about the convenience of having the stores and food and that, but also, you know, I had family and friends. But also, I missed the culture of civilized political discourse that existed at that time in the United States where you would have people of different parties would discuss debate issues on television, particularly Sunday mornings or on nightline. And you would hear all points of view on an issue. I missed the unbiased media, which I felt at that time, of course, some media was a little more right. Some was a little more left, but in general, you knew when you read an article, you were going to get all sides. That was not the case in Ukraine. And so I missed that about the United States. I missed the fact that the United States, and I talked about this a lot, I never encountered corruption in the sense of somebody asking me for a bribe in the government. And, you know, I missed some of the things like excellent standards at university and, you know, very strong research ethic. So there were things I missed about the United States, but there were things I loved about Ukraine. So the transition was an interesting one, an easy one. Yeah. And I understand that in addition to love of Ukraine as the country, you also had a longstanding relationship with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit about the role that both your relationships with the church and your faith has played in your journey. Well, I had a long relationship with the church. My parents were Orthodox Ukrainians out of the Autosophilist Church. I had a strong relation with the diaspora, which included youth organizations. And for a couple of years, right after college, I represented the Ukrainian community in Washington and ran the office there. I think we felt our mission was to preserve that, which was being destroyed in Ukraine of the Soviet Union. And so it was important for us to preserve our values within the church, our morals within the church. But also the idea of the church was very important that we didn't, because it was being so destroyed in Soviet Ukraine. So it was very huge for all of us when the church was renewed in the '90s. Even more, one of the biggest issues for my husband has always been the independence of our church, because as you know, the Orthodox church has always been based on, there's a church within every country. Ukraine always had its own church. It was stolen from us. And the fact that we've regained it is very, very important to us. And that's the project that you've been personally involved in. Was that right? Yes. I would say it's something that has always been important to me. It's something that my husband concentrated on very much when he was president. He, after many centuries, he organized the very first visit of the Patriarch of Constantinople, which is now East Unbel. He had the Patriarch of Constantinople, came to Ukraine in 2008. And that was very important symbol for our country, that of recognition, which then under President Poroshenko, we actually gained the recognition of our church. It was writing a wrong that had existed for centuries. Well, let's take a step back and talk about how you got from working with Ruch in the beginning to sort of becoming first lady. What was that journey? Well, after working with Ruch for a while, I decided I better work on, go back to my economics or I would lose that completely in my economics and business and I needed to support myself here in Ukraine. And so I became the country director for KPMG here in Ukraine, the consulting part of KPMG Bearing's Group. And we received funding from USAID, World Bank, other international organizations to promote economic reform in Ukraine. We worked in banking reform, banking supervision, bank training. We worked on capital markets, privatization, fiscal reform. And so that was an opportunity to actually have hands-on advisory responsibility for some of what was happening in Ukraine and the economic field. I think we did a great job, even though I would say that if I had to do it all over again, I would probably do it a little bit differently because I think that the economic projection of Ukraine in the 90s did not go in the right direction. Some of the bankers, we taught basic skills, ended up within a couple of years, billionaires. We couldn't quite figure it out. I didn't figure it out until a few years later. I read a book by the great economist, Swedish economist Anders Osslund, about Ukraine economy in the 90s. And I thought, "Oh, that's what happened." So yeah, I worked on that. And then it was in the course of this, we were advisors to the central bank. And my husband was the head of the central bank at the time. At the time, I didn't know him. We met when we became advisors. And we had organized a study tour to the United States to study the Federal Reserve System and the Commercial Banking System in the United States. And we met during that trip. And we started working together. We eventually married. And then a little bit after we married, he was tapped to become Prime Minister, which was the beginning of his political, as opposed to his economic career. And after being removed from Prime Minister by, you could say, anti-reformist forces, he formed the opposition in the parliament. He became a member of parliament formed the opposition, which is a very dangerous time, you could say. Then he ran for president. We had the orange revolution. He became president. And now we're living in our post-presidential years. And in Ukraine, just for context, the president is the head of the government, or rather the head of state. It's the head of state. Yes. There is a cabinet of ministers, which is, you could say, the executive branch. But there's a very, with each president, there's been a very, you could say, hazy line between, you know, the role of the executive, the role of the president, the Prime Minister. And then, of course, we have the parliament and the Supreme Court. Okay. So it sounds basically like from all of your experience, if anyone wanted to start a new country, you would be the first person to go to for advice. I will say definitely not. I would be very, very happy to speak with them. But it's, it was, as I said, an experience that I appreciated because I realized that generations of Ukrainians had given their lives to live in a time that I lived. Wow. That's a really powerful sentiment. So related to that, it seems like a trajectory of your life has always been not only a passion and interest for Ukraine, but also sort of ambassadorial spirit for representing Ukraine to the outside world. And as a representative of a relatively small country and a country for which a lot of people have a lot of different misconceptions, how do you make sure Ukraine's voice is heard in the world stage, both in your role as an informal ambassador, but also in more formal settings? Well, first of all, it's not a small country. Ukraine geographically is the largest country in Europe outside of Russia and which is both in Europe and Asia. So Ukraine is a large country and an important country. And unfortunately, it was a country hidden for so many years from the world stage. It's, but Ukraine has a very compelling story and a story that we have not done a good enough job to tell. It's a story of a country and of a people that has suffered and yet has constantly risen from the ashes. How many times over the centuries, just when our language was wiped out, our history was changed, our church was destroyed, our people were killed, we would rise up into clear independence. Even in the 20th century alone, we declared our independence six times. It was constantly squashed until the last time, but it showed the will of the people for freedom, for liberty. And so I think it's a very compelling story and a very important story. It's a very important story for Europe, which has occasionally wondered what its values are, why the EU was formed. And yet, here comes Ukraine, who says we very much want to be a part of the economic cultural political sphere that is Europe, because we deserve to be there. It's a story of a people who, just when you think that they're down, they're apathetic, they're destroyed, they're poor, they rise up and create peaceful revolutions as they did in '91, as they did in 2004 with the orange revolution, as they did again in 2013, '14 with the Maidan. It's a people who sit quietly, but when they feel that they're the existence of their country, the future of their country's threatens, they go out, they risk their lives, they protest, but they do it in a way that is non-violent, and they do it in a way to show the world the kind of country they want to live in, not the kind of country they do live in. I think that it's very important to tell the world how you say geopolitically, Ukraine is important. As Brzynski said, without Ukraine, Russia can never be an empire, and that's why they so much much Ukraine. Ukraine is very important in terms of its location on the Black Sea, and I think that Ukraine will be very important in the future in terms of its agricultural capability, its high education, its IT people, and so it's an easy story to tell, even though I must say, I don't think we've told it as well as we should. >> Consistent with that story, sort of in any nationalist story in any nationalist revival, or really any mission-oriented story, part of selling the story is bringing together heroes from the past to create a sort of role models, and inherently in a nationalist story, those heroes will be flawed, right? And I think of sort of, and I'm not an expert on this, but in Ukraine's history, I think of people like Banderah or Petlura who have become nationalist icons for some, but are also have been accused historically of doing some pretty awful things, and I wonder how you create a narrative where you bring forward heroes that it can be important and relevant today, but also kind of qualify the fact that these were imperfect people. >> You know, the bigger the hero, the bigger the more important in history, the person, the more flaws that people had. I find, you know, as I get older and read more and more history, I find that things were not always as clear-cut as one would like. You know, I've been reading a lot of American history lately, and I grew up in the United States finding the founding fathers absolutely perfect, and then as I read more, I find out that great scandals they had amongst themselves and they were not perfect people, but they were great people, and they did great things. We feel that every country needs to honor the people who fought for their independence and their freedom. We need, we also need to recognize historical truths, and it's very important that we talk about these historical truths. One thing I would like to say about what you've said is that very often Ukrainian history has been distorted. We have had enemies writing our history, not we ourselves writing our history. So much of what was said about Ukrainian history was deeply distorted, and it's very important that we actually come out with the truth about what was said or not said by some of the people that you named, by what was said and not done. by some of the people. Some things were attributed to them that were never said. I very much like the experience we have had with Poland. Ukraine and Poland have had centuries of history. You could say both good and bad. And what we did started doing in 1991 is starting to talk about our history, but not in a polemical sense, not in an angry sense, but started having our leaders, our academicians come together and say, this is what happened. Let us open the book on our history. Let's discuss what actually happened. Let's say, apologize for things that happened that were not right on both sides. There was so much blood spilled. We need to clean up each other's cemeteries. We need to put flowers on each other's monuments. And we need to talk about it. And then we could close it and work together. That's something that's always very important. We did that with the polls. We had IML member of the board of something called the Ukraine Jewish encounter, where we are trying to do the same thing with Ukrainian and Jewish groups. And I think this is very important. Unfortunately, this has never been really possible with Russia because they refused to work on nice history as it was and to talk about it. How have you chosen mentors in your life? And how would you recommend a young person approach someone who may admire for a mentor type relationship? Well, that's an interesting question. I think that often in my life, I have come across my mentors rather haphazardly through my different jobs. I've had wonderful mentors. Professor in college who became my first boss. My boss at the State Department who was a Holocaust survivor who taught me so much about what is like to really be a public servant. My first day on the office, he says, there were all these years I wrote letters. I never got a response back. And he says, I want from our office not one letter to go unanswered. And those are the kinds of little lessons you learn in your life. I would write the letters, and then he would rewrite each one. And as somebody in my 20s that taught me a lot, the dissidents in Ukraine that I met became mentors to me. If I were young, I would go back. And I would take more opportunities, which I think young people now have, to seek more mentors, to be a little bit more courageous, to go out and reach out to people. That's one of the reasons we created global leaders at the NJIC is the opportunity to have these young people meet people with experience who are more than willing to share that experience. I would say people of my age, people older, are so pleased when someone asks us, what do you think about this? How would you recommend we do this? And I believe when I was in my 20s and 30s, I was a little too shy to ask people, what do you think I should do in my career path? How do you think I should make this change in the world? And I think that it's very important for young people to put themselves in positions where they meet these people and then be not afraid to ask the questions. - And so you, so you're saying that the risk of putting yourself in a position to ask someone these questions is pretty low because the worst case scenario is, do your questions don't get answered? - Absolutely. - Yeah, absolutely. - That makes sense. Have you ever been disappointed by either a mentor or an idol or someone you looked up to? And how do you move on from that? - Many times, you know, in politics, you meet people who you trust, and then you find out, the higher you get in politics, I have to say, the more you find out that people can be very, very hypocritical and can be very disloyal. And the first few times it was devastating, and then you learn to just move on. You just have to move on because there's no time for that kind of disloyalty rhetoric. And so you just have to stay strong. - Now in terms of how we evaluate ourselves, I think that's sort of one of the advantages that mentors bring to the table, but it's ultimately our own responsibility. So, you know, naturally, this is not a job interview. I'm not gonna ask you about your strengths and weaknesses, but I would like to know how you identify your own strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately, if you've identified a weakness, how do you either decide to strengthen that weakness or say, you know what, I recognize this is not as area of strength of mine, and just move on from it. - Well, these are the kinds of conversations I have with my children all the time. I have three teenage or young adult children. You know, you have to find what is your passion and pursue that. I think that very often I pursue things. I, in the 80s, you can imagine the atmosphere at the time in the United States where you did things because it was financially useful, or that was the trend. I wish I had pursued more things that were my passion, and I think I would have been even better at them. On the other hand, we have to recognize that we can't know everything. And so, there are certain things that I know I can't do well. And so, I just, sometimes I force myself to do it. I had a friend who, when I was young, said, always try to force yourself to do things that you think you can't do well because you'll surprise yourself. And so, sometimes I do that, including, for example, I'm not crazy about public speaking, but I force myself to do it sometimes. On the other hand, I find as I get older that really, really try to concentrate and do well in your passions. - So, your kind of trajectory has been about leading into what excites you, and then ultimately you find that you're good at the things that excite you and kind of go down that road. Is that about right? - I would say that. I would say that because I grew up, as I said, as an immigrant feeling that you had to pursue the kinds of things that were much more economically that for a career, which is why I was always torn between my two, my education, which is more economic and my passion, which was much more human rights history, and the geopolitics. - Interesting. And so, you've been able to sort of chart a career that has combined both, but it sounds like that was not the intention out. That wasn't the intention from the beginning, right? To necessarily weave in those two interests, you. - No, it wasn't, but I found myself pursuing both paths, and yet it led eventually to the most, to where I am now. And so, I don't regret any of it. If I hadn't pursued the economic path, I might be in Ukraine, but I would maybe never have met my husband. If I had not pursued the human rights path, I would probably be working in an investment bank in New York City and would not be in Ukraine. So, you know, I've always told my children, if you feel, if you can't sleep at night, because of something that makes excites you, just do it. - That's a beautiful vision. How, as you move forward, you know, part of, I think, sort of maturing into a leader is deciding where to take criticism from and where to take advice from. And how do you make the decision about whom you trust for criticism and/or advice? - You know, criticism is very difficult to accept. I think very few people like it. You have to be mature about it and listen, and listen to the people you respect. And I've learned the hard way to just ignore criticism from those I do not respect. You know, we get a lot of criticism in our country from political rivals, from Russia. I remember the first few times that I read things online that were so horrible. And this was 2005, excuse me, 2006. And suddenly, that was when I discovered there were things like bots and trolls and politically paid. And so I learned not to pay attention, because you can't, you'll get so caught in the mock that you can't rise above it. As my husband, when I would tell him, do you know what someone said? Somebody said, and he says, why are you concentrating on the details? Concentrate on the goal. Well, that's, but I do listen. I do try to listen to people I respect when they say, you know, you should be doing this or you shouldn't be doing this. And I try to follow that even though I can't always say I do. - And I'm sure in the positions that you've been both in the private sector and the public sector, there have been no shortage of people trying to offer you both criticism and advice, presumably. - Of course. - Of course. - But in moments when you felt like things, weren't quite going as planned. How did you decide whom to turn to for that advice? And or, you know, how do you decide when you need advice or when you just need a confidence boost? And where do you go for those things? Trust. You have to have trusted people. I would say that for just a confidence boost, I always had a group of friends that I trusted and who were loyal, they were always with us. And I could always talk to them. And I appreciate the role they played in our lives. And they're still in our lives. There are others we turn to at the time. Sometimes these are people who are incidental. There are people we met who played a great, you know, we had the opportunity, for example, to travel, meet other presidents, meet, meet royalty, meet great leaders, meet heads of organizations. And sometimes it was haphazard, but it was a great learning experience and many of them gave us the kind of advice that has stayed with us for good. And when things get particularly stressful, what do you do to keep calm? You know, I concentrate on the positives in life. You know, you can really get caught up in the horrible things that are said or done. And then you think about, I think about my parents who went through famine, they went through war. I think about people today in the world who are starving. I think of people today in the world who are in conflicts or refugees. And then I look at myself and say, oh, you should only be thankful. Yes, somebody wrote a horrible article about you. Or there is something happening in your country that is deeply distressing. But think about those who have come out of situations like that. So you have to, it's a psychological stand that you have to be strong. Is there anything sort of in addition to that and routine that you have to keep calm? Maybe some place that you go or, you know, a tea that you drink or something like that? I would say I spend time with my children. I take long walks. I will tell you what I do now. I can't say this was the case before to keep me calm during my husband's presidential years because there it was just too busy. But now every day I take an audiobook and I take long, long walks in the woods around our house and I listen to audiobooks. And that definitely takes me away. I've read in the last month, tale of two cities, Madame Bowrie and the Count, and right now I'm almost finished with the Count of Monte Cristo. So that deeply taking me away from from realities of life putting me in a different context. I also recommend highly. This is going to be a little bit of a support for them. TheGreatCourses.com. I listen to courses about everything in history and science. And I find that little half hour course takes me away from any difficulties. Do you have a kind of daily routine in life or weekly or something? Is there any value to routine that you've found? Yeah, I strongly believe that routines are good because otherwise you could use focus. It's a little bit difficult to talk about that now in time of our pandemic because all of our routines are upset. Well, on the other hand, I have to say, as a result of the pandemic, my routine has become a little bit more organized because where I would just drop by and do things half-hazardly now I plan on Thursdays when I do my shopping. And we have certain lessons every day that we go through for my children and myself. But I strongly believe in routine. I strongly believe in keeping busy. I believe in really finding a good balance in your life between your work and pursuing things you need to do in your life for your home, for your family. And those things you truly enjoy that enrich you, such as reading. And so speaking of reading, where do you tend to get your news? Has that changed over time? And are there any books, films, publications, podcasts that you would recommend specifically for news or for kind of non-fiction sources? You know, I probably spend too much time reading the news online. But I make a point of, for example, when we watch television, I watch a little bit of CNN, a little bit of BBC, a little bit of Fox, a little bit of your own news and a little bit of Al Jazeera just so that I could hear what each considers the news of the day and often it's radically different, which is interesting. In my Facebook, Twitter, online, I get various newspapers from the economist, through the Wall Street Journal, to the Washington Post. I try to get various perspectives in the same, Twitter, I have everything from the far right to the far left, because I want to hear what people are saying. And it's very disappointing. Right now, I find that it's getting very, very extreme. If I write something that tends to be a little bit right, everybody from the left throws me out of Twitter. If I write something a little bit supportive of the left, everybody from the right throws me out and that's wrong. That's wrong. Be able to listen to all sides. So that's what I get my news probably as most people do from the media. But I tend to read a lot. I read a lot and try to get a much broader perspective on current events and history. Okay. And before we move to the slightly lighter part of this interview, is there any particular piece of advice that maybe we haven't touched on that you would really want to offer a young burgeoning leaders from where you sit now? I would say right now, don't get consumed by the extremes of what is happening. It is so easy to take one side or another in what's happening today. And that is wrong. Things are never as black and white as you think. As you get older, you will see that. There is so much gray. It's very important to have empathy. It's very important to have curiosity. It's very important to understand, on each side, why people act the way they do. I have found that people right now are tending to be very quick to judge, to be cynical, to be angry. I would say throw away that cynicism, throw away that anger and listen. Listen to why certain people feel they need to have one belief or another. And that's both domestic and the United States right now. That's in Europe and it's in world politics. Listen to both sides. And there's usually some truth in both sides. I recommend that very, very highly. What is the most memorable meal you have ever had? That's an interesting question. May I mention two? Please. We had many, many interesting state dinners when my husband was president. And all of them were very very special. I remember one particular one when we were in Israel with Shimon Perez. And the reason I remember it is because out of all the state dinners we had both in Ukraine and abroad, there were only two where the president that we were visiting or the prime minister or head of government that were visiting put aside any set speech and just spoke from the heart. One was the head of the parliament of the Senate in Belgium, did the care, passed away last year. And the other was Shimon Perez where he just got off, put away speech, started speaking about the history of his country, the history of Ukraine. He talked about the holodomor, he talked about the Holocaust. And I remember sitting with tears in my eyes thinking that it's so rare that a leader really understands the country with which he's meeting that it's not protocol, that it really is a deep understanding. So I would have to say that was a memorable, memorable event and an honor in my life. Another dinner which was completely different was in 2015, a friend of mine had been visiting the front in our war many times. And one day I decided to go with her. I brought, I had gotten a letter from a school that had been bombed and they asked me for things for their cafeteria, for their library and I gathered many things and I went with her. She did this regularly, for me it was my first time and we visited the bombed school, we visited some Americans who have been working to help that school. We visited soldiers on the front line and in fact one time I stepped out of a tent and he said, "Be careful, there's a sniper that could shoot you and I realized how close I was to the front." And that evening we had a dinner with soldiers who had volunteered and had been there for for months a year. And it was a it was a interesting, difficult, moving time. And I realized I could be I could be almost in any century. I could be in in a revolution. I could be in in the 21st century. I was with soldiers who were fighting for a cause. And they had a deep philosophical philosophical thoughts at the same time they were making jokes. And it was a very moving evening for me. And I realized what heroes we had on our front line. And they're still there, right? Oh, very much so. Our war has now gone on longer than World War Two. It's hard to believe that. We passed that line. And it's it's you know, what Russia does is it creates perpetual conflicts. They're small. You don't lose thousands of people, but you lose a few people every week, but they're bleeding wounds. And we're going through that. As er by John has been going through that mode, oh, Georgia. And these are the kinds of things that we yeah, every day we lose people. And it's tragic. And I don't know what's going to end. Oh, I well, I know when it's going to end when the when Europe and the United States stand up and say enough is enough. If you could host any three people living or dead for a dinner party at your home, who would they be and what would you ask them? That I think is probably the most difficult question I can ever understand. Well, I mean, I would say if I could say religious people, that would be the easiest. I would obviously choose Christ, Muhammad Buddha and be able to to to hear their points of view. If it were literature, it would be Trash of Chenko, Shakespeare. I'm not sure who the third novelist would be or Paul Nizami Ganjavi. If I were Phil, I would love to sit down with three philosophers, you know, like Plato, Aristotle and Socrates. But I have to say, if you had, if you put me down right now and I had to choose three out, choose a little bit from from those, I would say probably Sh of Chenko, because he's the most relevant person in my life. King and poet Laurie of Revolutionary George Washington. I would love to spend a few minutes with that great man and then probably Socrates. Wow, that sounds like quite a dinner. Hey, I would say if if I could choose anyone in the world and some people say, where would you go back in time? And it's such a difficult question, because I would love to go back to any period of time. I would go into the future. I would love to, if I could sit down with anyone as long as we're allowing this this flight of imagination, I would love to sit down, let's say with the American President a hundred years from now and ask him what the state of the world is. What are the global powers? Is there war? Is there peace? I would say that would be my my main wish. There will be different balances of power. I think China will be playing a very important role in the future, economically. I think India will be playing a great role. I think many of the countries that are now poor will be wealthy. But I have to be an optimist. I have to be an optimist and think that there will be economic growth. That we will be able to get rid of many of the diseases, that there will be technological change that will bring good and not bad. I have a great deal of optimism about the technology can resolve many of the world's problems. What are your favorite fictional heroes? My favorite film is It's a Wonderful Life. And so I would say that if you had to if I just had to name one off the top of my head, maybe it would be the character in that. I love that film. George Bailey. Yeah. A bunch of that, that's that's sort of a child with love. But I can't say that there's a fictional hero that stands out from the others. I just finished tale of two cities. I love many of the heroes in Geryl's Dickens. But I won't name one. Okay. What do you appreciate most in your friends? I say I choose my friends because of mutual interests or that they're interested in something that I would find fascinating to learn about. But I keep my friends through their loyalty. What is your favorite word in any language? The Ukrainian word spivtrucia, which in English is empathy. It's in Ukrainian sputrucia means feeling the same thing. In the sense of when you see someone try to I guess they even just wanted to be try to put yourself in their shoes, try to understand why they feel the way they do. And I think that that's that's very important no matter where you go in the world to understand why is this person acting the way they are? Why are they doing what they are doing because they went through a certain experience. It's so empathy. What is your favorite book? You know asking me my favorite book is like asking me which of my children I like the best. I can like them differently at different times but you love them the same. I read a lot. I would say my favorite book is the book I'm reading at the time. And it's honest. I can't say there's a favorite book. I read history. I read biographies right now. I've concentrated on rereading a lot of the great novels that made an impact on my life when I was in my teens and 20s. I read a lot of economics. A book that influenced me greatly in the last few years was called Why Nations Fail, which I found very very interesting on you know what makes some countries grow and others decline. A book that greatly influenced me was Randall DeSoto's other path about the importance of rule of law and property rights. I think Chicago economist from my university have been coming up with some wonderful books including a recent Nobel Prize winner Richard Taylor has written some things that have been very very interesting and progressive in economics. My goal now and to read and I highly recommend I want to finish all of books all the books by Ann Applebaum. I've finished her book on the holodimor on the gulag. I find her an excellent excellent journalistic writer. I read I want to read all the biographies by Isaacson. I just finished Ben Franklin. I found his biographies are very simple to read. Great innovators but very interesting. There's a Ukrainian historian at Harvard that I want to finish all of his books that he blow up he who really writes well about the history of my country which as we talked about before is often misinterpreted and I think he's a very honest and a very factual person. One of my favorite young authors that I read a great tale is Peter Pomodanssef. He's a Russian British writer, British Russian writer in his early 40s. I really was moved by his recent book because it's not propaganda where he covered many countries of the world. The part on Syria made me cry and I found his book Nothing is True and Everything is Possible about Russia in the 90s was very enlightening and interesting to read. Do you if you pick up a book and are not intrigued by it? Do you always finish it or do you put it down? I you know I've read books that I didn't really want to finish reading because of responsibility I feel that you have to but no I've started putting books away because I have a library of hundreds and you could say thousands of books and I realize there's not enough time in my life to read them all. So I read if I find that it's not moving me I stop. Though I do have to say sometimes if I don't finish the book I check to see if it's on blinck list and if it is then I quickly read the 15 minute version of it and then I don't feel as good to you. What profession other than your own or other than the myriad professions you've had would you like to attempt? Attempt. I feel it's a little late in my life to attempt. I think but I have to say if I had to do my life over the thing that I would probably choose but then who knows where it would have led me and what I've been Ukraine today I would probably be a history professor. I think that would have been my passion. I wish I could work with young people. I wish I could write. I wish I would have the time to really read and write so that would that would be what I would do. But at the time, I didn't do that. - Are you working on any writing projects now that you can talk about? - I would say nothing. A lot of things started. I tend to reach a number of pieces, but I wanted to start something major at one point on hybrid war. But I feel so much has been accurately said and done that I don't know how much more I would add to it. But was that I still might have time for? - What is the most sentimentally valuable thing that you own? - Photographs. If I, if there were a fire and I had to save something besides my family, it would be the photographs. I happen, you know, in our country, you know, my husband was always very envious of people in places like England that could say, oh, this belonged to my great-great-grandfather, this belonged to so and so, 'cause in Ukraine very little survived from wars and famines. I have an icon that my grandmother used at her wedding in 1900. So our great-grandmother in 1900, so even though it's not valuable, it's sentimental. - And just two more questions. First, if heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say to you at the pearly gates? - First, I'd like to hear him say welcome. (laughing) God, please turn around. Well, the other one. So welcome and then I would like him to say, and now I'd like you to meet again your family and your friends who have gone before you and to meet the people that you respected most in history. That would be heaven to me. And speaking of the people you respect most and the people have gone before you, my last question to you is, what is your favorite work of music? - I love music. I'm not a musician myself, but I love music. But my favorite piece of music was written by a Ukrainian composer called "Miloslav Skorik" and it's called "The Melody" and it is a very special piece because it's become the theme of Ukrainian's "Holodomor" or "Fammon". And whenever we have a collaboration, it is the music that is played. I love the tune, but it's very important to me, especially when you ask because our friend, "Miloslav Skorik", who my husband made a hero of Ukraine for his great talent in music as well as he had spent years, he was born right before the war. And then he spent years in exile. He was a dissident, he was a great person. He died last night. And so I'd like to play for you my favorite melody. (soft music) (crowd cheering) (soft music) - So that was his music. The "A Friend of Mine" put words to it for the "Holodomor" commemorations that basically are called "Eternal Memory" to remember all of those who died in our genocide. - Thank you so much for your time today. It's been an absolute privilege and a joy talking to you. And I'm sure our listeners will derive a lot of value from this conversation. So thank you so much for your time. - Thank you, David. I think it's a great idea. I know through the NGIC, we've met some leaders who have unbelievable experiences and insights to share. And I envy you with the opportunity to talk with all of them one-on-one. - Thank you for listening to the inaugural episode of "Important to Me," a leadership podcast hosted by David Bengar. We're very grateful to the Nizami Ganjavi International Center for making this podcast possible. Please tune in on Thursday, July 16th for the next episode of the podcast, which will feature the former president of Mauritius, president Amina Gereb-Fuckim.