EPISODE 18
December 8, 2021
Born in 1983 in the tiny country of Moldova, which at the time was still a part of the Soviet Union, Inna was in primary school when in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed. Because she attended a school where classes were taught in a number of languages, she went on to graduate from University with a degree in English, French and Spanish language and literature, eventually teaching languages in Moldova. But as an intellectually curious woman with multiply interests, Inna adapted her skill set each time she moved countries resulting in a number of career changes. While living in Dubai, she began freelancing as a copywriter, which lead to the publication of two non-fiction books. Her third and most recent publication, Multiversed: Poems of Dreams and Reality, is a poetry collection inspired by her interest in quantum physics.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Louise: Welcome to Women Who WaIk. I’m Louise Ross, writer and author of Women Who Walk the book, the inspiration for this podcast. And just as I did for the book here, I’ll be interviewing and unpacking the journeys of impressive, intrepid women who’ve made multiple international moves for work, for adventure, for love, for freedom – reminding us that women can do extraordinary things. You can find a transcript, with pictures, to each episode, and my books on my website, LouiseRoss.com.
[00:00:47] Louise: Hello listeners. Welcome to Episode 18 of Women Who Walk. My guest today is Inna Rothmann.
[00:00:55] Louise: Born in 1983 in the tiny country of Moldova, which at the time was still part of the Soviet Union, Inna was in primary school when in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed.
[00:01:08] Louise: Having studied at a school where classes were conducted in a number of different languages, she eventually went on to graduate from university with a degree in English, French, and Spanish language and literature. Immediately thereafter, she started working as a librarian and a Spanish and English as a second language teacher at the only international school in Moldova.
[00:01:34] Louise: Six years later, she moved temporarily to Germany for additional studies and a career change. Specifically, country director for a financial services project set up to help Moldovans with financial planning, a service that was relatively new to a country that was just 30 years independent of the Soviet Union, and where people had a history of not trusting financial and governmental institutions.
[00:02:02] Louise: During a winter holiday in Turkey, Inna met her south African husband. They married that same year, settling in Moldova. But within a few months they moved to Dubai for her husband’s work. It was in Dubai that Inna started writing, online copywriting, mainly. Her writing for fashion and beauty magazines led to her first self-published book, Cleaning the Closet: How a New Style Can Change Your Lifestyle.
[00:02:33] Louise: Four years later and back in Moldova, during the pandemic lockdown, she and a friend, co-authored a book on expat life titled, Surviving COVID-19 in a Foreign Land: Stories of Expats and Migrants Around the World.
[00:02:50] Louise: A year later in August, 2021, she published her third book, Multiversed: Poems of Dreams and Reality, a poetry collection inspired by her interest in quantum physics. A month after its release, Inna and her husband moved to the UK, driving through Europe en-route to Southern England, arriving just a few months ago in September. And so today I’m speaking with Inna from her home in West Sussex.
[00:03:23]
[00:03:35] Louise: Welcome Inna and thank you so much for being on Women Who Walk today. Now you’re from Moldova and I think it’s fair to say that most listeners probably are not that aware of this landlocked country in Eastern Europe. Though that said it’s increasingly a popular travel destination, but can you tell us a bit about where you grew up, perhaps describe your neighborhood, some memorable scenes from your childhood?
[00:04:00] Inna: Moldova is a very small country. Uh, currently its population is about 3 million people. During Soviet times it was more like 4 million people. With lots of sunshine. There’s lots of sunshine in our small country. Statistically, we have about 300 sunny days a year. Maybe even more.
[00:04:20] Louise: Really!
[00:04:21] Inna: Yes. Yes.
[00:04:22] Louise: That’s a little like Miami!
[00:04:24] Inna: Temperatures are not like Miami. We have harsh winters, but it will be sunny winters. Maybe that’s the reason why people in Moldova are so laid back and content with their life, despite all the hardships we had to go through. Despite our complicated history.
[00:04:43] Inna: Moldova really has been independent only for the last 30 years. Before it was always under someone’s rule. It was Turkey. It was Czarist Russia. It was Romania. It was Soviet Union. So it’s been on its own only for the past 30 years, as I said.
[00:05:03] Inna: And growing up in the ’90s, when it became independent, wasn’t easy, to be honest. There was frequent load shedding, uh, electricity being cut off. There was no gas, sometimes no water, very high crime rates, mass poverty. I remember a really cold winter one year, and as a teenager, getting ready for a piano exam, wearing wool gloves, because otherwise my fingers wouldn’t move. That’s how cold it was. It might get up to minus 20 sometimes.
[00:05:42] Inna: Despite all that, I have warm memories of my childhood. Maybe thanks to all the misery going on around you, you build stronger human connection. You value relationships more. And my childhood friends became my friends for life. We’re still in touch, even though everyone’s scattered around the world. That was the environment I grew up in.
[00:06:07] Inna: Moldova really Is very different nowadays. And as you said, there’s some new interests from people from all over the world as a new travel destination. That might be also thanks to wine. Moldova really Is big wine producer despite its size. We are number 12, I think in wine exporters in the world. We have 245 wineries. That’s basically a winery per 10,000 people.
Inna enjoying one of Moldova’s 300 sunny days!
[00:06:38] Louise: Wow. Is there a particular type of wine? That’s the speciality of Moldova?
[00:06:44] Inna: Red. White. Normal wines. Ice wine. We have the largest wine sellers in the world. They’re so huge, those wine sellers, that you drive your car in them. It’s like a city with streets having names like Chardonnay and Merlot.
[00:07:00] Louise: You drive underground?
[00:07:02] Inna: Yes, because it’s huge!
[00:07:04] Louise: Was it something else before?
[00:07:06] Inna: It was wine cellars. You know the first man in space is a Russian man, Yuri Gagarin, he actually visited one of those wine cellars and in the book in the wine cellar, he wrote, ‘Entrance’, let’s say, ‘Monday and exits Wednesday. Been here for two days.’
[00:07:30] Louise: Do you think that that is in part then why people go to Moldova to do wine tours of the cellars and to taste the wines.
[00:07:38] Inna: That’s a really, really nice bonus. The wine is quite good and it’s quite cheap compared to other wines in Europe. And the food is really good as well. It’s a very rural country, so you have fresh farm markets everywhere. Fresh dairy, meats, vegetables, fruits, and it’s really high quality. Now we’re living in England and I go to the supermarket sometimes I want to cry.
[00:08:07] Louise: Yes. Yes. Well, the way you’ve described Moldova it sounds a little like Portugal. Um, kind of rustic. Wonderful wine industry, world-class in fact, and the wines are very cheap. And it’s very rural still, so a lot of really good quality fruits and vegetables and, and grass fed meats and so on.
[00:08:32] Inna: We’re landlocked though, so we don’t have beach.
[00:08:36] Louise: That’s right. You are landlocked. Romania on one side Ukraine on one side.
[00:08:40] Inna: Actually during Soviet times, uh, we had some access to the beach, but then, then all the chaos of 1990s, when everyone became independent, uh, we somehow lost it to Ukraine.
[00:08:54] Louise: Those borders keep shifting in Eastern and Central Europe. So you, you went to a school with, many classes in English, but that seems unusual for a country that was under Soviet rule. Can, can you tell us a bit about that?
[00:09:09] Inna: It is very unusual. I’m not sure how that was possible. Soviet educational system put lots of emphasis on science, on subjects like mathematics, physics, chemistry, those subjects were way more important than humanitarian subjects, philosophy and languages. And then in 1980s, someone in ministry of education of Soviet Union, I assume, I suspect, uh, decided that we need some projects, uh, in humanitarian area.
[00:09:43] Inna: And somehow, my school was picked for this project, was one of the few schools that were picked for that. It was privilege, luck. It’s interesting coincidence. But that’s how it’s happened. We had English, German, French subjects, um, literature, of course, some subjects like history, geography were in English.
[00:10:09] Inna: But after Moldova became an independent country, the school even made quickly some connections with various foreign NGOs and projects, and we had native-speaking volunteers come and teach in the school as well. We were quite privileged to experience that.
[00:10:26] Louise: So in effect you had quite an international education.
[00:10:30] Inna: Yes. That’s true.
[00:10:31] Louise: And then an aptitude for languages too, learning them and teaching them, because you went on to teach.
[00:10:38] Inna: Yes, I did. Yes.
[00:10:40] Louise: But then, uh, you made a country move and a career change. What were the circumstances around the changes?
[00:10:49] Inna: Yeah, it was, um, a one year project, uh, teaching Moldovans how to use financial institutions.
[00:10:58] Inna: So I was teaching in an international school for six years. And then I had some sort of epiphany, realizing that this that’s it. This is my life. This is how my life is going to be. This is as far as I can go career-wise. I felt like I reached my full potential as a teacher.
[00:11:19] Inna: After five years of teaching in this school, I ended up teaching a whole bunch of subjects: English as a second language, library, Spanish, Russian, Romanian, assistant for mathematics. I just, I was master of all trades. It was extraordinarily rewarding experience, because children are amazing at expressing their gratitude, especially the little kids they grunt to you, Miss Inna, Miss Inna, I love of you. And that’s really, really wonderful experience to be a teacher, but I decided it was time to move on.
[00:12:03] Inna: A friend of mine asked me if I would be interested in leading a financial educational project. Yeah, sure. I signed up for some courses, project management to get some theoretical knowledge of what is expected of me. And I just started working and learning as I went.
[00:12:27] Louise: You did this additional training, in Germany?
[00:12:29] Inna: Yes. Yes.
[00:12:31] Louise: And then it took you back to Moldova?
[00:12:34] Inna: Yes. Yes. Actually, that change made me realize that western culture is based on identifying yourself with your job, with what you do. In fact, you are free to do anything you want. And even if it’s from a different domain, you can try that and you can try something else. It’s okay to have multiple interests and not limit yourself to just one area. Later I read a book, it’s called Refuse To Choose, by Barbara S her, about people who have multiple interests and how it’s frowned upon in the West, but it’s okay to not be doing the same thing for the rest of your life.
[00:13:23] Louise: Indeed. Actually young people need to be flexible today because nothing is permanent and flexibility is so important. So you almost need to be a jack-of-all-trades, as you mentioned that you felt that you were. And then you started working in this new field?
[00:13:41] Inna: Yes. Yes. it was, um, a one-year project teaching Moldovans how to use financial institutions, as I mentioned. We don’t have this history of banking and finance. Everything was decided for you previously, when we were part of the Soviet Union. You didn’t have to take any responsibility or make really any financial decisions. Majority of people still store cash it’s called under the mattress.
[00:14:10] Louise: So you were in an advising role, trying to build trust in your clients, trying to help clients build trust in financial institutions.
[00:14:20] Inna: Yes. As well as teaching people how to manage their finances. For many people, it was brand new information that you have two months of your expenses saved for emergencies, for example, or that you have to budget sometimes.
[00:14:38] Louise: Then there was a shift again in your life’s direction, because you were holidaying in, uh, Turkey when you met your South African husband, and then there was a move to, to South Africa. So what was that country move like for you? I mean, I, I imagine it was so different from your experience in Central and Eastern Europe.
[00:14:58] Inna: Yeah, I visited, um, a few countries before meeting my husband. They were all in Europe, different, but similar in a way. And going to South Africa was like going to a completely different world. It is a very developed country, but it’s definitely not a European country. You can’t really walk anywhere, you rely a lot on your car. There’s very limited public transportation. I felt a little bit constricted because you can’t just go out and promenade on the streets and wander around. You have to have a destination, then you drive there.
[00:15:39] Inna: South Africans, um, they love huge spaces. They have big houses, lots of land, big distances between neighborhoods. They’re so used to large spaces that it’s a big culture shock for South Africans when they move to Europe.
[00:15:59] Louise: Maybe a culture shock for you moving there.
[00:16:02] Inna: Yeah. I don’t mind big spaces, but I’d rather stay, for example, in a small studio apartment in the middle of Paris, than in a huge house in the middle of nowhere, that takes you maybe an hour to drive anywhere.
[00:16:18] Louise: Sounds like you’re an urban person. You like, an urban experience. So then there was another move. And, uh, where did you go next?
[00:16:27] Inna: We went to Dubai for my husband’s work. First from South Africa, we moved back to Moldova; my husband also wanted to leave South Africa. He was actually planning to leave and then he met me and it was easy to make a choice, which country to go to. And then we moved to Dubai, where we stayed for a few years.
[00:16:48] Louise: And you had another career change in Dubai. So tell us about that.
[00:16:53] Inna: I wouldn’t even call it a career change. I would call it, just trying new things. I started writing, not as a hobby, but as a job. I always liked writing and I never considered it to be a serious occupation.
[00:17:10] Inna: I used it to travel. I would come across some conferences or some competitions or some events, and you had to write an essay to participate. So I would write an essay. It wouldn’t take me long. And I would win some sort of a free trip to the event / slash conference. Basically, I ended up getting the free trip to a new place and meeting new interesting people and also some educational experience.
[00:17:40] Louise: Very positive.
[00:17:41] Inna: Yeah. And then in Dubai, I had all this free time, suddenly, also you’re in a new place and you don’t really know anyone yet. I decided to start doing something from the comfort of my home. I went to the first freelancer website I found and looked at the jobs. Writing was such an obvious, easy choice for me that I started applying to all these jobs and started writing.
[00:18:12] Louise: So you were, you were mostly writing for online publications, is that right?
[00:18:16] Inna: That’s correct. I was writing for all sorts of online publications. Beauty, fashion, sports, some politics. There was even some random gambling articles I had to write about, and I know nothing about gambling. Just had to do some research.
[00:18:34] Louise: That was going to be my question. There such diverse topics, I guess, then that you just had to do a lot of research in order to write them.
[00:18:41] Inna: Yes. Some of them were easy to write, because I had some personal interest and knowledge about some things, but some articles I had to do some research of course, and come up with something that makes sense.
[00:18:55] Louise: And then in Dubai, you published your first book, which then led to your second book and then your recent publication of poems. And this is, this is fascinating to me because, from what I understand, your poems were inspired by quantum physics. Did you study quantum physics at school or was this another research project in order to write this book?
[00:19:18] Inna: You can’t really study quantum physics in school because you need lots of solid foundation of calculus, physics, and calculus based physics and linear algebra. It’s a bit too complicated to study in school, but as an adult, you can just get familiar with some basic concepts.
[00:19:39] Louise: What are some basic concepts?
[00:19:41] Inna: Um, very basic level quantum physics predicts very strange and peculiar things about how matter works and it contradicts how things work, how we perceive them to work. For example, in physics, we have waves, we have particles, in traditional physics. In quantum physics, particles sometimes behave like particles and sometimes they behave like waves, completely at odds with how they’re expected to behave. Basically the foundation of quantum physics, things behave the way you don’t expect them to behave, and you should just forget all the preconceptions you had about how our world is and open your mind.
[00:20:26] Louise: And then how did these basic ideas translate for you into poetry?
[00:20:32] Inna: My poetry book is not necessarily just about quantum. It’s about my perceptions and feelings about the world in general and not necessarily outside worlds; you’re in internal universe as well. And when I read some reviews that the readers leave, I realized that there are multiple levels to my book and people see different things in it and discover some different concepts that they can relate to. It’s multi levels piece of work, it is based little bit in quantum so don’t expect anything concrete, open your mind and look what you can see with an open mind.
Inna’s book-signing event for her poetry collect Multiversed
[00:21:16] Louise: I think poetry is the perfect vehicle for that because it’s interpretive, isn’t it.
[00:21:22] Inna: Exactly. Sometimes I’m not sure when I look back at some poems, like what, what does this, what did I want to say?
[00:21:29] Louise: I actually, uh, read an interview you had given to one of my former guests. Andrea has a website and she interviews writers. And you revealed something in your interview with Andrea, you said your first book, you look back at it and you’re not that satisfied with it. Perhaps that’s typical for writers, we reflect on our previous work. We always see the errors in our work and imagine that it could have been better.
[00:22:01] Inna: No the first book is a bad book as a person who reads a lot.
[00:22:05] Louise: What was your first book about?
[00:22:06] Inna: Fashion, beauty. I just basically compiled some articles about fashion and beauty and put it together. There was no soul in it. But it was a good experience to try uh, self-publish a piece of work .
[00:22:20] Louise: Is it uh, Kindle Direct Publishing on Amazon that you used?
[00:22:23] Inna: Yes correct. I have used that. Yeah.
[00:22:26] Louise: Yeah, me too, actually. It’s a great platform. And then your second book?
[00:22:30] Inna: Second book, I co-authored with a very good friend of mine. It’s expat experiences during COVID times. So we tried to record them in the beginning of the pandemic. Interviewed 10 people from all over the world and put the short stories together in the book.
[00:22:51] Louise: Can you give us a couple of stories from that book to give us a sense of how people around the world have coped.
[00:22:59] Inna: The story I could relate to is expat from Dubai that was in America visiting her family, and with her husband. Then they heard that the borders were closed, so they flew back to Dubai through the UK, and then from the UK, they couldn’t get back home to Dubai. So they ended up staying in the UK for a few months, trying to wait till this is over and they’re allowed back home.
[00:23:28] Louise: You could identify with that because something similar happened to you?
[00:23:31] Inna: I could identify with that because I lived in Dubai. I know how it works. You can expect anything and you don’t really have any power to change the way things work. And you can’t complain about it. You just have to be patient and wait.
[00:23:49] Louise: So were you back in Moldova when you and your colleague conducted the interviews and put this book together?
[00:23:55] Inna: I was in Moldova and my colleague, she was in the UK. She lives in the UK. We did everything online, of course. She’s a researcher and I’m always up for something interesting, something to keep me busy when we were just sitting at home, waiting for something that you don’t even know when it’s going to happen.
[00:24:17] Louise: That’s right. I did the same thing. You get creative when you’re kind of stuck and you can’t go anywhere or even go out of your house. So now when you were back in Moldova, you joined the international women’s club. Was it your experiences of living in several different countries that drew you to then get involved in the international community?
[00:24:39] Inna: Yes. It was. I was a repatriating expat. It’s actually a thing to go back to your home country, when everything feels and looks different and you don’t feel like you belong anymore and you don’t feel like you’re the same person anymore, and people around you, they just, they’re just still stuck in their old ways. And you’re looking for like-minded people that can understand and relate to what you’re going through.
[00:25:05] Inna: Expat women it’s always a great community in any country of the world. In Moldavia it’s called International Women’s Club of Moldova. It was natural for me to join. Almost instantly, I reached out to a community that I was familiar with. Especially considering my husband’s an expat. We have a group of international friends anywhere we go. We don’t necessarily make friends, for example, with Moldovan families or with south African families, it will be families from all over the world.
[00:25:37] Louise: It’s the same here in Portugal. I’m part of International Women in Portugal. You have common stories. You have a lot that you can share and talk about with those women.
[00:25:48] Inna: We also did charity work, lots of charity work, helping underprivileged communities of women and children. You build more meaningful connections through helping others.
[00:26:00] Louise: You do, that’s right. You can connect with a larger community through these organizations and be of support where it’s needed. And then this most recent move, I’m sure it’s still fresh because it was a few months ago, um, and these country moves can be kind of challenging and exciting. So how are you getting on in the UK?
[00:26:20] Inna: Difficult to say. I have very mixed feelings. You know they say there are four stages to moving countries. There is honeymoon, there is frustration, there is adjustment, and there is acceptance. Either we’re in the honeymoon stage that’s been going through waves of frustration and adjustment, or we’re already on acceptance. We’ve been here for two months and our honeymoon lasted for one week until we had to start looking for a house.
[00:26:54] Inna: The house market is complicated. House s can be very different depending on your location. That was a whole week of frustration. We got frustrated so much, we both got sick. That might’ve been our body’s adjusting to the environment, so it could have been adjustment. Actually now it’s been two months and I’m quite happy and content finally, so could it be our acceptance stage? I don’t know.
[00:27:26] Inna: We live in a very beautiful region. It’s a West Sussex. Quite close to the sea and there’s beautiful nature reserves around, lots of history, lots of art, culture. It’s a very pleasant town. I really like it. Am I confusing acceptance with prolonged honeymoon or what’s next?
[00:27:48] Louise: Well, that was going to be my question. What’s next? Do you see another creative project, perhaps some more writing?
[00:27:54] Inna: I do. I bought a desk for my office room just a week ago, and I’m looking forward to using it as a place for my laptop. I have a few ideas, but I’m not sure if I will implement them. Because sometimes you just start writing something and then your writing takes a completely different direction.
[00:28:20] Louise: Can you share a little something? An idea?
[00:28:22] Inna: Yes. I can share that I’m looking forward to writing a book of short stories.
[00:28:29] Louise: Oh, that would be different from your other work. Well, Inna, thank you so much for your time today. This has been quite a journey through several countries and the evolution of your writing and the work that you do. If listeners would like to connect with you online, where can they find you and your books?
[00:28:48] Inna: They can find me on Instagram. It’s UncoverThisWorld. There are links to my work there.
[00:28:55] Louise: So I will link to your Instagram page in the transcript to this episode. And again, thank you so much for your time.
[00:29:03] Louise: Thank you for listening today. And so you don’t miss future episodes with more impressive, intrepid women do subscribe on your favorite podcast provider or on my YouTube channel, Women Who Walk Podcast. And if you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review Women Who Walk on either Apple Podcasts or Podchaser, I’ve linked to them both in the transcript of this episode, on my website, LouiseRoss.com.