Hi, my name is Polina, I’m an expat from Saratov, Russia, living in Lisbon. I used to work in FinTech, e-commerce, retail industries as a product manager, but now I took a sabbatical to find my vocation. I moved to Portugal as a highly qualified specialist in February 2023 because of my political position.

I have a lot of experience in cross-cultural communication as I worked with lots of countries and spent a year studying in the USA during my Bachelor’s in international finance.

I am interested in many spheres of human beings and read a lot of non-fiction just for the sake of exploring the world. I love surfing, padel sports, working out and swimming. I dig into feminism and sustainable development, trying to make the world a better place to live.

I’m eager to travel as much as possible because it’s the only one in the world that can change and open your mind so fast. It’s impossible to find your own path without exploring others' ones.

I’m fond of creativity, new ideas and thoughts, and sharing them with others, that’s why I have a small blog about my adventures.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

After the war started, it made much more difficult to trust people around you. Tyrants tend to divide the whole society into parts, and I want to share different attitude to Russia as a country and a culture. I love when stereotypes are going away and the trust between different culture is built. I want to see the real world, not the propaganda one. And open-minded people can help me with it which I’ll appreciate so much.

Also, I found some wonderful people here on Couchsurfing back in the USA, and I hope to find new friends now here in Europe.

Interests

• arts
• education
• human rights
• movies
• traveling
• surfing
• economics
• journalism
• philosophy
• volunteering
• english
• movie
• activism
• feminism
• harry potter
• padel
• finance
• sustainable development
• climate change
• russia
• art museums
• project management
• orchestra
• urbanism
• cross-cultural communication
• fashion history

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: La-La Lend, Interstellar, House of cards, The Good place

Music: Muse, Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, Panic at the Disco, Marina, ABBA

Books: Naomi Wolf “The Beauty Myth”, Helen Lewis “Difficult Women”, Robert Sapolsky “A primate’s memoir”
R. Bradbury "Fahrenheit 451", George Orwell "Animal Farm".

I adore “Harry Potter” books, they were a very significant part of my youth

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Jumped off a waterfall cliff in Hawaii

Teach, Learn, Share

Teach Russian, feminism, finance, behavior economics, Russian politics.
Learn language and your culture
Share emotions, experience, values in life.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Culture, stories and knowledge!

Moreover, I am a pretty neat and clean person, so your house will not suffer from me.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Cuba, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Hungary, Israel, Montenegro, Portugal, Serbia, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Portugal, Russian Federation, United States