A few of you might know that Dotdigital has had a extremely expert Engineering staff in Minsk, Belarus, since early 2010. It’s with nice disappointment that as of the fifteenth of January 2023, we’ve got closed our operation within the area, following Russia’s battle in opposition to Ukraine.
Some could ask why that is of disappointment, particularly for the reason that obvious assist Belarus is giving Russia. The reply is obvious and easy – folks. In terms of folks, there was no assist from our staff members in Belarus for this battle. Let me clarify extra…
For many who have by no means been, Minsk is an excellent metropolis – and I do know this as a result of private expertise, due to the numerous visits myself and my staff have made. A lot of it was destroyed throughout World Conflict 2, so most of it’s comparatively new, however there are nonetheless some pockets of buildings, structure, and tradition that survived.
As you possibly can think about as an ex-Soviet state there are many Russian influences: the principle boulevard working via Minsk is huge and straight with buildings on both aspect that aren’t allowed to go over a sure top. Fascinating truth: that constructing top is strictly half the highway width! There’s a tremendous pink church, an octopus ‘spaceship trying’ library, an enormous opera home, and, like many different international locations within the area together with Ukraine, it has a tremendous set of universities, a lot of which create exceptionally expert engineers.
I keep in mind my first go to to Belarus shortly after beginning at Dotdigital in 2014 after I made some extent of getting one-to-ones with the entire staff members in a close-by cafe and realized fairly shortly that their dedication and expertise have been an excellent asset to Dotdigital. The staff was variety sufficient to point out me round Minsk, and I discovered quite a bit about their tradition, values, and impartial satisfaction.
With the Belarusian authorities elections in 2020, issues began to vary quickly. The election was marred by claims of widespread electoral fraud. Quite a few international locations refused to just accept the results of the election, as did the European Union which imposed sanctions on Belarusian officers deemed to be chargeable for the fraud itself, in addition to subsequent violence and repression of protests.
In 2021, the Belarusian navy forcefully landed a flight that was transiting Belarus airspace with a view to imprison a protestor. This quickly meant that our groups may not go to our staff members in Minsk by air (an EU-led no-fly zone throughout all of Belarus got here into impact) nor may our colleagues come to go to our head workplace.
When COVID struck all of us discovered to work remotely higher than ever earlier than which enabled our operations to proceed. Nonetheless, with Russia’s assault on Ukraine initially of 2022, a few of which got here from the Belarusian border, it turned obvious that conserving our Belarus Engineering hub going long term was changing into tougher. Additional sanctions by western governments meant that even paying our staff was changing into more difficult.
We, due to this fact, took the choice early in 2022 to supply a relocation scheme for our staff in Belarus to affix our Engineering hub in Poland.
I’m very happy to say that with the scheme we’ve got efficiently relocated 65% (11) of our Belarusian staff to Poland, enabling them to proceed working for Dotdigital. Due to the Polish Authorities via the Polish Enterprise Harbour scheme we have been in a position to get visas for our staff and with the assistance of our celebrity Polish staff our Belarusian staff members have been welcomed with open arms.
As I discussed initially of this, it’s a unhappy day for Dotdigital as 5 of our staff are unable to make the relocation work. They’ll all the time be an enormous a part of our Dotfamily; many had lengthy tenure however made the selection which was proper for them, to not relocate.
We need to thank the entire staff who’re persevering with with us and all those that have devoted a lot time to constructing our incredible merchandise, web sites, and extra. I hope to have the ability to see Minsk once more in the future however extra importantly, I hope to as soon as once more see peace in Ukraine.
