Fleeing a war with only your baggage of knowledge

When you escape from a war, overnight, you can only take your knowledge with you. This was understood by Volodymyr Kadyntsev, who escaped from Kharkiv in the early days of the war in Ukraine - abandoning his affections, home and study books. Now he and his girlfriend Yelyzaveta, a fellow student, find themselves resuming their studies, so dramatically interrupted, at Bocconi, welcomed as visiting students.

A native of Kharkiv, in September 2021 Volodymyr enrolled at the university, in an Economics and Cybernetics program at Karazin Kharkiv National University, determined to hoard knowledge. "Mine is a family of entrepreneurs, and I wanted to learn everything I could about economics and management and follow in their footsteps," Volodymyr explains. This determination is reflected in the fact that he has been doing odd jobs as a web developer since he was 13 years old.

But in late February war came to Kharkiv, and within the first few days his university was bombed and destroyed by the Russian army, with dramatic images of the gutted building shown around the world.

"The beginning was terrible with the bombings at night and when they destroyed my university I decided it was better to leave. And the day after I left, my whole street was almost razed to the ground," Volodymyr says. "It's hard - my mother and little sister fled to London, my dad stayed and my uncle is fighting on the front line. I lost everything - my family, my home and my studies. I realized that in these situations, when you escape, you can only take your knowledge with you."

With his girlfriend Yelyzaveta, enrolled in the same course as him, Volodymyr reached Bratislava. They found themselves alone but united in deciding on their future and begin looking for opportunities to continue their studies. "Yelyzaveta had already lived in Italy and I already knew Bocconi so we applied for the program to welcome in refugees."

So at the end of August, Volodymyr and Yelyzaveta arrived in Milan, part of the four Ukrainian students welcomed in recent months, part of Bocconi's initiatives for forced migrant students with the goal of enabling them to continue their studies and not abandon their university experience. They have all fees, meals and accommodations paid by the university and as visiting students this year they will follow about 10 courses from the Bocconi curriculum, taking exams at the end, which will then be acknowledged by their university in Kharkiv.

"Bocconi and Milan have been so welcoming. I am lucky and fortunately so are my classmates - we still talk and they are all doing well, those who stayed in Ukraine and those who escaped to other European countries. I hope to be able to stay here even longer term - unfortunately, I don't see any possibility in the near future to resume studies at my university..."