{"id":11978,"date":"2006-12-13T12:49:27","date_gmt":"2006-12-13T12:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frishberg.yakimaxim.site\/?p=11978"},"modified":"2026-03-24T18:11:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T18:11:25","slug":"a-word-with-alex-frishberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frishberg.com\/uk\/a-word-with-alex-frishberg\/","title":{"rendered":"A Word with Alex Frishberg"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"vgblk-rw-wrapper limit-wrapper\"><p>Years ago during what turned out to be the worst journey of my life (as in my life\u2019s journey, rather than the trip to Ukraine). A lawyer of absolutely no promise, I had gotten my first chance to demonstrate my lack of skill and confidence in a USAID-funded privatization project implemented by an international accounting firm. That was in 1994, and the winter I got thrown into, when I arrived in Kyiv at the end of that year, was miserably severe, as was my being booted out of the project several weeks later. That must have been when I met Frishberg. It was either in Karambol, then the only ex-pat dive in town, or at someone\u2019s party. Well, it was somewhere, otherwise, there would be no memory to measure against the present and see just how far he and I have come since then. Perhaps I should mention that, also like myself, Frishberg is a lawyer \u2026 with the small difference that he has his own law firm, Frishberg &amp; Partners. Oh, and he also managed to make enough small change in the business to retire to the States \u2026 twice \u2026 only to return to Kyiv, where he says he plans to stay and work forever.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why?<\/strong><br \/><br \/>\u201cRetirement doesn\u2019t work when you\u2019re still young,\u201d Frishberg told me in his office on Horkoho, now 12 years later. In a nutshell, Frishberg retired from practice in Kyiv twice only to come back<br \/>because he was bored. I remember thinking the first time I heard about Frishberg\u2019s mysterious disappearance that thugs ran him out of town. After all, it was 1995, and things like that were known to happen. Later, I heard that he was back, and after that, it wasn\u2019t clear whether he was here or not. And now, here I was sitting across from him at his desk writing down his story for the Post. It was a story that<br \/>practically told itself, with me as the mere conduit between Frishberg and the notepad it was<br \/>written on.<\/p>\n<p>Frishberg left everything he had going in the States and arrived in Kyiv, the city of his birth, in October of 1991 to start his own law practice, just months after the Soviet Union collapsed in August of that year. Frishberg, who received his law degree in the States and worked for a major law firm in Washington, DC, said he arrived in Kyiv a month too early, as there was no business around until the Canadian Embassy began retaining his services to buy apartments for its staff that November.<\/p>\n<p>With virtually no other legal services in town, Frishberg called his presence on the market \u201ca near-monopoly situation.\u201d As for his early retirement, Frishberg called it the \u201cdream of any young man to retire.\u201d \u201cI tried to live that dream,\u201d he continued. \u201cWhat I learned was, it\u2019s not for a young man. Everyone else that you know works, while you fall out of society.\u201d He said the first time he retired he was in his early 30s, in 1995, when he took off for the States with his wife, Elena, a Luhansk native who now works as an investment banker in Kyiv with Spektor, Sachs &amp; Co after receiving her MBA at a prestigious business school in the States. \u201cThat was when I wrote my book, \u2018The Steel Barons,\u2019\u201d Frishberg said, a work of fiction that he finally managed to publish himself in Kyiv, after being rejected by every agent and publisher he approached in the States. As Frishberg describes it, the book is about a young American lawyer who becomes stranded in Ukraine and meets corrupt friends who help him become rich.<\/p>\n<p>During his two retirements, Frishberg said that in addition to writing the book, he \u201chad a child, adopted a dog, bought a boat, sold it,\u201d adding that he also learned how to cook, spending time in libraries looking up recipes. As a result, he learned how to make dishes that took 12 to 15 hours to make, such as \u201cox-tail soups from Spain,\u201d, or bouillabaisse, \u201ca French fish soup from the port town of Marseilles,\u201d or pistachio-stuffed leg of lamb. He said that his second retirement was around four years later, when he was around 39-40, \u201cand it was still too young.\u201d \u201cThat didn\u2019t work out either,\u201d Frishberg said. \u201cI\u2019ll tell you, it was so boring, that I sold my apartment on the 50th floor in Chicago, moved to San Francisco and bought a house there with a pier. But it got boring. Even when you have a boat, and a house, and pelicans [diving for food], it\u2019s boring when you\u2019re still young.\u201d \u201cMy firm was doing quite fine, and that\u2019s how I was able to retire,\u201d he added. \u201cSo, we sold our house in San Francisco, and moved to San Diego, because it\u2019s better fishing there and warmer. At the same time, I traveled back and forth to Kyiv, and I saw what was going on. In a short period of five years (1998-2003), Kyiv turned from a Soviet-like Minsk into a mini-Paris.\u201d Frishberg said he returned to Kyiv for good in October of last year. \u201cAnd this time, I have no burning urge to return to America,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m perfectly happy to stay in Kyiv for the rest of my days.\u201d As for retiring for good, Frishberg said, \u201cI don\u2019t think I want to. The reason is, I can do anything I want to. I just wrote another book, which will be published next year.\u201d And parallel to running the law firm,\u201d he added, \u201cI have plenty to do to keep busy \u2013 like caring for my three-year-old, Danny, or walking my dog, Sonny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.kyivpost.com\/article\/content\/lifestyle\/a-word-with-alex-frishberg-25706.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Also read on kyivpost<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><!-- .vgblk-rw-wrapper -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Years ago during what turned out to be the worst journey of my life (as in my life\u2019s journey, rather than the trip to Ukraine). A lawyer of absolutely no promise, I had gotten my first chance to demonstrate my lack of skill and confidence in a USAID-funded privatization project implemented by an international accounting&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Word with Alex Frishberg - Frishberg &amp; Partners\u200b<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/frishberg.com\/uk\/a-word-with-alex-frishberg\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"uk_UA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Word with Alex Frishberg - Frishberg &amp; Partners\u200b\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Years ago during what turned out to be the worst journey of my life (as in my life\u2019s journey, rather than the trip to Ukraine). A lawyer of absolutely no promise, I had gotten my first chance to demonstrate my lack of skill and confidence in a USAID-funded privatization project implemented by an international accounting...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/frishberg.com\/uk\/a-word-with-alex-frishberg\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Frishberg &amp; Partners\u200b\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-12-13T12:49:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-24T18:11:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"\u041d\u0430\u043f\u0438\u0441\u0430\u043d\u043e\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"\u041f\u0440\u0438\u0431\u043b. \u0447\u0430\u0441 \u0447\u0438\u0442\u0430\u043d\u043d\u044f\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 \u0445\u0432\u0438\u043b\u0438\u043d\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/frishberg.com\/uk\/a-word-with-alex-frishberg\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/frishberg.com\/uk\/a-word-with-alex-frishberg\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/frishberg.com\/uk\/#\/schema\/person\/d70ecf2b821c0ff3fe3a8818bb022467\"},\"headline\":\"A Word with Alex Frishberg\",\"datePublished\":\"2006-12-13T12:49:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-24T18:11:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/frishberg.com\/uk\/a-word-with-alex-frishberg\/\"},\"wordCount\":958,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/frishberg.com\/uk\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Press\"],\"inLanguage\":\"uk\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/frishberg.com\/uk\/a-word-with-alex-frishberg\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/frishberg.com\/uk\/a-word-with-alex-frishberg\/\",\"name\":\"A Word with Alex Frishberg - Frishberg &amp; 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