How I moved to Malta, opened a marketing agency there and survived 3 crises

“At our meetings with the psychologist, I just cried”

I was born and raised in Kurgan, from where at the age of 17 I left for Yekaterinburg to enroll in journalism. I didn’t have money for my studies, and I definitely needed to get on a budget. It didn’t work out full-time, so I went to part-time.

Since my second year, I worked in the media, traveled a lot, and saw the world. In principle, at first I was very pleased, it seemed like a dream job: business trips, accreditation, interviews.

But after a few years, I realized that I was burning out. You are constantly writing, constantly going to press conferences, constantly communicating - this is emotionally difficult work that never ends. There is no end point when you can relax, there is no goal and no result.

I was offended by negative comments on the Internet, I was worried when speakers spoke to me rudely. I worked 12 hours a day and seemed to be making good money, renting an apartment. But apart from work I had no life, one day off - and everything starts all over again.

In the last year in the office, I constantly struggled with myself - I cried all the time, I didn’t want to go anywhere, I didn’t want to do anything, I began to go to Kurgan to visit my parents more often. Nothing energized me.

Then I got scared: why am I so empty and nothing helps me - not books, not sports, not sleep, not mom? She insisted that I go to a psychologist.

For 1.5 months, during our meetings with a psychologist, I simply cried from the stress accumulated over the years. But thanks to these classes, I formulated that I really didn’t want to go to the office anymore and didn’t want to pursue my journalistic career at all. I didn’t yet know where I wanted to live and what I wanted to do, but I no longer wanted a routine at work.

Moreover, in life I love routine: daily routine, schedule, everything is orderly. But in my work I need challenges, new tasks, something more unpredictable and risky than weekly planning meetings and daily trips to the office. And I decided to quit.

It was very scary, it took me a long time to get ready. This was 10 years ago, and then neither freelancing nor remote work was particularly widespread.

All my friends were surprised that I was not leaving for another office, but simply going nowhere. I was constantly asked how I would live and how I would earn money. Of course, these thoughts scared me, but the fear of getting stuck in a routine was still stronger. As it turned out, mental health It was more important to me than money.

For several months I rested and lived off my savings, thinking about what I should do. Then I started to earn a little extra money by writing texts remotely. And when I turned 25, my mother offered me, as a gift, to go to some language camp abroad and learn English. This is how I first came to Malta.

“In Malta it was as if I had a new worldview”

Malta has been and remains a popular place for guys who want to teach English language: there are many language schools here. Here I had a student life, which I did not have in Yekaterinburg when I studied as a correspondence student. I hung out with classmates, lived in student housing, and went out. I was very inspired by this.

Therefore, when I returned home after 1.5 months, I very quickly realized that I wanted to go back. I want to feel this taste of life again and I want to further study English, which I did not know at all before.

By that time, my remote part-time jobs were set up, I completely switched to this mode of work and collaborated with various publications, wrote something for customers. Therefore, I realized that I don’t have to live in Yekaterinburg anymore. I could go anywhere.

I took credit and again went to Malta for a year to finish learning the language. There I seemed to have a new worldview. It’s as if you used to live in an apartment and only looked out the window, and at some point you realized that there was a door in this apartment and you could go out. So I saw a completely new life, lived through my student years, and spoke fluently in a language I didn’t know. It was a thrill.

It’s not that I always wanted to leave, but after living such an experience, I realized that I have no boundaries. I now have a tongue and am free to move.

I never had the thought “Who will need me there?” Who needs you here? You build your own life, which means you can do it somewhere else. I reasoned that I could live somewhere else, work, do some projects, and then return home. Or don’t come back - as it goes. The world seemed to me one boundless whole.

I didn't have a clear plan. But chance decreed that I moved anyway.

My brother also went to Malta learn the language. He invited me with him just to hang out. I agreed, and while I was hanging out with him there, I accidentally found myself an internship. She returned to Russia, changed her visa and went to work at a language school, where she worked on social networks and, in principle, helped Russian students solve their pressing issues.

Then I began to communicate more with locals, began to better understand some cultural characteristics, and I had a new circle of acquaintances. I loved it so much, I wanted to stay.

It must be said that Malta is not an expat paradise in terms of bureaucracy. It’s not so easy to even get a work visa here, not to mention a residence permit and especially a local passport. To live here, you need to constantly return to your home country and reapply for a visa. But these inconveniences did not frighten me, I did not want to live where it was easy to get documents. I wanted to be where I liked.

My Malta visa was expiring. And I could only stay if the employer at the language school made me a new one. But he didn’t go for it, and I began to walk around interviews. I was constantly refused: no one wanted to bother with the documents. As a result, I had to return to Russia. But even then I had no thought of giving up everything.

The world still seemed like one boundless whole, I began to travel a lot and became heavily involved in social networks and marketing. This is where our agency began.

“I spent about 6 thousand euros on opening the company - all my savings”

I began to be interested in marketing and social networks back at university, but at first it was not my main activity. I was interested in blogging when it was not yet so popular.

When the active growth of social networks began, friends began to invite me to write some texts, posts, and edit something. But even when I was running PR projects as a freelancer, I had to work on social networks. It was a rather amateurish level, but social networks were different.

Gradually, I began to dive into marketing, study why one social media campaign works and another doesn’t, and what the buyer does. This is how I joined the profession.

The agency has not yet taken shape, but I began to receive more and more clients. Among them were restaurants, an event agency of friends, a children's theater from Thailand, owned by a friend, a law firm from Yekaterinburg, and so on. Artist Natasha Pastukhova invited me to help her with her clothing brand Hello Pepe.

At the same time, I began to study consulting and give advice on social media management and branding to companies and people.

And then I accidentally found my first designer, with whom we began to take on projects together. This allowed us to make more complex orders, take on more clients, grow and increase the check.

Once we did a big project for the Biennale of Contemporary Art in Venice. They needed text message operators who spoke both Russian and English and had connections in Italy. The project was very large-scale and complex, I involved everyone I could in it, but we received wild satisfaction: the posters we painted hung over the canals in Venice, it was a very serious and interesting international customer. And then I realized that it was possible to work with different projects in Europe, that I was not limited to Russian customers.

But there was a minus: the banking system and tax system in Russia and in Europe are different. It was not very profitable for Europeans to subcontract Russian companies precisely because taxes, systems of work, documents, payment. Of course, large companies from Russia can work with international customers easily - they have this process set up better. Small contractors like me are in a more difficult situation. It is easier for foreign companies to hire someone local so as not to deal with bureaucracy. Therefore, I realized that I needed a foreign account. Naturally, I chose Malta, because I liked everything here, I loved this place.

I started setting up a company while I was in Russia, periodically traveling back and forth on a tourist visa and resolving some issues.

The main difficulty of opening a company in Malta is that a foreign citizen needs a lot of money for this - 250-500 thousand euros.

Few people have them. Therefore, foreigners find a Maltese citizen who de jure registers the company in his name. In my case, such a business partner was a friend of mine who was not a figurehead in the company, but actually worked there. We achieved a lot thanks to her connections.

The second difficulty of opening a company abroad is that you have to study all the intricacies: the specifics of taxation, filing tax returns, all the nuances with documents, salaries. It is not enough to find a Maltese lawyer who will help you. To prevent him from deceiving you, you yourself must be aware of all the nuances, many of which no one writes about anywhere on the Internet. Therefore, I dealt with this myself, met with friends who have a business in Malta, asked them, made mistakes, corrected the mistakes.

My tourist visa expired and I went home. My partner was doing paperwork in Malta, and I was working remotely for some time. When we registered the company, I got a work visa for it and left with peace of mind. Now I pay taxes in Malta, which means I am a full resident.

It was the end of 2019, then I spent about 6 thousand euros on everything - all my savings. Plus, when opening a company, you must make a deposit - at least 1200 euros. Then it will be returned when the company starts working.

We had a clear plan: partner will deal with Maltese clients, and I will deal with Russian and others. What could possibly go wrong? But business is a very unstable activity. In the end, it turned out that I started almost all over again three times.

“Sometimes I rashly say that I will close everything”

A business plan can be written, but it is impossible to take life into account. First Covid started, and when there is a pandemic and a financial crisis, shops are closed, there is no entertainment. In such cases, the first thing companies give up is advertising and marketing.

Everything came to a standstill for us, the preliminary agreements fell through. This hit business hard. It was hard, but I believed that I could get through it, that we would restore things.

After the pandemic, we gradually began to recover and began to increase the pace of work again, but a new situation in the world arose. About 80% of our profits came from Russia, and from there we also deleted workers. But at some point it became difficult or impossible to make and accept payments. In addition, due to general instability, few people thought about social networks at that moment; life began to change again. At that moment I realized that we were stuck. But even then the desire to continue working did not leave me.

And the third blow was when my business partner said that she was tired and was leaving the company. It was December 2022, it was already the Christmas holidays in Malta, nothing was working. And I urgently needed to change all the documents, redo everything, because she was the founder.

Plus, five Maltese clients went after her, and that’s decent money. They left because in Malta personal connections are highly valued - she led these clients, and they did not want to be left without her. In general, the Maltese are not so easy to work with: they are quite tight-fisted with money in everything that concerns development their business, they have very ingrained nepotism.

The departure of her and her clients ultimately resulted in large financial losses.

But by that time I had already been hardened by all the ups and downs, I didn’t cry, I couldn’t melt down, close everything down and leave.

I have obligations to my employees and to my clients. And, in the end, this is my favorite thing, which I cannot quit, no matter how difficult it is.

The company was eventually transferred to my boyfriend, he is British and can open a business in Malta without huge investments. All documents have been redone. All the transfer paperwork cost me about 3,500 euros.

Our agency has been operating for about 2.5 years, and in general I can say that we have broken even and even a little more. I earned some money for myself, but not much. I think this is not bad, considering all our problems and the young age of the agency. I don’t have a budget for a yacht yet, although I would like to. But there is a budget to consistently pay employees, pay taxes, hire a new designer and still make a little profit.

I have a team of six people who work with me and are paid on a piece-rate basis, depending on the project, volume, and so on. At the same time, they themselves are interested in attract clientsto have more projects. My entire team is comfortable working in this mode.

Of course, when you open a business, you think that now you’ll quickly set everything up and be swimming in money. But this is funny, there is no need to have any illusions.

Sometimes, when I work 24/7 or when not everything works out the first time, in the heat of the moment I say that I’ll close everything now and go to work for hire. And then I think that when I am 80 years old, I will reflect on what I did for myself. And I will have nothing to answer myself. And then I understand that I want to work on my brainchild. So far I think I'm on the right track.