I speak with people collecting their experience in hackerspaces and asking what they were looking for, what their needs the hackerspace fulfilled, what they gained from that experience to understand what such a place as a hackerspace is really about through the people’s real experiences, rather than by standard labels and definitions.

In this text I speak with a friend of mine, Sasha, whom I met in our local hackerspace Hacklab in Kyiv. Sasha first introduced me to the Python programming language, he is the kind of guy who orders pizza every weekend for everyone and he made a great kitchen renovation in the hackerspace. And these are just a few positive things about Sasha. I could add more for sure.

Sasha with his family doesn't live in Ukraine now and he is able to travel and compare life, as well as hackerspaces abroad. I wish him good luck.

We had an online interview, which was recorded, and this text is a polished transcript of that live dialogue.

---

Can you remember the moment when you first learned about the hackerspace? Were you looking for something, or did you feel that something was missing?

Yes, my wife and I moved to Kyiv from Chernivtsi. Back in Chernivtsi, when I was studying at the university, we had a lab where we could do similar kinds of things — solder something, build something. We had a team, we took part in different competitions, built robots, rovers, and things like that. I understood that in Kyiv I definitely wouldn’t be doing this in the apartment. And I needed to find a place where I could do similar stuff. Maybe near the university, maybe somewhere else. I googled for a few weeks, looking for options, because I didn’t know about hackerspaces at all, didn’t even know they existed. And I didn’t know how to explain what exactly I was looking for.

In the end I found three places. One was very expensive, and there you don’t make things yourself — you come, place an order, and they manufacture it for you. The second place was Ostriv, and the third place was Hacklab. I felt that Hacklab fit me the most in spirit, so I decided I should go there and ask how to join.

You know, by the way, what was the hardest thing about the hackerspace at the beginning? Finding it. [laughs]

And what exactly did you get in the hackerspace that you couldn’t get somewhere else?

For the first few weeks I didn’t even come. I was a bit shy, everyone was strangers. But when I started getting to know Hacklab better, how it works, what you can do there, the need to look for something else disappeared. I satisfied all my needs. I always tell everyone that a hackerspace is a community. It’s probably impossible to get something more valuable than cool people. And all the tools, the hangouts, and everything else come as part of the package. But first of all it’s people you can talk to, meet, share interests with, argue, look for answers together. You can agree to work together on projects, solve some problem.

Was it like that at the university? Well, yes. But the university stayed seven hundred kilometers away, together with all the contacts and friends. And just meeting on Saturday or Sunday isn’t that easy. And probably the hackerspace replaced that place for me.

And also I always want to work with tools. For example, I wouldn’t buy a TIG welder or a lathe for my apartment, and I wouldn’t use an angle grinder at home. But to come to the hackerspace and make something with your hands — that’s exactly what I needed.

Was there something you didn’t like there, or something that was missing?

[sighs] I didn’t like the conflict that happened after the grant was received. It seems to me it divided the community a lot. I think that’s the worst thing that could happen to a hackerspace.

I try to be organized in life, and sometimes I miss that in other people. But not everyone can be like me. Like you. Like someone else. People are different, and that’s okay. You come — you have to repair something before you can use it. You come — you have to clean before you can work. These are things that could probably be kept under better control. But the more restrictions there are, the less freedom there is. That’s logical. And a hackerspace is a free place for free people. And for free ideas too.

Did you lose something in your life after moving? Apart from everything else, I understand. But if we talk specifically about the hackerspace, what exactly do you feel you lost?

The generation of our parents, and older, men used to gather in a garage with their friends, hang out, drink a little, talk, have the right to make mistakes. When you do something in the garage, you do it for yourself. Nobody controls you. You can break something, you can fix something, you can make mistakes, you can be right. And that gives a feeling of freedom.

For me, a hackerspace is a very similar place — somewhere you can come, experiment, make mistakes, be right, be wrong. It’s a place of freedom, a place of strength, a place where you can express yourself, your preferences, and satisfy some of your needs, not only material ones. Psychological ones, personal ones.

Someone from the hackerspace once reminded me about a guy, Eric Berne, and he has a book called Games People Play. And he explains the theory that every person has an adult, a child, and a parent inside, if I remember correctly. And it seems to me that the hackerspace was a place for my inner child, a place where I could experiment, work, make little projects. A place where you can be yourself.

Why do you think places like this appear at all, and why do they keep existing?

People have a need for them. In villages people have more space, and probably almost everyone has a garage where they can do something. But in cities people live in very limited space, in apartments. These places — hackerspaces — are centers for people with an engineering mindset, a creative mindset, initiative-driven people.

For example, people who like music and dancing go to clubs. People who like football go to a football field and play. People who like programming — where should they go? People who like welding — where should they go? The world is built for leisure: football, bars, dancing. At least that’s what I see in my bubble. But when people want to do something creative, they have to look for a proper place. A hackerspace partly satisfies the needs of a certain type of people. By the way, artists and different kinds of creators, I think, can also find their place in a hackerspace. I don’t remember if there were many such people in the Kyiv hackerspace, but there was at least one who took my plywood.

Maybe my plywood was in France at an exhibition without me knowing about it, but okay, let it be. [laughs]

You know, I understand football, I understand bars. People need to shout, people need to drink. That’s clear. But what need does a place like a hackerspace satisfy? Nobody from above said that people need it. Someone needed it so that this hackerspace would appear, and someone needs it so that it continues to exist.

In general, one of the reasons I don’t like football is that it’s everywhere, at every step. It’s like spam. Where should people go who want to do chemistry?

To the university?

Okay, but you don’t want to do scientific work. You want to chrome-plate a crab. Or buy a shrimp in a store and cover it with chrome so it looks cool and shiny. Hackerspaces give the possibility for different engineering expressions of personality. Today you want to chrome-plate shrimp, tomorrow you want to powder-coat a part for your car, and the day after tomorrow you want to write an access control system for dangerous equipment.

These are forms of human creativity, I think, and there has to be either a place, or at least a community, that can help, encourage, and share experience with each other.

Okay. Why did you agree to talk about this with me? Not everyone agrees, actually.

Because you’re my friend, and we haven’t talked for a long time, and we can talk on camera without any problem. And besides personal reasons, I think people should know about hackerspaces. And if I can influence that somehow — I want to influence it.

I have a Linktree business card, and after my contacts there is a section called inspiration place, and there is a link to the hackerspace. So when people get to know me, they can also see the hackerspace resource and maybe visit it someday.

You said you visited different hackerspaces. Are they very different?

Over the last year we moved a lot. We changed about seven apartments in different cities, and in every city I looked for a hackerspace. I found two. They were small, with more restrictions. But there is one common thing: there is always a core team of active people who hang out there all the time, constantly making projects. People you see regularly, people you talk to all the time, people you run into again and again. When you come to another hackerspace, there is also its own core team. And in those people I saw the same kind of people as in my Kyiv hackerspace. They are very similar to each other.

I was in Kraków, in Castellón, and in Gothenburg. By the way, the hackerspace in Gothenburg is very cool, but to get access to the equipment you have to take courses, and the waiting list can be a year long.

For example, I wanted to come and make a part for my skateboard. I needed to weld a small aluminum bracket, and they told me that in about half a year or a year I could sign up for welding courses, then after another half a year of waiting I could take those courses one day per week. So several more months would pass, and only after that you can weld in the presence of someone, and if they approve, then you can weld by yourself. So it would be faster for me to complete professional welding training and get a certification than to get access to a welding machine in that hackerspace.

Do they just have a lot of equipment, or are they just very strict?

They are very strict, and the Swedish law forces them to be, and they have a lot of equipment as well. Very good equipment, quite old, but you can only use it. If something breaks, you have to write a report, and then someone from the university staff will repair it. You can’t repair it yourself.

The state regulates everything very strongly. And if you accidentally hurt yourself, for example get burned while welding, the university could go bankrupt. There would be huge problems. In our case everything is much simpler. You have a welder — you weld. That’s it.

You also said you were in Kraków?

In Kraków it’s also funny. They are in a basement or on the first floor, and on the floor above them there is the tax office, and the smoke bothers them a lot. So in that hackerspace they have laser cutters that they are not allowed to turn on. [laughs] And they also can’t turn on the ventilation because it makes noise. And they can’t keep the door open for more than one minute, otherwise there will be a fine. Strange restrictions sometimes.

In Kyiv we actually had a lot of freedom. Very loyal landlord. I even spoke with him personally once when we needed to repair the windows. Very reasonable guy. It’s a very cool place, very few restrictions. Enough right to make mistakes. Nobody will immediately fine you, punish you, beat you, sue you, or something like that. You can talk, you can solve the problem. Everything is very civilized, everything is very good, and there is a right to make mistakes. People make mistakes. We are not robots, and we don’t just follow instructions. It happens.

And these freedoms actually create the creative atmosphere. Restrictions restrict. And the freedom that exists in the Kyiv hackerspace — it matters a lot. But if you break something — repair it, be normal. That’s all.