Orchard Center High School alumnus talks about life in Ukraine before, during war

Lisa Vidaurri Bowling, The Monroe News
·4 min read
Holding the Ukraine flag is (from left) James Drew, Orchard Center High School principal; Kristina Johnston, OCHS student service provider; Ricky Cain, OCHS Class of 2004 graduate; and Christopher Kunder, OCHS social studies teacher. Cain works in the information technology industry and has been living in Ukraine during the war with Russia.
Holding the Ukraine flag is (from left) James Drew, Orchard Center High School principal; Kristina Johnston, OCHS student service provider; Ricky Cain, OCHS Class of 2004 graduate; and Christopher Kunder, OCHS social studies teacher. Cain works in the information technology industry and has been living in Ukraine during the war with Russia.

Orchard Center High School students in Christopher Kunder’s first period economics class learned what life is like living in a war zone.

Ricky Cain, a 2004 OCHS graduate and computer technician and consultant, recently visited Kunder’s classes to talk about the cost of living abroad and how it compares to living in the U.S. along with first-hand experience of listening to sirens and explosions as the Russians attacked Ukrainian neighborhoods.

Cain, 37, started the conversation with a brief introduction and said he became a student at OCHS because he was looking for a change.

He grew up in Monroe and after graduating high school, he attended ITT Technical Institute. He currently owns and operates Cain Tech Services, a business that specializes in computer maintenance and repair, web design, web hosting, remote support and virtual private network services, along with Cains Photography.

“I went to school for an associate degree in computer networking," Cain said. "…My degree is in setting up the computer and putting in the Wi-Fi as a technician, but where I ended up is in web design. I have a networking degree but I have yet to use it.”

Orchard Center High School student Taliah Haythome, 16, takes a close look at a 500 hryvnia bill that former student Ricky Cain brought home from Ukraine. At current exchange rates, 500 hryvnia is worth about $13.67.
Orchard Center High School student Taliah Haythome, 16, takes a close look at a 500 hryvnia bill that former student Ricky Cain brought home from Ukraine. At current exchange rates, 500 hryvnia is worth about $13.67.

Several years after launching his business, Cain said, he moved to Europe at the suggestion of a friend. It was an opportunity for Cain to grow his company. He has approximately 130 clients; many are in the Monroe and Detroit area while others are located out of state.

Since graduating, Cain has stayed in contact with some of his high school teachers, like Kunder, via Facebook. Through posts and a camera lens, he’s documented living in Europe. His first stop was Pozan, Poland, before moving to western Ukraine. His photographs and videos document the lifestyle of Ukraine before and during the war.

As Kunder posed questions to Cain about living in Ukraine and how it compared to life in the U.S., Cain spoke of housing costs and inflation. Kunder’s students referred to a map and viewed images projected on a screen at the front of the classroom.

“I didn’t create any specific presentation,” Cain said. “It was an open format where students could ask questions.”

Orchard Center High School student Rodney Mayes, 17, looks at the maps of Ukraine while former 2004 OCHS graduate Ricky Cain talks about living abroad.
Orchard Center High School student Rodney Mayes, 17, looks at the maps of Ukraine while former 2004 OCHS graduate Ricky Cain talks about living abroad.

He spoke of the cost of living in Lviv, Ukraine, compared to Detroit. With the help of Numebo, an online cost-of-living calculator, students were able to see the cost of living in Ukraine is about 60% lower than in the U.S. Rent in Ukraine averages about 80% lower than in the United States.

“In Ukraine, the cost of a Big Mac meal would be about $3. If you get an English breakfast with biscuits, gravy, sausage and eggs, that would cost less than $4 but it will be half a pound to a pound of food,” he said. “War has had some impact on the cost of living. There is no free-flowing money in Ukraine so it keeps the cost of living down in some ways.”

Cain then spoke of the importance of having a passport and what he witnessed of the war after Russia invaded.

One student asked if he had seen any dead bodies, casualties of war. The answer: “No.”

Kunder said when he heard Cain was in Ukraine when the war started, he reached out to him on Facebook and started communicating with him on a regular basis. In August 2022, Cain was making plans to return to Monroe.

“He said he would be happy to come back and talk to my students, and I told him that would be a great idea,” Kunder said. “I think many students were surprised to hear the difference in the cost of living and it was powerful for them to hear it firsthand from someone who is from their hometown.”

While living in Ukraine after the Russians attacked, Cain sent reports to The Monroe News documenting what life was like living in Ivan-Frankivsk. In July 2022, he wrote, “Ukraine is like America about 50 to 100 years ago, before the commercialization, before the industrialization, at times an agrarian society. Yet, it has the ability to use the latest IT infrastructure in the larger cities. It is a mix of two hybrid worlds.

“This is what makes it such an attractive point of interest for Russia, besides being a border country. The name Ukraine means Borderlands, while also having the prospects for any future development. What Ukraine needs is those that have inspiration to build and to create.”

Cain plans to remain in Monroe for several months before returning to Europe.

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Orchard Center High School alumnus talks about life in Ukraine