Here come the surprising answers.

Pawel runs the hostel that I stayed in Kiev. He got a degree in engineering from a university in St. Petersburg. He then worked on oil tankers for the USSR till Ukraine became independent. Later he freelanced with an American company that ran tankers between Houston, Texas and Venezuela. The first time he came to the U.S., he thought, "Where is Marilyn Monroe? Why are all these people so fat? They don't look like anything from the movies!" After 25 years in the business, he saved enough money to opened up a hostel.

The guy who runs the Lviv Backpackers hostel is a Norweigian called Robert. He was a career soldier in the army and even advanced to the ranks of the secret service. After he met his Ukrainian wife while he was backpacking, they got married and settled into Lviv. He's a legend that I have never met, but the backpackers and other hostel owners couldn't stop talking about him.

A woman named Monika runs the warm and cozy hostel that I stayed in Suceava, Romania. While she studied languages on a scholarship in the university, she loved to backpack to places like Sweden and Australia. After college she worked in a hostel before starting her own business. After the dreary weather in Ukraine, I arrived in Romania to see brilliant sunshine and Monika's smiles.