Over the past five years, Doronichev has shared his four-story home with nearly 100 entrepreneurs, investors and other aspiring technologists from countries that were once part of the Soviet Union.
Because they spoke Russian, they thought they had a private key that could allow them to access resources most Silicon Valley technologists can't. They were investors in start-ups in Kyiv. Entrepreneurs could raise money from a network of Russian-speaking investors in Asia, Europe and the United States.
Most of that was gone after Russia invaded Ukraine. Some of it may never come back.
Language ties us together across borders. No one else had the benefits it gave us. It was like a secret passage into a larger world of smart people, said Mr. Doronichev, 39, who was born, raised and educated in Moscow before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Hundreds of Russian-speaking technologists working in the Bay Area are struggling to rebuild their lives after the invasion of Ukraine, including Mr. Doronichev and his housemates. Some of them are from Ukraine. Others are from other countries. There are still more from Russia.
Most are against the war, aligning themselves more with the Western world and openness on the internet than with Putin. As they scramble to keep their own careers afloat, they are wondering what they can do to help friends, family and colleagues on the other side of the world.
They wanted to create a community of Russian speakers across the globe who could bootstrap new technologies, companies and products for an open internet. Russia and Ukraine are two key countries.
The tech community in Ukraine is under attack. According to the World Bank, the Ukrainian economy could shrink more than 40 percent this year.
The Russian tech industry is almost completely cut off from the rest of the world after foreign governments imposed sanctions on Russia. Tens of thousands of tech professionals are leaving the country, unable or unwilling to work behind the curtain.
Mr. Doronichev is proud of his heritage. He built a Russian sauna in the basement of his house during the coronaviruses epidemic. He doesn't want to support the Russian economy.
Mr. Doronichev and his housemates don't want to work with people who are in the country. He knows that if he keeps his employees in Russia, they will not be allowed to speak out against Mr. Putin or the war.
Mr. Doronichev left Russia in 2006 after selling a start-up that let people buy ringtones via text message. He joined the engineering office of the internet giant in Dublin.
He bought a house in San Francisco, not far from the city's Golden Gate Park, after moving to Silicon Valley to work on technologies like virtual reality and online gaming. One of the walls was cracked. Water was 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 888-282-0476 It was a steal in one of the country's most expensive housing markets.
After renovations, he and his wife moved into the top floor of the old city home.
The Doronichevs went to Burning Man in the summer of 2015 and it became a gathering place for the tech industry. They had just spent nine days living in close quarters with friends and colleagues and decided to live the same way all year. They started renting rooms to people they knew.
The gray stucco building with a multicolored hummingbird painted on the garage door became a hub for technologists from the same part of the world as Mr. Doronichev. The community was united by its language. Immigrants from Russia, Georgia, and Ukraine were welcomed.
The Russian word for house is DobryDom. The name took on a new meaning for those who lived there. The Russian word for good, fair or kind is Dobry.
The second floor of the building is where Podolyanko lives.
Mr. Doronichev and his housemates walk up and down an outdoor staircase in the backyard. They serve group breakfasts in the morning. Mr. Doronichev's mother has moved into the basement next to the banya and now offers homemade borscht and oli.
Borscht is a Ukrainian dish. He says they grill like most Americans when they barbecue in the backyard.
The community expanded into the two houses on either side of DobryDom as many people moved in and out of the house over the years. A group of people who have left DobryDom for other parts of San Francisco are united by an online chat group.
During the epidemic. Mr. Doronichev and DobryDom became famous when they appeared in an online documentary by the Russian journalist Yury Dud. Mr. Doronichev's audience grew to more than 350,000 people as he spoke in Russian about the art of building new technologies.
He founded a nonprofit social network for entrepreneurs called Mesto in order to boost the start-up market in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. He contracted with a team of artificial intelligence engineers spread across Russia as he launched his new start-up, Duplicat, which was intended to identify fraud in the market for nonfungible token.
Several Ukrainian start-ups were invested in by him. Reface was recommended by Mr. Podolyanko. As they met with other companies and colleagues in Kyiv, the two of them attended a boat party hosted by a group of Ukrainian technologists and investors. Mr. Podolyanko brought his girlfriend.
They look back on the trip with regret. Russia invaded six months later.
Ms. Antipova was able to cross into the United States as a refugee after fleeing Ukraine. Mr. Doronichev remembered that when he went for breakfast the first time, he didn't know what to say.
Ms. Antipova was unsure what to say when she sat in the backyard with her new housemates.
Dasha Kroshkina, a Russian-born businesswoman, explained that she was trying to move employees out of Russia and Ukraine and restart her company in Africa and India. Many of its customers were in Russia when the war began.
"We all feel trauma, but the trauma is different for each of us," said Mikita Mikado, a DobryDom housemate.
Not all of Mr. Mikado and Mr. Doronichev's employees are willing or able to leave Russia and go to European and Asian countries with no visas. Anyone who stays will be cut ties with the two entrepreneurs.
Mr. Mikado had engineers in Ukraine. They are more difficult to leave the country because they are required to stay for military service and many are reluctant to leave their families behind. Despite the strain this puts on a young start-up, those unwilling or unable to leave can remain on the payroll.
When people have to hide from bombs, it's natural for a business to slow down.
There is a new pool of available talent as many other tech workers flee Russia and Ukraine. The DobryDom entrepreneurs only hire people who oppose the war.
"You would be surprised how many people are willing to talk about their views without you even asking," said George Surovtsev, an ethnic Russian who moved to San Francisco.
The calculus is different when entrepreneurs raise money for new start-ups. Customers, banks, other business partners and government agencies are wary of any Russian investments. They need to be careful with their small ties back to the country. Mr. Doronichev, an American citizen, raised funds for Duplicat.
I did not raise a dime from Russian investors, whether they were in Russia or they were Russian nationals living in America, he said.
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