When Alexey Livadnyi talks about skateboarding, he doesn’t sound like someone describing a hobby. He sounds like someone describing a language. 

Skateboarding, Code, and New Beginnings: How Alexey Livadnyi Found His Rhythm in Tbilisi

For Alexey, skateboarding is a way to communicate, to connect, to reset his mind. And now, a month into his work at LeverX’s growing Tbilisi office, that language is helping him navigate a new city, a new job, and a new chapter in his life.

Alexey is a C++ Developer who teaches children how to ride at Cool Skate School after work. The combination — engineering and skateboarding, logic and movement — might seem unlikely. 

To Alexey, they’re natural reflections of one another.

Learning to skate before the world had tutorials

Alexey first stepped on a skateboard in the early 2000s, long before YouTube became the global coach it is today. Skateboarding was rare, almost exotic, and the tools were basic — his very first board was a heavy, Soviet-made slab of wood.

“There were no tutorials, no parks, no guides,” he recalls. “We watched whatever we could find — MTV’s New Athletics — and copied it. Mostly, you learned from friends.”

His earliest memories of skating are raw and vivid: riding down neighborhood curbs, copying tricks he didn’t yet understand, and a particularly dramatic fall that left him walking home with a broken nose and a bloodied face. It didn’t scare him away for long.

When he eventually grew more serious about the sport, he met other skaters in the old way — by seeing a board in someone’s hands. “It was a sign,” he says. “You instantly had something in common.”

Moving to Tbilisi and stepping into a new community

Three years ago, Alexey’s family wanted to relocate, and through a chain of skateboarding acquaintances online, they found their destination — Tbilisi. An online friend Max, who had already relocated, helped them figure out the move. The skate school Max founded, at that time, was only beginning to form: “When I came, there wasn’t much — just a shelter and a few boards.”

Alexey joined to help, partly as a way to meet people and partly because teaching had already been part of his professional background: he studied to become a teacher of mathematics and informatics.

The school eventually grew into a larger structure with roughly fifteen coaches. Alexey kept his group small, usually only one or two students at a time. His first student was a three-year-old girl. “She barely skated,” he says, “but it was incredibly sweet, and the time was meaningful.”

Teaching, he discovered, sharpened his own skills.

“To teach, you have to break everything down into small parts. Show it, explain it, understand it deeply. You start analyzing things you used to do automatically.”

A city that welcomes movement

Tbilisi turned out to be an unexpectedly good home for skating. Concrete parks have appeared all over the city — Alexey estimates around fifteen — and the weather keeps the season open nearly year-round.

The school even built the first small indoor skate park in Georgia, used mostly for training.

With the growing scene came better materials and more creativity. Alexey now experiments with customizing boards and treating decks as a canvas. He follows new board technologies — fiberglass, carbon, recycled plastics — and sees the sport as a blend of athleticism and artistry.

“There are a lot of creative people in skateboarding,” he says. “The board becomes a piece of work. You can draw, customize, and express yourself.”

A father, a son, and a shared sense of courage

One of Alexey’s favorite parts of skating today is watching his son, Artyom, get into it. The interest came suddenly this spring. “I always dreamed he’d try it,” Alexey admits. But he avoids pushing. “If he doesn’t want to skate one Saturday, that’s okay. If he refuses again, we take a break. Pressure doesn’t help.”

What he has noticed, though, is transformation.

Artyom talks more freely. He approaches adults without hesitation. He plays in the park with kids and grown-ups alike. “He can talk to anyone,” Alexey says. “Tattooed skaters, parents, grandparents. It teaches him social freedom.”

The physical part matters too. Children learn to fall, to stand back up, to face small fears — a foundation Alexey believes helps them far beyond the park.

Skating and coding: the same persistence

Alexey doesn’t romanticize skateboarding as a metaphor, but he does see the parallels. Tricks take weeks or months to learn. You repeat them hundreds of times. You tolerate small failures until the movement clicks.

Software engineering, he says, works exactly the same way.

“Debugging is repetition. Building UI is building from parts. You break big things into small ones and keep going. And when something finally works — it’s the same feeling as landing a trick.”

Skateboarding also works as a mental reset. Sometimes Alexey goes to the park alone to focus and clear his head. Sometimes he goes for the social lift: “People support you. It reminds you that people can still be kind.”

Starting at LeverX: creativity rediscovered

Alexey joined LeverX just a month ago, and so far the transition has been smooth. On his project, Alexey’s working with UI — something he hadn’t done in a while but was excited to return to.

“It’s been pleasant to dive into something creative again,” he says. “UI demands both logic and design, and I enjoy that mix.”

He also appreciates the predictability of the workflow — the structure, communication, and clarity — which allows him to maintain balance between work and his skate commitments.

In the Tbilisi office chat, he once shared an invitation for colleagues to try classes at the school. Although a LeverX mini skate crew hasn’t formed yet, Alexey smiles when he says, “It could.”

What skateboarding gives — and why he continues

Asked why skateboarding matters so much to him, Alexey answers simply: “It saves me mentally.”

The sport gives him stability, structure, movement, and a sense of control. When days feel heavy, he skates. When he needs energy, he skates. When he needs quiet, he skates alone. When he needs community, he goes to the park and finds it instantly.

And that, perhaps, is the reason the story resonates. For Alexey, skateboarding is a way to process the world, stay balanced, and carry joy from one part of life into another.

“It gives me pleasure,” he says. “It gives me a base. When I feel bad, I go skating — and I come back better.”

In Tbilisi, in his new job, and on every piece of concrete the city offers, Alexey is building a life built on movement — steady, deliberate, and always forward.