In this series of articles we try to share our roots and beliefs which made Ochis happen and which still drive us to become better.

The beginning. When Kolya Met Olya

This is a story about the family of the Ochis founder and a very inspiring pair of broken glasses. 

The story of Max’s (Ochis founder) love for eyewear, the same as his life-story, begins with his parents. Yes, making glasses runs in the family! 

Olya and Kolya — Max’s parents — met at the Izum Optical and Mechanical Plant (IOMZ), which was one of the biggest optical factories in the former USSR. Both of them came to the city of Izum to study and ended up getting hired at the plant, so eyewear was the thing that brought them together.

When Max’s dad got his degree as a technology engineer and had to choose a workplace, he picked IOMZ for the most unusual reason: because of his grandma. You see, when he was little, Kolya had accidentally broken her glasses and made her upset.

Ever since that moment, he wanted to make a pair of glasses for his grandma, so working at an optical factory pushed him one step closer to fulfilling his dream.

During 13 years there not only has he actually assembled glasses, but has also become a member of the engineering team that was improving the production technology and machinery.

Photo: A. V. Ovsyannykov. "Creators of Unique Lenses".

Max’s mom, on the other hand, came to Izum with the sole purpose of studying at the Institute of Optics. Olya began working at the plant as a machine worker when she was 18, but after a while got promoted to the department of lens quality control, where she spent 9 years closely overlooking the production. 

Both Kolya and Olya spent a long time working at IOMZ, but as USSR collapsed and the glasses market got flooded with foreign products, the plant became less and less viable. Don’t worry though! In this story, as in life, each ending is just a possibility for a beginning: that time actually overlapped with Max’s birth. 

We’re not suggesting that glasses could change your life as they did with Olya and Kolya, but one never knows. What we do know is that your true passion can grow even from a broken pair of eyewear!

Photo: A. V. Ovsyannykov. "Creators of Unique Lenses".

To find out what happened next, stay tuned and check our stories section.