ALEX FATUM

Alex Fatum came originally from Sevastopol, city on the Black Sea coast. He loved the sea since he was a small boy. He decided on his career at age 7, when his grandfather, a long-time diver, set a three-bolt copper helmet over his head. By the age of 14, he was on the fishing boats on summer vacation with his father and grandfather diving with them underwater and collecting sea shellfish; before the age of 18, he was working deep sea on the fishing boats. In the mid 90s, he started working as a diver, training on the job under military divers at a diving school called “Underwater Expeditions for Special Purposes”, founded in 1931. For many years he worked as a field diving instructor and participated in many diving expeditions: inland hydraulic dams, shipwreck recovery projects, marine salvage operations, as well as in the field of coastal hydraulic construction and pipeline laying for oil field organizations. Hes ran worked as an instructor teaching commercial diving specialists for a couple of decades and operated his own school at the same time, where he wrote many of the course material and texts. In 2014, Alex returned to work on the Black Sea, as an instructor in the cultivation and collection of shellfish in the fishing industry. He is one of the founders of the Association of Commercial Divers and Underwater Sportsmen of Ukraine, and currently serves on the board of directors. Since the war began in Ukraine in early 2022, Alex has been volunteering in various places in Ukraine helping people in difficult situations, and spends his free time writing guides on various areas related to commercial diving.