About us

You might be surprised, but we are not…

Not businessmen.
Not builders.
Not investors.
Not even wealthy, by any means.

So, who are we then?
We are dreamers.
We are visionaries.

We are the kind of people patient enough to search for the perfect land for three years and bold enough to sell our only house to fund a dream.

But that’s not the whole story.
Even to our own surprise, we turned out to be strong enough to fight for land rights for three years and wait six years to build.

Here we are: Mikhail and Olesia Vlasovs.

Russian-born Asian-rooted Indonesian expats. Retreat enthusiasts and warriors of personal transformation.

For eight years, we’ve been leading retreats and crafting various programs across Asia and the world. But one day, we turned to our guests and blog readers and asked for support. We needed funds to build. Crazy? Yes. Real? Absolutely.

It was what they call crowdinvesting. We reached out to our community, asked for their help, and here we are — building the Dream with the support of our Angels. This is truly a community project for all curious and joyful souls.

Mikhail is a meditation practitioner and freediving instructor. Olesia is a writer and a guide in the realm of consciousness transformation.

Both of us have been deeply connected to the tourism industry for almost all our lives, having worked in nearly every role — from guides to directors and, eventually, as owners of our own company.

…

Olesia’s journey brought her to Asia almost two decades ago, where she started as a backpacker and continued as an author, writing a book about her solo trip from China through Borneo. All her life, she has balanced between tourism and marketing, and now she has the chance to bring both together in our shared vision.

Olesia once thought of herself as a traveler who wrote about her journeys, but her path revealed that she is a writer who travels — not just through places, but within herself, exploring her inner world. Her life has always led her to questions of personal transformation, and since 2012, she has dedicated herself to this field. 

Mikhail began his career in the tourism industry as a guide, gradually climbing the ranks to ultimately become the owner of his own travel agency. His path led him to meditation and later to freediving, which changed his world.

He saw the potential of freediving as a transformative practice that goes beyond physical exploration. Unlike other sports, where progress often depends on willpower and pushing limits, freediving requires relaxation and the ability to let go to achieve visible results. In many ways, it’s closer to the essence of yoga than modern yoga itself, and this deeply resonated with Mikhail, who now sees it as his mission to share this experience with others. He once dreamed of a small freediving station, but life has a good sense of humor. Today, he is building that hub on 3.5 hectares of land.

…

When we met, our visions aligned, and the Ocean Mantra Village project was born. First as an idea and a dream, then as rough plans — plans that were almost crushed by the pandemic and reality. But we persevered. And now, it’s growing into an amazing cliffside eco-retreat with a triple-white beach bay — the perfect location to Re-Start, Re-Vision and Re-Self.

O M 

Olesia & Mikhail Vlasovs

Full Story