My experience moving to Europe (from Asia)



    This is not a step-by-step guide on how to emigrate to Europe or anywhere else. It is simply, whenever possible, a fun and, hopefully, instructive tale of how I moved from Bangkok to Prague.


    Why go?


    If the question is “Why should I go somewhere?” you can not read further. He did not stand for me, and it was decided to go completely, and not the first time. And not like in the old joke about “I want to go to Paris, and last year I already wanted to.” Once I decided and went to Thailand. After living there for 7 years, I decided that we should go further, the only question was “where?”.



    Why go to Europe?




    When you look at the world from Bangkok, it looks a little different. And the unknown Singapore is right there, and in exotic Hong Kong you can just wander off for the weekend with nothing to do, and far away Australia is not so far away. I practically did not consider other Asian countries for life for a number of reasons that have developed over the years of my life in this same Asia. The three above were pleasantly European exceptions. But Hong Kong is already almost entirely China, Singapore is too hot, and I'm really tired of it. And Australia is like a tattoo on the face - seriously and for a long time. You need to be 100% sure of the chosen place of residence, even if you need to fly 4 hours by plane to the nearest city, and to fly to your parents you need to spend half your vacation on this plane. And at some point, a decision came: do not look for Europe in Asia,


    Why go to the Czech Republic?




    With the choice of a specific country, everything was much more complicated. I would like it to be warm and sea (Greece, Spain, Portugal) and to have higher salaries (Switzerland, Germany) and to have a simpler mentality (Eastern Europe and Britain) and this is important, after Asia I would like more understandable people around. In general, I bothered for a long time, built graphs of living standards, housing costs, taxes and average salaries in the industry. One of the most adequate sites for comparing the cost of living, from my point of view is www.numbeo.com, but you can’t even believe it, the more accurate method is to simply open an online grocery store, for example, the same tescoand compare yourself. But this will not give you real information about the cost of living, so all these comparisons are just structuring your leisure time in between interviews. In fact, I stopped in the Czech Republic almost by accident, and now looking around, I am very pleased with this.


    So the advantages of living in the Czech Republic:


    • Tasty beer =)
    • Prices in the Czech Republic are among the lowest in Europe.
    • Mentality. This is more important than it seems, and the Czechs, nevertheless, are Slav brothers. The correctness of the Germans or sloppiness of the Greeks can finish. It’s not even worth talking about Asians, but with the Czechs everything is more or less clear.
    • Tongue. It is funny, it is complex like all Slavic languages, but you already know the translation of about 50% of the words, which allows you to at least read signs, price tags, and more. And if you know a couple of Slavic languages ​​such as Russian and Ukrainian or Belarusian, then you can also explain yourself somehow, in the wild surzhik, but they will understand you. In addition, the Czech Republic is one of the most English-speaking countries in Europe. And indeed, how can you not like a language in which such melodic tongue twisters:
      Strč prst skrz krk
      Or it’s a very brainwave, more like a demon call spell:
      Chrt zdrhl z Brd. Vtrhl skrz strž v tvrz srn, v čtvrť Krč. Blb! Prskl, zvrhl smrk, strhl drn, mrskl drn v trs chrp. Zhltl čtvrthrst zrn skrz krk, pln zrn vsrkl hlt z vln. Chrt brkl, mrkl, zmlkl. Zvlhls?
      Yes, vowels are an excess, I think so too.
    • Location The Czech Republic is located in the geographical center of Europe, although it must be admitted that Europe has a couple of dozen centers. Nevertheless, the opportunity to take a bus to Berlin, Krakow, Vienna, Munich and lots of interesting cities for 10 - 20 euros is a nice bonus.




    • Prague is a big small city. Small, because it is really small compared to Moscow or Kiev (or Bangkok from which I ended up in Prague). From almost anywhere in the city, you can be in the center in a maximum of 20 minutes. And you can even go through it in a couple of hours (at least the central part) and I like it. And a big city, because you don’t feel here in the outback, something happens all the time here: concerts, exhibitions, festivals. It turns out that there are all the advantages of the capital and, at the same time, it feels like you live in a small and calm town.

    Work searches


    I started looking for work in advance, and if specifically - six months before the end of the contract and it was a bust, employers were simply not ready to wait so long. Although, in fact, if you take into account how much the process of obtaining visas and other bureaucratic games takes, this does not seem so long. But things went very sluggish, a total of several hundred resumes were sent, several dozen telephone interviews were passed, but somehow it did not move off the ground.


    Then I took everything acquired by overwork and went to look for work on the spot, and I will say that it was the right decision. I found a job in a week, and to be precise 3 different jobs: in Krakow, in Frankfurt and, in fact, in Prague. Everything happens much easier and faster when the question “And when could you come for an interview?” answer tomorrow. And do not care that you are in another country, there are no visas, there are no borders, I sat down and went. And then, as they say, it all depends on personal charm.


    Interview in the sauna




    Oh, I have these free European customs. Everything almost went wrong when my wife saw that I was invited to the sauna for an interview at 9 pm ... Thanks to the clever Google services =) who decided that I was still in Thailand and transparently and unobtrusively counted the time to the Thai time zone ( +6 hours from Prague), and “sauna” is just the name of a meeting room. At least the wife still believes in it =)


    Visa Magic


    And here the fun begins. Not all companies imagine the process of hiring someone from outside the European Union in general. A specific example is in the company where I work now, at the time when I got a job there were people from 13 countries. From Vietnam to Costa Rica. But when the question arose, “what to do next?” it turned out that no one had the slightest idea. And this situation lasted long enough until they hired a separate specialist from a company specializing in the registration of employment specifically for residents of the former Soviet Union.


    Now a little fun specifics.


    To hire a foreigner, a firm must go through 9 circles of bureaucratic hell. From the interesting, it is that a specific vacancy should be approved by the Ministry of Labor and sag in free access, with a description of the requirements and salary for at least a month.


    It’s even more fun, the queue entry is now possible only through the visapoint system and everything would be fine, but in Ukraine there are no empty seats in this system since its launch, but special people have these empty seats for very special money (from 800 to 2500 euros per person, just for the right to submit documents). As it turned out, this problem has a solution, at least for Ukrainian citizens, and it’s called the Pilot Project: Special Procedures for Employing Highly Qualified Workers from Ukraine (Pilotní projekt: Zvláštní postupy pro vysoce kvalifikované zaměstnance z Ukrajiny) or simply “the pilot project


    In theory, the entire procedure for the pilot project should take about 30 days, in fact, everything was much more fun. The process began in May, and I officially got a job only in mid-November. Be ready. And also realize that for such a procedure as moving to another country, this is still a very short time. Moving to Canada or Australia, at best, takes about two and a half years, and usually even longer.


    All for the convenience of passengers.


    While spaceships plow the big theater .... The Czech consulate sends the result of the consideration of your visa application by paper mail. For example, I still have not received this letter of happiness. Another interesting thing in Ukraine (and not only), the Czech Consulate can only pay in euros. I remind you that the Czech Republic never entered the eurozone. To make it even more interesting, they warn you about this and say - do not forget to bring 25 euros. And you honestly bring these 25 euros and you fly out of the consulate on a low parabola and run to look for another 2.5 euros. Why? Because VAT.


    Work remotely


    Wait until six months without work, the lesson is rather dull, but I was lucky with the employer. At that time I couldn’t legally and work in the Czech Republic, I didn’t want to illegally. But no one forbade me at this time, completely free of charge, to help the company. Fortunately, all I needed for this was the Internet and the laptop that were provided to me. Well, after that, just because I am so good, in the first month of official employment I received a bonus of .... (drum roll) ... my salary for all the months of waiting. As for me, this is a great option, everything is legal, everything is beautiful, everyone is happy.


    Well, then a completely different story begins, not about how to move, but about how to settle in a new place, move your wife to reunite, find an apartment, get rights, learn a language and other little things and details, if anyone is interested - write in the comments, otherwise I can’t move to the second part.

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