May 11, 2015 at 00:16How to IT specialist leave for Germany. Part 2
So, the second part of my story about moving to Germany ( first ). Sorry, if it seemed that I had not published for a long time, but I had the intention to publish the second part after finding the apartment, and I moved into it a week ago.
Disclaimer: everything described in the article is purely my experience, in other lands and in general for other people everything can be different.
So, where did we stop ...
I got a contract and went to the embassy with documents. It was February 5th, Thursday. I was preparing to wait 4 weeks, as they say in almost all the stories of the theft of tractors. But I was issued a visa in 2 days (in words - TWO WORKING DAYS), and on Monday I took my passport for sighting. The secret to such a quick decision was simple: comrade drcolombo advised me to write in the column “Estimated date of entry” - ab Sofort, which means “as soon as possible .” If I wrote the start date of the contract, they would give out 2-3 days before that date, as happened with my girlfriend, though she was going to study.
There is nothing special to tell here - I collected the monnets, friends, drank bitter, snot-tears, and here I am in Munich. In this paragraph, I can only note that it is better to ask you to send you all invoices from airlines for tickets and transportation of things in English. My company compensated me for a certain amount for the move, but Aeroflot sent me the itinerary receipt in Russian and refused to send it in English after the flight. Therefore, they could not compensate the flight because of the Russian language in the document.
Everything that happens next is about the same for everyone (except that moving with your family may have something extra, but you still need to do all this). However, I repeat and describe what I did.
The very first and most important piece of paper that you need, without it you will not do anything from the next steps. The point here is not to attach you to a particular place, but as I understand it, for the distribution of taxes across different lands and all that sort of thing. I had a question about this, and for some reason no one could answer me - do I need a contract for rental housing. Answer: no, just come with your passport and fill out the form. In Munich, departments at Orleans-Strass 50 and Ruppert-Strasse 19 speak more or less English and there are also forms in English. The queues are long, but the thing is that to be the first, you need to come 40-50 minutes before the opening - exactly the same amount of time you will spend in the queue if you come later. Keep the original of this piece of paper carefully at home, all will need a copy (except ABH).
Here you can choose any bank where you want to get your salary, but I trusted our HR and she told me that without a long-term visa, it’s far from everyone takes to create an account, and salary must be received. Therefore, so far I have chosen Stadtsparkasse München - I heard a lot of negative things about them (in my opinion, this is something like the local Sberbank), but so far I have not encountered anything like that. An important point: here you will need a piece of paper from step 1, but most likely they won’t open your account right away, but will only schedule an appointment somewhere in a week, so you can go to the bank on the first day, even before registration.
Again, at work, almost everyone uses Techniker Krakenkasse insurance, so I just filled out the form and sent it to the insurance (via email).
At the first registration, you check the box that you need to get all this and then everything comes to you by mail, you don’t have to go anywhere.
The name is familiar to many, in the common people "ABH" - here you have to go for your residence permit, it is also the "Blue Card". You can write a letter to a special email address for applicants for a Card and you will be scheduled to receive. I was assigned just a week later. All your documents are already there (sent from the embassy), with you only a passport, a photograph and a completed form (I had attachments to the letter). Now in Munich, as such, Blue Cards are not issued because of the large number of people, you just paste something similar to a visa in your passport, but in fact it is a Card (for the term of the contract; if it is unlimited - for 4 years). In Munich, come in advance for about 20 minutes, for finding where you need it is not so simple. This, however, did not help me.
I arrived somewhere in 30 minutes, I went up to the lady at the service point and said that I had an appointment. She took my passport and said: "Get in line." Me: "Here, look, I have an invitation by 10:30." She: "Get in line." The line is not very large, but it moves extremely slowly - 2 aunts are sitting there, it takes about 15 minutes per person. I spent about 2.5 hours there. And when my turn came, this lady said to me: “Mr., why didn’t you come to the meeting? You are scheduled for 09:30. " I say: "No, here they wrote me 10:30 (I show the letter on the phone), and you told me to get in line ...". "No, the meeting is at 09:30 (shows the screen), but for today the reception is over, come next time." The casket just opened - I was booked for an appointment before daylight saving time, and the appointment itself was after.
This is pain and suffering for everyone who comes to Munich. For all. Do not hope that you are lucky and immediately get ready for a long search. For the first time, housing was provided to me by the company, so I was not very worried about finding a hotel or room. But this is far from everywhere. There are 2 search options in Munich - a furnished apartment on MrLodge and unfurnished on ImmobilienScout24. The former are more expensive, but almost without problems, the latter are cheaper, but it is very difficult to remove. I tried a couple of times to contact the owners on the second site, but it is really very difficult, if you do not know the language and just arrived, you need to ask someone to speak for you. And then the difficulty is that the landlord will choose you. I tried a couple of times and decided to pay more, but without any of this hemorrhoids, I’ll take off cheaper in a year. Since nothing really drove me, then I was looking for an apartment close to work (formally there is no limit on how much to live in the company’s apartment, but there are quite a few who want it, so the informal maximum period is 2 months). I found a very good option, 15 minutes walk from work, on the 12th floor, 25 square meters. m. with excellent views of the park and the city center in the background (here tall houses are very rare in a radius of 5 kilometers from the center). All together with utility bills and the Internet (20 Mbps) costs € 750 per month. I will not describe the features of pricing and how much you will have to pay initially when I take it off, it's all individual, but get ready to dump thousands 4 at once for the first month. 15 minutes walk from work, on the 12th floor, 25 square meters. m. with excellent views of the park and the city center in the background (here tall houses are very rare in a radius of 5 kilometers from the center). All together with utility bills and the Internet (20 Mbps) costs € 750 per month. I will not describe the features of pricing and how much you will have to pay initially when I take it off, it's all individual, but get ready to dump thousands 4 at once for the first month. 15 minutes walk from work, on the 12th floor, 25 square meters. m. with excellent views of the park and the city center in the background (here tall houses are very rare in a radius of 5 kilometers from the center). All together with utility bills and the Internet (20 Mbps) costs € 750 per month. I will not describe the features of pricing and how much you will have to pay initially when I take it off, it's all individual, but get ready to dump thousands 4 at once for the first month.
More
So far, probably this is all that I would like to share. Perhaps there will be another third part after the trial period (ends September 16), already in the sensations and differences from working in Russia. Now it’s hard for me to put my thoughts on this matter into something concrete.
Thanks for attention!
Disclaimer: everything described in the article is purely my experience, in other lands and in general for other people everything can be different.
So, where did we stop ...
Getting a visa
I got a contract and went to the embassy with documents. It was February 5th, Thursday. I was preparing to wait 4 weeks, as they say in almost all the stories of the theft of tractors. But I was issued a visa in 2 days (in words - TWO WORKING DAYS), and on Monday I took my passport for sighting. The secret to such a quick decision was simple: comrade drcolombo advised me to write in the column “Estimated date of entry” - ab Sofort, which means “as soon as possible .” If I wrote the start date of the contract, they would give out 2-3 days before that date, as happened with my girlfriend, though she was going to study.
Relocation
There is nothing special to tell here - I collected the monnets, friends, drank bitter, snot-tears, and here I am in Munich. In this paragraph, I can only note that it is better to ask you to send you all invoices from airlines for tickets and transportation of things in English. My company compensated me for a certain amount for the move, but Aeroflot sent me the itinerary receipt in Russian and refused to send it in English after the flight. Therefore, they could not compensate the flight because of the Russian language in the document.
First steps
Everything that happens next is about the same for everyone (except that moving with your family may have something extra, but you still need to do all this). However, I repeat and describe what I did.
Registration at the place of stay
The very first and most important piece of paper that you need, without it you will not do anything from the next steps. The point here is not to attach you to a particular place, but as I understand it, for the distribution of taxes across different lands and all that sort of thing. I had a question about this, and for some reason no one could answer me - do I need a contract for rental housing. Answer: no, just come with your passport and fill out the form. In Munich, departments at Orleans-Strass 50 and Ruppert-Strasse 19 speak more or less English and there are also forms in English. The queues are long, but the thing is that to be the first, you need to come 40-50 minutes before the opening - exactly the same amount of time you will spend in the queue if you come later. Keep the original of this piece of paper carefully at home, all will need a copy (except ABH).
Opening a bank account
Here you can choose any bank where you want to get your salary, but I trusted our HR and she told me that without a long-term visa, it’s far from everyone takes to create an account, and salary must be received. Therefore, so far I have chosen Stadtsparkasse München - I heard a lot of negative things about them (in my opinion, this is something like the local Sberbank), but so far I have not encountered anything like that. An important point: here you will need a piece of paper from step 1, but most likely they won’t open your account right away, but will only schedule an appointment somewhere in a week, so you can go to the bank on the first day, even before registration.
Medical insurance
Again, at work, almost everyone uses Techniker Krakenkasse insurance, so I just filled out the form and sent it to the insurance (via email).
Tax number, social security, pension insurance
At the first registration, you check the box that you need to get all this and then everything comes to you by mail, you don’t have to go anywhere.
Ausländerbehörde
The name is familiar to many, in the common people "ABH" - here you have to go for your residence permit, it is also the "Blue Card". You can write a letter to a special email address for applicants for a Card and you will be scheduled to receive. I was assigned just a week later. All your documents are already there (sent from the embassy), with you only a passport, a photograph and a completed form (I had attachments to the letter). Now in Munich, as such, Blue Cards are not issued because of the large number of people, you just paste something similar to a visa in your passport, but in fact it is a Card (for the term of the contract; if it is unlimited - for 4 years). In Munich, come in advance for about 20 minutes, for finding where you need it is not so simple. This, however, did not help me.
I arrived somewhere in 30 minutes, I went up to the lady at the service point and said that I had an appointment. She took my passport and said: "Get in line." Me: "Here, look, I have an invitation by 10:30." She: "Get in line." The line is not very large, but it moves extremely slowly - 2 aunts are sitting there, it takes about 15 minutes per person. I spent about 2.5 hours there. And when my turn came, this lady said to me: “Mr., why didn’t you come to the meeting? You are scheduled for 09:30. " I say: "No, here they wrote me 10:30 (I show the letter on the phone), and you told me to get in line ...". "No, the meeting is at 09:30 (shows the screen), but for today the reception is over, come next time." The casket just opened - I was booked for an appointment before daylight saving time, and the appointment itself was after.
Search for your home
This is pain and suffering for everyone who comes to Munich. For all. Do not hope that you are lucky and immediately get ready for a long search. For the first time, housing was provided to me by the company, so I was not very worried about finding a hotel or room. But this is far from everywhere. There are 2 search options in Munich - a furnished apartment on MrLodge and unfurnished on ImmobilienScout24. The former are more expensive, but almost without problems, the latter are cheaper, but it is very difficult to remove. I tried a couple of times to contact the owners on the second site, but it is really very difficult, if you do not know the language and just arrived, you need to ask someone to speak for you. And then the difficulty is that the landlord will choose you. I tried a couple of times and decided to pay more, but without any of this hemorrhoids, I’ll take off cheaper in a year. Since nothing really drove me, then I was looking for an apartment close to work (formally there is no limit on how much to live in the company’s apartment, but there are quite a few who want it, so the informal maximum period is 2 months). I found a very good option, 15 minutes walk from work, on the 12th floor, 25 square meters. m. with excellent views of the park and the city center in the background (here tall houses are very rare in a radius of 5 kilometers from the center). All together with utility bills and the Internet (20 Mbps) costs € 750 per month. I will not describe the features of pricing and how much you will have to pay initially when I take it off, it's all individual, but get ready to dump thousands 4 at once for the first month. 15 minutes walk from work, on the 12th floor, 25 square meters. m. with excellent views of the park and the city center in the background (here tall houses are very rare in a radius of 5 kilometers from the center). All together with utility bills and the Internet (20 Mbps) costs € 750 per month. I will not describe the features of pricing and how much you will have to pay initially when I take it off, it's all individual, but get ready to dump thousands 4 at once for the first month. 15 minutes walk from work, on the 12th floor, 25 square meters. m. with excellent views of the park and the city center in the background (here tall houses are very rare in a radius of 5 kilometers from the center). All together with utility bills and the Internet (20 Mbps) costs € 750 per month. I will not describe the features of pricing and how much you will have to pay initially when I take it off, it's all individual, but get ready to dump thousands 4 at once for the first month.
More
So far, probably this is all that I would like to share. Perhaps there will be another third part after the trial period (ends September 16), already in the sensations and differences from working in Russia. Now it’s hard for me to put my thoughts on this matter into something concrete.
Thanks for attention!