Expat Empire Podcast 2 | Growing up in a country that doesn’t exist anymore and moving abroad with Kirill Alferov

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Episode Description

Today we will be hearing from Kirill Alferov, who also goes by the pen name Louigi Verona. He was born in Ukraine, grew up in Russia and the United States in his youth, and has been living in Berlin, Germany for the last few years with his wife. We talk about many topics including what it is like to grow up in a country that no longer exists, what it takes for a foreigner to be able to succeed in the Russian work environment, and advice on how to find jobs abroad based on how Kirill found his first job in Germany.

Please check out Kirill’s side projects at louigiverona.com!

Music on this episode was produced by Eli Hermit, please check him out at elihermit.bandcamp.com/.

Learn more about Expat Empire at expatempire.com!

Episode Transcript

David: Welcome to the Expat Empire Podcast, the podcast where you can hear from expats around the world and learn how you can join them.

Hi everyone, thanks for joining us today for the 2nd episode of the Expat Empire Podcast. Today we will be hearing from Kirill Alferov, who also goes by the pen name Louigi Verona. He was born in the Ukraine, grew up in Russia and the United States in his youth, and has been living in Berlin, Germany for the last few years with his wife. We talk about many topics including what it is like to grow up in a country that no longer exists, what it takes for a foreigner to be able to succeed in the Russian work environment, and advice on how to find jobs abroad based on how Kirill found his first job in Germany.

Without further ado, let’s start the conversation.

David: Hey Kirill, thanks so much for joining the Expat Empire Podcast.

Kirill: Hey, nice to be here.

David: If you could tell me a little bit about your background, you know, where you’re originally from, where around the world you’ve lived so far, and where you live now, that would be great.

Kirill: Okay, so I was actually born in a country that no longer exists. So I was born in the Soviet Union and that’s a country that no longer exists, of course and since then I’ve lived in I mean within the Soviet Union which I think still, you know makes sense to talk about, I lived in Ukraine because part of my family is actually from Ukraine and then I lived in Russia, what today is known as Russia, and then I lived in U.S. for a while in New York City, and now I’m living in Germany in Berlin.

David: If you could just I guess talk a little bit more about your upbringing in terms of growing up in all of these different countries, particularly, as you saw some I imagine pretty stark differences between you know, Russia and the Ukraine and the United States, of course.

Kirill: Yeah. I mean this is this is a very interesting thing is that people who live in many countries, they begin to look at the world a little differently, so. In January, I think the local.de, which is a website which will deliver to you news in English about European countries, an author by the name of Shelly Pasquale wrote an article, which is called “It’s time we stop asking ‘Where are you from?’ In Germany.” And she was specifically talking about how people who come to Germany from abroad but live here for a very, very long time are still being asked “where are you from?” based on their appearance, and then people say, for example, “you don’t look Canadian” or whatever some like that.

And so the author was speaking about how she’s annoyed about it. It’s very interesting because indeed whenever people ask you, “Where are you from?”, they expect to get something useful from that information. So for example, they can ask me, “Where are you from?” and I’ll tell them well, I was born in Russia and then people proceed to try to make certain conclusions from that.

But of course once you lived in so many countries, you might have chosen an absolutely different perspective and absolutely different cultural background for you. So whenever people I like I talk to people about this, I typically tell them that although I was born in Russia in the Soviet Union in fact, and not a very cultural Russian in that I was a very early on exposed to American culture, of course, which made it very quickly global through the English language.

And so for a very long time, for example, even when the Internet started I was never part of the Russian Internet for example, and I think that many people are like that, especially people who are traveling and one of the reasons they’re traveling is that they are able to see the whole world as their home so as banal as it sounds I think that it kind of makes sense to many of us, so I guess yeah, I guess I guess that my upbringing is very western-based. Can you say that it’s specifically US-based I guess so, but obviously as for someone who has never lived in Russia, I obviously have a very significant background that where I speak Russian fluently, I’ve lived most of my life currently in Russia and among people who speak Russian so of course that is also a big part of just my informational background so to speak, but at the same time when I return from U.S. to Russia in the situation was that because, imagine this is like it was a very close country and suddenly the you know, the walls came down and all this information from around the world came flooding in and so there was not a lot of focus on trying to integrate in a specifically Russian culture.

That was a very interesting phenomenon. So when I came back from U.S, I didn’t have any pressure to start reading Russian books or start watching specifically Russian movies. And so I kind of never did that and actually many people even who like were my classmates and never left Russia, were in a very, you know, very similar predicament, so a lot of the people of my age have grown up watching Western stuff or just non-Russian stuff because that was new and interesting.

David: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I think it really rings true this notion of the antiquated feeling of asking someone where they’re from and of course coming up with some sort of expectations or stereotypes based on that. What was it like, from what you can recall, from your early years in the United States? Did you feel some, you know, strong differences? What did you note that really stood out to you and did that have an impact on your interest in working abroad in the future?

Kirill: So I have a kind of a two-fold impression here. On one hand, the facts are that I was just too small, like I was just a kid, to really realize this. My parents were of course in deep shock. So we went to you U.S. through a this kind of. The Soviet Union had this program where they had to recruit random people around the country to help them to kind of employ them to work in the embassies around the world.

Actually a lot of closed countries do that and they do it randomly so that you know, people are grabbed randomly, they are given a very temporary contract, like to from 2 to 4 years and then they’re thrown back into their country and that’s it, so it’s like very temporary. And so my parents were teachers and they were teachers at the embassy and so of course to them this was a complete shock because coming from a small city in the Soviet Union into like, New York, obviously, this was a big shock. Us kids, like me and my sister, we didn’t understand any of it. We just accepted it for what it is, like “Wow! Okay, now we’re in some new place.” So, of course, you know, there wasn’t any shock because we’re just too small at that time. At the same time, of course, it changed completely the direction of my life because you know, it gave me a perspective that many people do not have with the time.

David: Right and especially I would imagine your language skills as well, which have been useful, you know through here in Berlin and maybe other places in the future. Would you agree?

Kirill: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I mean I was I will send to an American public school. And so for two years, I was actually, you know going to school in America with you know, other Americans, so this was very beneficial to just learning the language like in actual practice. This is something that people usually don’t have. Also. I was there from the age of 9 to 13, I think something like that. And so this is a very important age right for a kid, not only to grab a lot of cultural stuff, your brain is still pretty flexible to learn the language and get all the nuances there. So this was very helpful.

David: Yeah, absolutely. And so after that experience, maybe about four years in United States, moving back to Russia. And as you considered, you know upon High School graduation going to university, did you only look at universities within Russia or did you consider other options?

Kirill: So at that time I lived actually in a very small city in Russia, it was not very small, but it’s not Moscow, and at that time maybe even today if it’s not Moscow and St. Petersburg, you’re pretty much, you know, very limited in your options. So, I was actually studying to be a physicist. I never seriously considered being a scientist at that time. I really dreamt about being a musician. So and no surprises there, I think that many people, you know at some point in time dream about some creative career and hoping that they’re going to be like a celebrity or something like that, but I really wanted to be like a musician at that time and so basically I was thinking of course about a career eventually connected to IT. So although you like as a physicist, you still are, you know immersed in this kind of stuff — math, IT, computers — because there’s a lot of modeling that I was doing as part of my like PhD studies, although I actually didn’t didn’t get the PhD, I didn’t actually go for it eventually, but I was studying for it. And so we did a lot of you know modeling so you get a lot into programming and to pretty some serious programming and so after this it’s very easy to go on and just do IT.

David: Yeah, so how did you find your first position? And what city did you actually end up in at that time?

Kirill: So eventually I mean my family moved to Moscow and then I you know after I graduated university, I also moved to Moscow and then I started working for a game company. So my first my first position was actually a level designer.

David: Oh, wow.

Kirill: Yeah for an RPG game, and fortunately or not, this lasted for like two weeks and three days as a level designer. Then I went on to be a PHP programmer and I’ve been doing web development for several years and then moving on to project and product management.

David: So from your perspective actually moving to the big city along with your family and having your first working positions there — what was it actually like to work in Russia?

Kirill: That’s a good question. And the answer to it must be that by that time, Moscow became pretty much a very international city, the level of many capital cities around the world. So at that time living and working in Russia just as it’s probably today, although I haven’t lived there for quite a while, but it’s probably a very Western type of experience. So you have a lot of a lot of companies including a lot of international companies and I didn’t actually work for that long for just strictly Russian companies. I very quickly started working for companies which are international companies based in Moscow. For example, I worked for Nokia and I worked for a number of other companies that kind of have their local offices in Russia because I mean because they could speak English that allowed me to just expand my career opportunities and was just more fun to be honest.

So but still when I talk to people from Russia who still work there, I think that more or less, it’s a pretty global experience nowadays. So at least in Moscow that experience is pretty much on par with everywhere else. It’s super I mean, like of course, I’m generalizing but in general that’s how it felt.

David: Right and in terms of your experience working at international companies, did you feel any major differences in the business culture and the work culture that you’d experienced those environments as you said? Maybe it’s more fun or you know, maybe it’s more exciting company to work for, but in terms of the actual feel of day-to-day work and the hierarchy perhaps or other cultural elements of working in a company, did that change a lot?

Kirill: It changed a little bit. I will say that, for example, as I moved to, I think, yeah, Nokia was my first position in an international company, it was less like you were less controlled I guess because it’s normal for like again I this is so like it’s dangerous to try to generalize but in a lot of companies that were strictly Russian and especially smaller companies, maybe it has to do with just a company being a smaller, you have more control over you and people care whether you know, “Ah, this guy is like five minutes late. Oh, that’s a problem.” You know, where as in international companies usually have this very elaborate system of KPIs, you know teams, where the responsibilities are somehow tracked differently, maybe less formally so, so instead of looking at how how many minutes late you are today people would look at what results you have.

David: Yeah, definitely. I think that makes a huge impact. And of course as you mentioned you’ve been away from the Russian work environment and even international companies there for a couple of years, but from what you saw and experienced there how difficult do you think that it would be for expats to be able to work and live in Moscow, especially maybe not being completely fluent in Russian.

Kirill: Well, I think that Russia, like a lot of countries, is not that international. So, if you’re an expat who’s working in an international company, you’re fine, of course, you’re fine. But in terms of day-to-day operations, generally even in Moscow, most people don’t speak English. There are no signs in English, the subway system is horrible if you don’t know Russian, and also for a lot of people who are based in Latin, Russia has obviously Cyrillic. They have Cyrillic alphabet. So that is also very confusing. I guess it’s like me going to China and you know, it’s like, “Wow, I don’t understand anything at all because I don’t even understand what the letters are.”

So yeah, I think that it is very challenging. It’s not impossible and I think that it’s always like if you’re if you’re open-minded to just getting into this challenge, then it’s always possible of course to work around this but is it going to be challenging? Definitely! This is not a country that has an infrastructure to welcome foreigners necessarily.

David: Yeah that makes a lot of sense and so for you as you started building your career there, how did you decide to actually leave Russia and end up in Germany?

Kirill: So there were two phases to decision. Me and my wife kind of always thought that you know, maybe it’s time to just get some new experience and work and live somewhere else, absolutely divorced from any political issues. But also, unfortunately when 2014 things started happening internally in Russia, we know we decided that we’re not very compatible with this so we just decided that this is just a good motivational event for us to indeed proceed and you know and leave, you know, I had a couple of options and I decided to you know to go with Berlin. I actually had an option to go to Singapore. So I had two offers one one to Singapore another to Berlin, but I decided to go with Berlin because I just thought that Western culture is something that I was always, you know, always living in kind of if not physically from Russia, but then least mentally and you know on the internet and culturally that I decided that I probably going to be more comfortable if I move to a western country, so that’s what I did.

David: Nice, and how did you actually find those two job opportunities?

Kirill: So this is very interesting and maybe I want to kind of give a very generalized answer to that so that it’s especially useful to the listeners of the podcast, but basically initially when you start searching for a job initially you maybe think okay. So let’s say that in my case, I’m a product manager, but it could be engineer, whatever profession you have. So I am a product manager, so then I guess I should start searching for a product manager. And I started looking, you know using LinkedIn and what not just searching for a product manager in whatever company and it turns out that’s a very bad strategy, and the reason for this is that there are many product managers all around the world. And so if you’re trying to compete with them, you’re probably going to lose, and so when I started searching for a job like that most of the time my CV was not even opened in some systems. You can see that right you’re uploading is CV and then you can see that you know, the position was filled, and nobody even opened that.

The situation changed when I started looking for specific areas, so for example that time I worked in adtech, so I started looking for a product management position in adtech and this was the winning plan. So if somebody is searching for a job, although it seems a little counterintuitive, the best thing like somebody will say, “Oh, I have a very niche position like I have very niche experience.” This is exactly what’s going to carry you on because if you have something that is rare, that is very specific, that’s where you can be in a situation where there’s like, you know, small pond situation — almost no competition — and you have experience that could be relevant to this exact position, so that’s what I started doing. I started searching for specifically my area of expertise and that’s where it was. Just the first interview I got was already a success.

David: Thanks for providing that great advice for listeners. Did the company that you joined at that time provide relocation assistance on your move to Berlin?

Kirill: So in my particular case, they organized a flight to Berlin and back for an interview when they still didn’t have the offer, so like an on-site interview. And then later on they did offer a relocation package. Also, I had to look at two relocation packages from two offers, and obviously this was a big sell for me as well to Berlin because they offered like a place to stay for a month which everybody I think will appreciate because it’s so difficult to come into a new job and suddenly start searching for a flat to stay, you know it could be very stressful. So they offered that, they didn’t offer any money specifically, but this alone was very important.

David: It’s extremely helpful and especially in such a city where it is challenging to find a place to stay. So what was it like for you when you first moved to Berlin? Were there any particularly big surprises or challenges that you’ve encountered in your first few weeks or months?

Kirill: Interestingly enough, no. What me and my wife instantly recognized while we recognize that, you know, several months later, that there were people who would say that they found it to be very difficult, somehow for us, we didn’t feel that much change. It had to do, first of all, with the fact that even in Moscow we would be hanging around people who are very internationally minded who either speak English or generally are immersed into Western culture and also Moscow, at least at that time when I lived there, was a relatively developed western city. So when we moved to Berlin would didn’t feel that there was a difference in culture, and at the same time, thankfully my wife speaks German, which was a great help, so she was able to go around Berlin and do the documents and all the paper stuff paperwork and she had enough of German to be able to do that relatively painlessly. So this was this was a big help as well, her being able to speak German.

David: That’s great to hear and especially having that German background as you mentioned makes a huge difference. Did that actually play into your decision to move here or not so much?

Kirill: No, no, not so much. I mean, so, for example, I don’t know German. I don’t speak German. I just have a very, very basic level of German right now. And I never studied German in school. My wife, she studied that in school, so that helped. But this was not we really were looking for — this was just a bonus. Like “wow, okay, and she happens to speak this.” So this is this is very nice.

David: Yeah, definitely and how have you actually built up your language skills while you’ve been here if you’ve had the opportunity to?

Kirill: Well, so that’s something that I have a very strong opinion about but also because a strong I understand that probably not many people will agree because they see many people doing it differently. Basically, what I started doing is a standard saying — I went to a language school that’s here in Berlin, which is typically very known. So I started going there and I very quickly aced. So your Europe has the standard language levels which are from A to C and this usually goes A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, and then you’re fluent, and so I started going through A1 and A2 courses and I went, you know, pretty quickly. I took the intense studies — it was difficult, you know, having a job and going to language school, but hey, it’s fine. But then when I started going to B1 courses, that’s when things started to break down a little bit because it seems that nowadays people are using the same textbook at every school in Germany, which is called “Menschen,” which is like “People” — that’s the name of the textbook — and personally, as a product manager, I find the textbook horrible. I think it’s designed either very poorly or is designed for people who have everyday experience talking only German, and then this book can kind of help them, you know, elevate their grammar a little bit, but it’s designed in such a way that you there’s almost no exercises. So one of the problems that I have is that they give you a grammar rule and you’re like, okay I get it, but now I have to really, you know, I want to get it down and I want to really have many exercises — I just need practice and nothing like that exists in that book. They like give you a couple of exercises and you’re done and then you’re never coming back to that. And so I found this very challenging — I spent quite a lot of time more than a year going three days a week to language school, and I just figured that it didn’t really help me that much, partially because I don’t have everyday German-speaking experience. I’m working in an international company, which is English-based, and the same time many people in Berlin for Germans speak English. So it’s yeah, it’s not easy for me right now to do this. And then there’s this feedback loop where you don’t speak German, therefore it’s difficult for you to talk specifically like to Germans and at the same time, you know, it goes the other way around as well, so you’re stuck in that loop.

I’m right now doing some self-study using an Assimil German course, which really helps me itself study. It seems to be designed very well and it is when I started with this course half a year ago that I began to actually speak. So now I can speak a little bit and I’m encouraged. Like I feel every time that I do the this course, I feel that some encouragement and I want to try to speak and so I mean I’m getting there. Typically when I’m talking to expats here, most of them say that you become confident in like five years. so and looking at my dynamics, I think that’s that’s what is going to happen.

David: As you mentioned working in an international environment even here in Berlin and you’re able to work in English every day. So what does actually driving you forward in terms of your learning of German? What makes you want to keep spending so many hours studying?

Kirill: Oh, that’s very straightforward. So the first time you have to go to a doctor. That’s that’s one of the reasons right? Because although it is possible to find doctors that speak English, it’s not always possible and sometimes you need a doctor fast something happens — you just need to see a doctor or a dentist, I don’t know, so even these kind of things. But also it’s the just the comfort — you want to be comfortable in your environment, and as for me, like I think that we’re planning to stay in Germany for a long time — maybe indefinitely, maybe permanently — of course you want to be able to speak the language around you and also to be part of the culture and one of the things that I really like is, you know, for example, you want to go to a show and the show is in German, or you want to go to a comedy club — you want to understand where people are saying, you know, so, of course, you’re constantly reminded that of course, you have to speak the native language. That in itself is very natural. It’s a very natural motivation

David: As you mentioned, this might be actually the place where you live indefinitely. Is that something that you had in mind when you first moved here

Kirill: We didn’t have any specific plans about this like, I mean, we did have specific plans to permanently reside outside of Russia, but we didn’t think about Germany at the time but as we started living here, we’re really liked it and there are a lot of things to like about Germany because, not only is this a very democratic country, it is also a country that has a very well-organized welfare state, and so once you start comparing the situation for example, which is now being debated in U.S., things like, you know, healthcare, and these kind of things you can see in Germany are very well thought through. Of course, you can always perfect systems, but in general, this is also a very big selling point.

David: Right. Yeah. No, I 100% agree with that sentiment. When you first moved here, did you get any particular type of visa? Was there something that you were shooting for on that front, or did you follow the advice of the company that hired you, and what was that process like?

Kirill: It was actually a little vice versa.So of course, I talked to the company first, but when I was having interviews with companies from different countries, including UK. So I had UK, Germany, I had Singapore, I had a couple of others. I don’t remember the necessarily right now but they were from Europe. And then I was looking at what kind of visas are being required to come work in a given country and so for example countries like U.S. and UK, I almost instantly decided not to even look at because they have very complicated immigration issues. The UK, at that time, was already having for several years people voting that immigration and immigrants are a problem, or at least, you know, this was the political discourse at the time and even students had difficulty getting a visa. So I was thinking no this is definitely not, you know, not a safe option there.

So in Germany there is a unique thing. So Europe has this Blue Card, right? Kind of like a Green Card in the U.S., but it is implemented country-by-country. So we have to look at how the Blue Card is implemented in a given country. And so Germany has a unique Blue Card in that it gives you more opportunities. First of all, it’s much more permissive than the usual work visa in Germany. So the company does not have to prove that you are a unique expert, instead all they need to make sure of is that you’re receiving enough money. And so the law tells you, here’s the amount of money that you need to receive as your salary annually, and if this, and some other standard documents, are satisfied, then that’s fine — you’re given a Blue Card. So that’s the visa that I guess most people are now integrating with or through to Germany via a job.

David: Right and was it difficult for you to acquire that Visa or I mean in terms of the actual work that needed to be done on it or was the company able to take care of most of that for you?

Kirill: So there are a couple of ways that you get a Blue Card. One way is you can get it from the country of origin that you come from. In my case., it was Russia. Or you can first grab like a job search visa that Germany actually has, find a job in Germany, and then receive a Blue Card. So in my case, we received it very easily — I got a contract and I went to the German Embassy in Russia and applied for a blue card there and they give you like a visa that says “okay, you’re eligible for the Blue Card.” Then you come to Germany and that’s where the company helped a lot. They just you know applied all these documents to to the foreigners office and then these guys issued a visa. Basically when you apply with this visa, they they’re kind of obliged to give you a visa, so it’s not like a lottery or anything — they just give you a visa.

If the company does not help, it’s not impossible to get it. It’s just a little bit more difficult if you don’t know the language, which is actually a little ironic because “foreigner’s office” kind of implies that there’s going to be a lot of foreigners, but typically nobody will speak English there. There are several people who are younger. So if you see clerks that are younger, they will typically speak English — some of them even very gladly — and many of us were very thankful. Because I mean imagine I can understand the necessity to make sure that a person knows German if he wants for example to become a citizen — this is absolutely normal. Of course you have to do to speak the language. Obviously. There’s absolutely no doubt about it. But imagine somebody comes from Italy to work for a couple of years in Germany and then move to France and then moved back to Italy, right? They can’t be expected to learn each language of the country they go to. This is the European Union, that’s the whole point of that but somehow one of the difficulties that many people in Berlin experience and, maybe in Germany in general, is that the Foreigners’ Office clerks will typically not talk to you in English at all, so that’s a little challenging.

David: Definitely and if I’m not mistaken recently you got your permanent residence here in Germany. Is that right?

Kirill: Yeah, that is true. So the Blue Card allows you to get permanent residence in three years basically without German language or you can get it in two years if you can prove that you have like this intermediate German language. So because I was going to school I was able to prove that, hey, yeah, I have intermediate German so they give you the permanent residence.

David: Well, that’s great. Congratulations.

Kirill: Thank you. It is it is the same kind of permanent residence that, for example, a person who gets a permanent residence of this sort, they cannot leave the country for more than six months. So it’s very similar to how the U.S. handles their Green Card actually. So that’s where the Green Card-Blue Card analogy actually works.

David: Right. And now that you’re a permanent resident, what other benefits to you get that might not have been available to you under the Blue Card policy?

Kirill: Right. So if your permanent resident, basically, you’re a lawful resident of Germany and you have every right as the citizen apart, of course from the political things like voting and holding a governmental office position. So basically that means that you’re no longer tied to any employer, you no longer have to work, because the Blue Card thing is that you have to work and if you’re fired, you leave a job, you have only three months to find another job, and if you don’t, your Blue Card is canceled. So for people who want to stay in Germany and live here, and they have a life here already, this is of course a risk, right? Who knows what happens — you might be an excellent expert, great worker, but something happens to the company and you’re let go and in the three months you cannot find it, right? So it’s always trust. So this removes that — you’re basically now a lawful resident, of course a taxpayer who just lives and works in Germany. So the only thing you cannot do is vote.

David: So you mentioned that in your first contract you’re able to get an apartment covered for one month in Berlin. How did you actually find you final apartment after that point? And where did you end up staying? How did you make that decision?

Kirill: So we were using so my wife was primarily searching for this. She was using some of the websites that were recommended to us. Actually, I don’t necessarily remember really the names of these websites — whenever I hear them like oh, yeah, we used the same, but people can easily find these websites on any expat kind of oriented site.

Once we bumped into a scam like there’s a very known scam when you’re trying to find an apartment in Berlin probably elsewhere as well, is that people say, “oh I have this great apartment.” They send you the photos and the address and they say, “however, I live somewhere in Italy right now so I can you know, very cheaply, you know, get it to you — just wire me the money and get the key over there.” And of course, this is a scam, but we thankfully realized that this is a scam.

Eventually we got an apartment and Prenzlauer Berg, which is a very nice area. Well, some people find it nice, some don’t, I mean, it’s always a matter of taste and what you want, but it’s pretty much a very calm area, people typically say that this is a family-friendly district of Berlin.

So basically one of the difficulties that people have when locating an apartment in Berlin especially like in the end of Summer, there are many students that try to search for an apartment, right? So you have high competition and at the same time if you’re competing with Germans, you’re probably going to lose. We had that several times, for example, we would come to an apartment and the host is going to be there and they’re going to show something to us and then a German couple comes in and that’s it.

And you realize that’s it. You see it happening. Yes, you see happening right in front of your eyes, and that’s it. You’re lost to them. So but in general what helped actually is that my wife was able to look. People will work and then in the evening, they’ll go look at apartments. And then you you’re walking among those crowds. Like they’re going to be like three-room apartments like crowds of people looking at it so high competition. My wife was able to go and see a couple of apartments in the morning and there was like her and somebody. And you know, we had all the documents and you know, I could prove that I have a job and it’s a well paid job. So yeah, we got it relatively quickly — we searched for apartment only for one month.

David: Yeah. It’s actually success story for sure.

Kirill: Yeah. Well, it was a success story, but probably not a very representative story. We know people who found an apartment fast as well, and I know people who search for a long time, but simply what people do is that they get an Airbnb or they get an apartment for three months, and then they stay there while searching for the long-term, right?

David: Yeah, it could be, you know, string of six month places or whatever it takes to ultimately find the one that you stick with. So, how did you actually make your friends when you first moved to Berlin, maybe through co-workers or meetups? What was the way that you were able to really build a network here?

Kirill: Coworkers, primarily because since I was hired by an international company, there were a lot of people who are also expats. And then yeah, so in terms of getting into other kind of communities, that has been actually pretty difficult. And first of all because a lot of things are of course in German as we’re in Germany, so it’s sometimes you want to go somewhere. So, for example, me and my wife went to a couple of board games communities where people play board games together and it was all in German and although it was okayish — like we could understand what was going on it at that time, it was not still comfortable enough for us to really stick and make some friends because actually, although people I said before that a lot of people in Berlin are able to speak English, it doesn’t mean that they’re comfortable doing that. So they’re a lot of people who are able to understand and you know, speak their mind generally, but you can see that they’re not as comfortable really communicating and having a friendship with someone in English, so that has been actually pretty difficult.

Still, we’re trying our best. So for example, we’ve organized at dancing school here. So my wife is running a rockabilly jive 50s dance school and most of our students are actually Germans. So I wouldn’t say that we haven’t made any friends, you know, like specifically like hanging out and stuff like that. But at least we’re beginning to be part of the community, which is nice.

David: So yeah, that’s fantastic. I mean if you find something that you enjoy that you’re good at and especially maybe be able to do some sort of side business or something like that. You know, why not create it yourself, right?

Kirill: Yeah, exactly. I did hear though, even like from Germans, that if you’re a German and you’re moving from one city to another, you will also have a hard time making friends. This seems to be a narrative that I’m hearing all the time that in Germany that it’s very difficult to make friends. I’m not yet experienced enough to say that, yes, this is what I’m seeing all the time, but that’s that’s the popular narrative about Germany in general.

David: Yeah makes sense. And so you moved here with your first company. I’m curious to hear more about that experience in terms of getting comfortable working there and how you have progressed in your career there and if you’ve actually managed to change jobs since you’ve been here in Berlin.

Kirill: Yeah, so I already changed jobs. The first company that basically help me relocate — I’ve worked there for two years. It was a nice company, but it was a startup that experienced, you know, growth pains. So basically it was a startup of like under a hundred people that exploded into 300 people. So it was an interesting time but at the same time a challenging one for the company. The company went through several rounds of, you know, cuts and cost cuts and people were let go so by the end of the two years that I was there, it was pretty stressful. It was a nice experience and the company was very comfortable to work in like as I said before this works the same way for my job experience. I didn’t feel any difficulties switching from one job to another, meaning like from from Russia to Germany because also I was working in the same industry. Remember I was saying that I was searching specifically for hey, do they need experts in my industry? And so that made the transition very easy because I knew exactly what the company was doing. This was very cool. This was like the first time in my life where I changed jobs and it was like yeah, I’m doing like the same thing I did yesterday. I was pretty cool and then I changed jobs again and it was the same thing again was like, yep. I know exactly what I’m doing. So this is a very interesting experience for people who choose one industry. I am not sure that I’m going to stay in this industry for all of my life. But this was a nice journey there. It was very interesting.

David: So how did you find that next position?

Kirill: So that was a pretty long long period of time so I had I think I was searching for four or five months for a job. But I made sure that I want to like I made sure that the company that I will find is the company I will really enjoy and that I can stay for at least two years more. So I was really careful and in searching so I here’s what I did. Every industry will have agencies that will help you find jobs specifically for your industry. This was actually something that was useful to me when I was initially searching for a job outside of Russia. This was like, I thought that their agencies that you know, recruiting agencies that kind of help you find things, but I didn’t know that there can be industry-specific. So I was actually talking to an industry-specific, you know, agency and saying hey guys, so I’m ready to move on maybe, you know, you can help me. But eventually I actually found a job through a former colleague who recommended me. So, you know, I found a job and then at the very last moment this guy comes up and says “hey” and this was all in the same industry, so I was just looking at two different offers and saying “okay, this offer is better.” But yeah, it took a long time and then it was all down to luck as it sometimes happens.

Nevertheless, I would like to give a more general point so that it’s more useful to listeners. You know, it was LinkedIn, and what I realized is once I moved to Berlin, I began to be contacted by a lot of recruiters because once you’re in Europe, right, that means that you have the right to work there, and that means that you’re now more accessible to other companies. So I was using that a lot. You’re always getting these emails and LinkedIn — “Hey, are you interested in that?” And what I do is that I sometimes write to people, “Hey, you know, I like your recruiting agency. I like what you guys do” — like either I heard about it or I like their portfolio — and I say “I’m not, you know searching for anything right now, but let’s stay connected because, who knows, maybe in the future.”

This is what happened when I decided to move on, I started writing some of the guys that I had made contacts with before and saying “yeah, you know, actually I’m looking for something now” and I got a number of very interesting offers from them — not offers but like interviews and the contacts so this is also I think a very viable solution once you get this networking.

David: Right and you know the narrative right now has really been a lot about the fast-growing Berlin tech startup scene. And I know that you’ve been a part of that and I have as well. What’s your impression of the quantity and the quality, frankly, of the job opportunities available to foreigners in Berlin in this space, but maybe outside of tech as well?

Kirill: So outside of tech, I’m not sure, I don’t have much experience, so I wouldn’t be able to comment there. In terms of tech, I would say that they’re two significant markets, I guess, for employees. One is really like a startup market where you are probably not going to get a lot of money but a lot of opportunities to join companies that are just starting out. It could be great for building experience, but you have to understand that the money is probably going to be not, you know, it’s not going to be enormous salaries or anything like that. It could be a lot of like shares and you know, you’re going to get if you’re working in an it and you have good experience. You can get a high position in the hierarchy of the company, but you’re unlikely to get a lot of money.

However, there’s another part of the market and this is either more established companies, which are actually also very numerous the people don’t necessarily talk about them. But there are many very established companies here that can pay you a lot of money and that need you like they need your expertise. And the other thing is that American startups — they’re able to pay you much higher salaries than most startups in Berlin simply because they’re based on America and the money is different. So, in my experience, even if it’s a startup they can pay you much more than than Berlin startups.

David: Yeah, so there are really options for any type of person that’s interested in this field. What are some of the best aspects of your life here and especially as you compare it to where you’ve lived in the past?

Kirill: So, I can compare it to two cities: Moscow and New York. One of the things that I really love about Berlin is that it’s such a small city. It’s so comfortable to live in even if you want to get somewhere. It’s typically 30 even sometimes 20 minutes and you’re there. Even like the amount of people on the streets is very comfortable. It’s never too many people. It’s a very cozy city to live in, it’s just so comfortable in that sense.

I also really like the fact that very frequently you’re able to find an apartment and in a building which is not like a high story building, but you know, a smaller building. I love the fact that you can just get out of your house in like two minutes and you’re already outside — you don’t have to go to the elevator and get down and wait, you know, these kind of things. It’s the small point, but it was you know, it’s important for me.

In terms of climate, it really depends on where you come from. So we had colleagues from South America and I’ve seen a person who was looking at snow for the first time in Berlin. Yeah, like I’ve never seen snow before so this is pretty cool to see, so obviously for people who are coming from, let’s say, South America, the climate might be very different and it depends on you know, how a person reacts. The last years I was living in Moscow — definitely a milder climate if you’re coming from let’s say, you know, Northern Russia or Canada or something like that, so the climate here is mild, but of course if you’re coming from California, it’s going to be like, “Okay. There’s actually winter here.” I think that generally the climate is actually pretty mild in that frequently you say that, you know, well it could have been cold, but it’s not that cold. I don’t know.

David: Yeah, I mean I had feel like I have a bit of a different perspective, of course coming from California, but also in my second winter now where you know, I can compare it to last winter, and I at least think so far, you know, knock on wood, that sitting here in February of 2018, it’s actually not been so bad. I mean, it’s obviously gray a lot of the time, but, you know, not so much snow not very often and you know, it’s it hovers around zero a lot. But as long as you have the right clothes, which of course you’ve got to build up in your first year and get comfortable with that then, you know, it’s something you can make it through and you can look forward to a great summer, right?

Kirill: Yeah. Yeah generally that’s what I’m saying. It’s like you always kind of think it’s not that bad, right?

David: How can our listeners find out more about you and what you’re doing?

Kirill: So what I’m doing I guess is not related to much to the content of this podcast, so if anybody is at all interested, I mean, it’s always difficult for me, you know. There was a number of articles in the past year speaking about the generational gap between understanding like what a person is identified with. For most of history actually, people would identify themselves with their professions, right? You know “smith” — that’s why we have these kind of last names. So I mean I’m working as a product manager, but I also have a lot of projects that I do like. I design games, I write a lot of music, I guess that one of my main amateur kind of my hobbies which I do take seriously, is making music so, and also write a lot of critical analysis on various topics.

So anyway, anyone can find me at luigiverona.com, which is my nickname, basically, the name which I’m publishing everything under, Luigi Verona. So if anybody is interested, visit my website and just take a look at what I’m doing and my spare time.

David: Thank you so much for your time and your insight, and I look forward to hearing how things turn out for you here in Berlin.

Kirill: Thank you.

David: Thanks to Kirill for sharing his story with us. You can find the show notes for this episode as well as a full transcript at expatempire.com.

If you are interested in sharing your story on Expat Empire, please consider submitting a user post about your expat experiences on expatempire.com or email us at podcast@expatempire.com and let us know more about your international background.

Music on this episode was produced by Eli Hermit, please check him out on Bandcamp and Spotify.

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Originally published at expatempire.com on December 2, 2018.