My name is Inna and I am originally from St. Petersburg, Russia. My husband’s job brought us to Berlin about a year ago.
It was not easy, especially at the beginning…we actually had problems finding an apartment. German owners seem to be very cautious when it comes to renting to foreign nationals ;-(… of course, we were also not aware of the TV and radio taxes! Yes yes you’ve heard it right, you do have to pay in Germany for watching TV. Electricity is also very expensive here in comparison to Russia. The food is often cheaper! Close to where we live, there is a big Russian supermarket where we often go to do grocery shopping. Believe it or not, some Russian products are even cheaper in Berlin.
Germans seem to be very honest, straight forward and not so communicative. It’s very difficult to make friends with them…well, to some extend, if a foreigner moves to Russia, he would probably say similar things about the Russians.
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