Hadron Collider, parties and mountains: How I moved to Switzerland
Rain, cold, longing - so briefly, you can describe my feelings from the first visit to Geneva in February 2015. The city that winter Sunday was so empty that I wanted to take a photo: I am in the center of Geneva, the bus stop, the tram rails and not a soul around. All shops are closed, products were sold only at the airport or at the railway station. And everything would be fine, only I came not for a weekend or a vacation, but to live with my then-future husband Lesha, a programmer who worked at CERN on the tests of the Large Hadron Collider.
If it were not for the strong love and the sharp fall of the ruble with the economic crisis, I would hardly have agreed to leave Moscow. I considered her the best city on earth from the moment I entered the Moscow State Linguistic University and moved to the capital from my native city Yelets, Lipetsk Region. After graduating from university in 2002, I chose the world of show business, which always fascinated me, and decided to learn the fashion profession of a PR man. At first she worked in musicals "The Witches of Eastwick" and "We Will Rock You", then, at the peak of the glory of the Brothers Grimm group, she was their concert director, and she produced albums in Gala Records. But the dream job for me, of course, was a position in the concert agency T.C.I., bringing Moby, Scorpions and Limp Bizkit to Russia.
When I felt that I was getting tired of endless flights, concerts and press conferences, I agreed to the offer of a friend to try myself in a large restaurant holding company as an art director. At first, she organized parties for sponsors, and then delved into restaurant public relations and gastronomic critics. It was interesting and fairly well paid. I worked from home, occasionally went to meetings, brought Michelin chefs on tour and hung out a lot. If I wanted to travel, I just bought a ticket to any country I liked. In other words, I felt the drive and was completely satisfied with my life in Moscow.
And in September 2014, the programmer Lesha unexpectedly appeared in it. We had known each other for a long time and even once worked in the same company, but then life divorced us: I was fascinated by restaurants, and he left under contract to CERN. On one of my rare visits to Moscow, my future husband gathered in a bar friends and acquaintances whom he had not seen for a long time. These unexpected gatherings ended for us a stormy romance. He began to fly to me every two weeks and offered to move in with him to Geneva. I didn’t even want to think about it and, in turn, persuaded him to return to Moscow, where I had my newly purchased apartment. Continuing the debate about where it is better to start a life together, we went on a journey, during which the historical fall of the ruble occurred. Returning home was sad: luxury restaurants were unusually empty, my projects were closed one by one, foreign chefs were leaving for their home countries, and their salaries were delayed. The rainbow Moscow picture began to fade and crumble literally before our eyes. The visa of the bride at the Swiss embassy was done in just a week, I packed my bags and moved to Lesha in Geneva.
Thorns
The future husband earned good money and could support both of us, but it was not my plan to become a housewife. The most logical, given my experience, seemed to look for a job in hotels. At first, I sent a resume to five-star hotels - no one answered me, on four-star ones - silence or silence again. Communication with three-star brought the same result - I was never called for an interview. When selecting with a Russian passport and without a profile education, I flew out immediately, and, most importantly, no one could recommend me. I used to think that it was all about acquaintance in Russia, but in Europe everything was fair. Nothing of the kind - at least in Geneva.
However, I did not give up and enrolled in French courses, which I had once taught at the university, but had safely forgotten. We studied five times a week for four hours. The group was very diverse: wives of oligarchs who emigrated to Switzerland from different countries and living on welfare migrants studied together.
I often went to see Lesha at work at CERN — into this realm of bearded men who look like the heroes of the Big Bang Theory series and always sit in front of the screens, studying graphs and multi-level equations. It was a different world, a world of people with completely different from my lifestyle and temperament. I looked at my husband with admiration, who printed codes at a tremendous speed. When you get to the Large Hadron Collider, you realize that everything you did in life is playing in a sandbox, spitting at the scale of the universe.
Lyosha's Swiss friends are programmers and foreigners. Communication with them at first was a lot of stress for me, considering that I didn’t speak English enough to joke easily and wittily in the company of unfamiliar people. It became easier when I mastered the skis and we started to go to the mountains on weekends. By the way, my instructor was Leshin, the head: his hobby is to put newbies on skis.
With the onset of spring, the city was transformed - the lake turned from lead into sky-blue, and the inhabitants of the city immediately began to go on picnics. Outdoor dining, trips to wineries, castles or to a strawberry farm were fascinating to me. From an excess of free time I got hooked on cooking recipes from the Internet. I used to get out on cheeses, asparagus, artichokes and almost every day cooked something new for dinner. So my first half year passed in Switzerland. Everything was beautiful and safe, but at the same time - deadly boring. My husband came home from work and enthusiastically told me how his day had passed, but in my life nothing happened at all. The realization that I am a housewife and no one else, terrible pressure on me.
Saved me social networks. Through them, I met the editor of a local Russian-language magazine and began to write articles for them about gastronomic events and restaurants. A bit later on hashtags in instagram I found a tourist guide and blogger Yulya Sidelnikov. In addition to her main work, she organized various excursions and activities for the Russians in Switzerland. So I gradually began to make new friends. And when, without any special intent, I reposted on Facebook the publication of a familiar film producer about the premiere of his new film, he unexpectedly offered to throw me a closed link to the video. Then another ten people came up with a request to join. Realizing that this whole crowd simply wouldn't fit in our tiny apartment, I rented a yoga room and arranged a private show with a regular projector in it. Thirty people came - they sincerely thanked me and asked me to think of something else.
hello from Moscow
Then I realized that it was not just me that the nightlife in Geneva seemed “naphthalene” compared to Moscow. Here are a few interesting restaurants and bars, and there are only three clubs. I wanted to arrange a Russian party, but not in the style of the "nineties disco", as long-time immigrants like to do. My husband gave me money, I agreed with a nice place and invited me to play at the party "Hello from Moscow!" his friend DJ Vanya Vasilyev.
A week before the appointed date, I was so terribly nervous that I almost stopped sleeping. It seemed to me that at the very last moment Vanya would not be able to fly from Moscow and everything would be covered with a copper basin. I remember how heart pounding, when the bar began to gradually fill with people. Russian acquaintances came, brought their foreign friends. By the middle of the party, the room was crowded with people, the bar was over half the ingredients for cocktails, so the drinks were getting in the way just by eye from what was left. It was a success. People left satisfied, and the proceeds at the box office turned out to be twice as much as usual.
While I was thinking what else to organize this, an old acquaintance suddenly appeared on the horizon - the Frenchman Dejan Rankov. He lived for ten years in Russia, where he drove artists from France, but was forced to leave Moscow when the crisis broke out, and came to Switzerland in search of work. In Geneva, we had a party in the lobby bar of the five-star Mandarin Oriental hotel. Later, our project got the name #russianfever and the third partner - Swiss of Russian origin, Misha, who makes money on bio-packaging and plays techno for the soul. In less than a year, we had four events, and the hotel signed a contract with us.
Financial issue
The success of the parties inspired me, although so far this story is more about self-expression than about a stable income, given the Swiss space prices. Having moved to Geneva, at first, out of habit, I transferred all prices to rubles, but, fortunately for the nervous system, I quit. For example, in a street cafe you buy delicious and cheap shawarma for twelve francs, bite and understand that you paid almost a thousand rubles for it. A regular manicure costs about five thousand rubles, a haircut is at least six. The minimum monthly payment for compulsory medical insurance is fifteen thousand rubles per person. To a couple without children could afford the average life, according to Swiss standards, comfort, their monthly income should be at least four hundred twenty thousand rubles.
Six months ago, Lyosha ended a five-year contract at CERN, and we had to move to Zurich, where he found a new job. Before that, I lived in blissful ignorance, not even knowing how hard it was to rent an apartment in Switzerland no more than one hundred and forty thousand rubles a month. At first I was looking for housing on my own, sending two applications per day - to no avail. Desperate, we hired an agent for eight thousand rubles per hour. As a result, I accidentally found a suitable apartment myself. In order for us to get it, I actually bribed the retreating tenant, having bought all the furniture from him: for this he did not show the agency the applications of other applicants. To sign a rental contract, you need to provide documents from work and a special certificate stating that you do not owe Switzerland money.
Fines are another difficult financial issue. Once I talked on the phone at the wheel of forty-two thousand rubles. Almost at all intersections in Zurich there are cameras that fix and instantly turn into a payment any minor violation. I am for the respect for the environment, but I am still shocked by the tax on bulky waste. For example, to get rid of old wheels, I must not only take them to a special disposal center, but also pay about two and a half thousand rubles. Parking is also very expensive, besides, you can leave the car on the street for a maximum of ninety minutes. Therefore, even in Geneva, I abandoned the Moscow habit of driving everywhere by car — I chose trolleybuses and a bicycle. I was inspired by the experience of Swiss bankers, who every day in their expensive costumes are easily dissected around the city on sports bikes.
Stay
Switzerland is obviously not the country where you can come to try your luck, without having a specific plan of action. The first few months I jealously followed the successes of my Moscow friends, realizing that in the near future I would have to be content with extremely modest career achievements. Parents still believe that we will be back soon, but I want less and less of this. We are good here. I stopped to consider Moscow the best city on earth, lost the habit of its frenzied rhythm, temptations and tough competition. Swiss stability, security and confidence in the future are much more consistent with what I want from the future. As a promising working project, I have Russian parties, and for cultural leisure, all of Europe.
Photo: rh2010 - stock.adobe.com, gaelj - stock.adobe.com, Kushch Dmitry - stock.adobe.com
