Natalia Deriabina & Ilja Jakovljev: life in Slovenia through the eyes of a Russian couple of vloggers

Natalia Deriabina and Ilja Yakovljev are a young Russian couple who moved to Slovenia at the end of January this year with their late twenties and early thirties. They exchanged life in the largest country in the world for life in our small but picturesque country.

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Like vlogger (that is, as bloggers who share glimpses of their lives with the Internet public via videos) are quite popular among their compatriots - their YouTube channel it has more than 10,000 followers. Thus, for a long period before the move, they shared glimpses of their travels around the world with their viewers, but when they made the decision to move from Russia to Europe this year, they turned their move into a public project that immediately gained a lot of attention. They created a website KakNamTam (How are we there), on which they share with their regular readers and viewers cute and informative videos about everything: about how they arrived in Slovenia on the train together with their furry canine companion, about the problems they had with the bureaucracy, how they looked for an apartment in Ljubljana and about all other aspects of life in Slovenia.

So what is life in Slovenia like through the eyes of this nice Russian couple of vloggers?

The first thing that caught their eye was that we are extremely open and friendly people.

Ilja and Nataša think we are Slovenians positive and satisfied. They say that the mood of the Russians is the exact opposite compared to ours. They themselves are more smiling and full of satisfaction in Slovenia, as they say that the atmosphere here is much more relaxed.

Slovenians have a much nicer attitude towards domestic animals and nature than Russians.

Natalia and Ilja say that Slovenians are in most cases much more careful than Russians when it comes to throwing waste on public surfaces. In Ljubljana, they are enthusiastic about the freshness and cleanliness of our air. Which they appreciate very much, it is "dog-friendly" the orderliness of our shops and the friendliness of people towards their dogs, because in Russia, unfortunately, it still happens many times that people have a negative attitude towards dogs and other domestic animals.

Slovenians are a very active and sporty nation.

What the Russian vloggers in Slovenia particularly like is that physical activity is extremely important to us Slovenians, so they really admire our national and multi-generational "a healthy mind in a healthy body", which motivates them as well. They are very satisfied with the arrangement of bicycle paths in Ljubljana, which is why they themselves bought bicycles shortly after moving, on which they diligently explore the city. They are also impressed by the diverse range of healthy food.

They like that we have a working day that allows employees to spend quality free time.

In Slovenia, young Russians were surprised that the roads are already filled with employees going home between three and four o'clock (by the way, they also think our roads are excellent, and the price of the vignette is quite acceptable). They appreciate that it is important to us Slovenians spending free time in a quality way: in the circle of family and actively in nature. They are impressed by the diversity of Slovenian nature and the ideal geographical position of our country, and they even think our forests are more beautiful than those in the southern Urals (above all, physically much more accessible).

They see Ljubljana as a green city, full of young people and a rich cultural life.

Before arriving, they thought that Ljubljana would be full of retirees, but living here convinced them that Ljubljana is a young city full of energy. They are delighted with the rich cultural life that our capital has to offer and say that they would like to talk about it Ljubljana was easily compared to Moscow or Berlin. The offer of concerts, exhibitions, shows, festivals and everything else often causes them the problem of not being able to decide where they would rather go.

Of course, living in Slovenia also has its downsides...

Nataša and Ilja immediately noticed that an extremely large number of people in Slovenia (especially young people) he smokes. They think so too we drink a lot, but there is no negative aura in this regard, which is attached to alcohol in Russia. Our nature also hides an unpleasant minus: ticks, which you have to pay special attention to because of the dog. In the field of entrepreneurship and innovation, young Russians think that we Slovenians are still pretty good restrained and we remain within our traditional framework, but it is true that this is a problem that young Slovenians are also aware of.

Ilja and Natalia learned the basics of Slovenian during their poor year of living in Slovenia and say that they feel very much at home here. After all, it is the Slavic spirit that makes us Slovenes and Russians even more alike.