Small Personal Experience in Poland

glpswt 1 | 1

12 Feb 2016 / #1

Hi Folks,

I just wanted to share my feelings about this lovely country over 4 years of experience. Im a casual PF reader so im not stranger to here at all.

Im 28 years old male who came here for study. It was nice year I had really great friendships and moments during my studies. I wont go in to details because most f you already know how student life is going in Poland. After that i started to work and im still working on a good position with good salary.

Poland is great place if you can embrace people and keep up with the old solid culture. Im non-caucasian black haired Armenian. First years were terrible here i had some issues with language barrier but now i have enough Polish to chat daily conversations (sometimes even deeper). Of course because of my appearance I have been treat rudely sometimes. I understand people have fear of ISIS or refugee crisis and im trying to explain my situation every time with patience. I believe this situations made me more dedicated and patient person by the time :)

I have one nice Polish girlfriend since 1.5 years and I believe we are stepping up to marriage every day.

Here, i can say Polish people very deep and nice traditions. This also brings some details for the expats which want to live here. I will just write my personal opinions below (as I said its personal please do not offend):

- If you are planning to live in Poland- learn Polish. No way out.

- If you are getting stares and if its disturbing you; you will be disappointed.

- If you want to bring your own culture/religion here- It wont work. Polish people are bonded with their culture and religion. Except Catholic Christianity, I dont believe that no other religions can survive on these lands. There are few examples but they are extremely rare.

- If you are expecting high life standards/salary - no no no Its just a dream.

- In Poland racism is expected no one is denying it. Actually even i was a little bit surprised that people who were suffered from Russian and German regimes, had a little bit intolerance to others. To be honest i was expecting empathy :D

As a stated in title it was just small personal experience in Poland. In my case i was able to blend in Polish community and with my girlfriends family. I wish you good luck to all with Polish community in Poland. Other opinions/comments are welcome :)

nrrezz

13 Feb 2016 / #2

So it means Poland is no good for high living standards and good salary? What are you going to do after your studies?

OP glpswt 1 | 1

14 Feb 2016 / #3

Comparing to other EU countries Poland has low salaries. But still you can earn lots of money because it depends on you of course :) Im here for 4 years and after some struggling and hard working i found enough satisfying job.

Nathans

4 Jun 2019 / #4

Very nice experience. But I doubt many foreign expats who plan to move to Poland will ever learn the Polish language ;) But do they still have to in 2019? I've met people in a country side that spoke very good English. They were students, but in general foreigners will be fine if they only know English.

Regarding high life/salary, I tend to think that foreign white-collar workers do pretty good in Poland earnings-wise. There's more competition from foreign workers and Poles who come back from the US or other EU-countries, so salaries trend to rise overall (inflation too though).

Lyzko 41 | 9592

4 Jun 2019 / #5

@Nathans,

I nevertheless respect glpswt for forging ahead and learning the language!
Although there for only several weeks total and some time ago I'm afraid, couldn't even begin to imagine what a disappointing, not to mention frustrating, time I'd have had if I hadn't known the language.

Instead, I had a wonderful, although terribly brief, stay:-)

pawian 221 | 25246

27 Jul 2019 / #6

Im non-caucasian black haired Armenian.

Armenians were one of many nationalities which lived in the first Commonwealth. There were thousands of them in Eastern lands - they were mostly merchants and shop keepers, also jewellers and rug makers.

Wiki entry on Armenians in Poland is very long.

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ormianie_w_Polsce
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenians_in_Poland

Poles of Armenian origin - when we look through the list, there are names that each Pole knows.

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategoria:Polscy_Ormianie