Small Personal Experience in Poland

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 :)

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

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.

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).

@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:-)

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