Month one
So, we are in Slovenia for one month
We managed to do quite a list of things, but so far the main challenge is that everything seems to take by far too long. We did not write for the whole month since for this whole month we were waiting for our house to be connected to electricity. It seemed so easy, just an electrician comes and switches electricity on. We have everything setup: cables, counters... Nope, not the case. Numerous papers, visits to local electricity company, negotiations, checking, controls and again papers. After one month of quite emotional discussions we succeeded to get electricity... on the ground floor. Second one is subject to the same procedure. Patience is a virtue. Sad patience is not Russian strength. The only good news is that it takes Slovenians as long as us.
Slovenia is not a very big country. There are some local manufacturers, but the majority of consumer goods are imported from Austria and Germany. Each consumer task takes weeks. We, impatient Russiansover, used to Turkish level of services cannot understand why new bed base requires two weeks to be delivered, new wardrobe - two months, new kitchen - seven weeks, connection of existing internet - one month. Existence in Moscow environment where majority of things can be done in 24, OK maximum 72 hours seems like miracle here. Anymore or less big house purchase requires weeks of waiting. So, again, patience is a virtue.
What we managed to do so far: 1. Register at our living address
Surprisingly, public services work super cool. You come to local administration office, bring either property ownership proof or rent contract and in somewhat like 10 minutes you are registered. Authority gives you a funny piece of paper which is very precious: this is your registration at a particular address. Do not lose it, you may need it in the future. 2. Get a tax identification number (to be able to pay insane local taxes): 10 minutes in tax inspection, one form in English language, and you have TIN.
3. Open bank account. To do it you need points 1 and 2 above. There are a few banks available in Slovenia: local ones, Europeans (UniCredit, Société Générale), Russian Sberbank etc. Opening a bank account takes half an hour. Card is issued in 5 working days (until you have special luck and your card is lost by bank office; in that case they apply for new card and PIN, so one more week of waiting).
4. Get Informativni List. We did not get the need of this document, but it is required by payroll of your employer. Type of A4 paper stating that you have work permit, that you are registered, that you are employed. From our point of view it duplicates a work permit, but anyhow you can get it in local administration in 10 minutes. BTW, local administration (upravna enota) has office for foreigners. All employees there speak English, there is electronic queue, so all services are smooth and quick. On top of finished processes, there are a couple of those ongoings.
The most successful one was re-registering house as a house (at the moment it is registered as milk collection point :)). To re-register one need to get a set of documents, but this one is very logical: architectural plan of the house, geoplan, air photo shoot, application for registration and money. The process is not yet over, will update you on timing once it is finished. Another work in progress "project" is moving the person living in our house out of our house. This one is super cool. In Slovenia there is a law based on which if a person lives in the house since Yugoslavia times, you cannot kick the person off. If you want this person to depart, you need to find this person a new place to live, including paying for it. Social living is available, but it is in high demand. In our case there was an old lady living in the house since Yugoslavia times. At the moment of purchase she was far above 80. Since she requires special care, local community took care of her and moved her to the pension house (here those are good enough comparing to Russian situation). We were about to celebrate this, but here came her drinking son. He has neither rent, no inheritance rights, but he lives in our house. Our ideas to simply kick him out did nor resonate, so multiple trips to the social service of local municipality helped to move forward: waiting for him to move out. Update on timing to come. From failure perspective we have a process of importing car to Slovenia (not worth it, will write separate post on why). In upcoming weeks we hope to: connect upper floors to electricity, installing heating and registering for Slovenian language courses (here if your visa is longer than one year government gives you 180 hours of free Slovenian language courses). Other than that the country is really beautiful, clean and worth exploring. Roads are marvelous. Internet is working. Food is amazing and cheap. Getting used to new place of living. Will keep you posted.