Hi, I’m Georgy!

Just a normal, 26 year old Russian guy with a huge passion for travelling. I come from a very stable, middle class background raised mainly by my amazing Super-Mum. Standard and comfortable, but nothing too luxurious. My journey however is anything but standard…

Like I said, I am a young Russian guy from a Russian family (so yes it is Georgy, that is not a spelling mistake) but I actually spent most of my childhood in the UK. When I was about 7 years old, my Mum and I moved from Moscow, Russia to Cornwall in the UK. I remember being quite sad yet excited at the same time. Sad because I actually mainly lived with my grandparents in Moscow and saw Mum on the weekends because she was working a lot, so it was hard to leave them. Excited, well…because I was moving to another country!

Oh and I nearly forgot to mention the fact that I was actually born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan! Exotic right?! My family lived in Uzbekistan whilst it was still part of the Soviet Union, but when I appeared on this earth in 1997, the Soviet Union had already collapsed and Uzbekistan was an independent nation. Therefore, we moved to Moscow when I was just a little baby.

Unfortunately, I was way too young to remember anything about life in Uzbekistan, but I know a couple of things (especially about the amazing food). To round up my first 7 years of life on Earth, I was born in Uzbekistan, moved to Russia and then to the UK. Not a bad journey thus far! How does a kid from post-Soviet Uzbekistan end up in sleepy Cornwall via Moscow?! I genuinely do wonder sometimes if anyone else has been on that journey…

Fast forward a few years to now, and here we are! I am now a 26 year old man writing to you guys. However, a lot did happen in the 19 years from me moving to the UK when I was 7 to where I am now. I lived a pretty normal life in the UK to be honest. Went to school, college, graduated university and all of that, made lifelong friends along the way and lots of cool memories.

Fast forward a few years to now, and here we are! I am now a 26 year old man writing to you guys. However, a lot did happen in the 19 years from me moving to the UK when I was 7 to where I am now. I lived a pretty normal life in the UK to be honest. Went to school, college, graduated university and all of that, made lifelong friends along the way and lots of cool memories. However, one trip I made when I was 19 years old changed my perspective in a BIG kind of way. See I loved growing up in the UK, and after I learnt the language, made friends and settled into my new surroundings it really did feel like home. Sure I still loved Russia (I used to go back every summer for the school holidays, the whole 6 weeks) but now it felt like I really did have 2 homes: Russia and the UK.

However, as I got older (and when I mean older I mean only 2 or 3 years ago max) I began thinking and reflecting. I came to the conclusion that kids in general always love their surroundings no matter where they are. They just need to settle and sooner or later they will love wherever they may be. That is because they don’t have an adult perspective of the world yet and all that matters to them is being comfortable. This is just my opinion of course but I believe that is what happened to me and why I stopped enjoying living in the UK as I got older.

Earlier I mentioned a trip that changed my perspective. Well that trip was a student exchange to Busan, South Korea. To cut a long story short, I was just in disbelief and confused as to how much better life was in South Korea compared to the UK. Again, just my opinion, but I was so confused because all these years I grew up thinking the UK was perfect, the place to be, the country where EVERYONE dreams to move to. Then I rock up to Busan on the other side of the world and that whole theory is just debunked within weeks.

Anyway, that trip got me curious and wetted my appetite for travelling even more. So that’s what I did. I would save my student loan and travel to wherever I could afford to, and nearly every time I would come back thinking “wow, the UK is actually not that good”! I would just come back and think how dull it is, the lack of interesting culture or how their mentality was different to mine. Anyway, as soon as I graduated university I left the UK and moved back to Russia to start working as an Assistant Teacher. I actually moved with one of my best friends as we both got the same job and we flat shared for the next couple of years. Those next few years were some of the best of our lives (minus COVID). Fun, well paid job, school holidays which meant lots of travelling and just enjoying our youth to the max! 

I mentioned COVID which obviously made travelling much more difficult, but then the war in Ukraine started, which was an even worse thing to have to live with. Travelling was obviously not at the top of the agenda during the outbreak of war, so not much travelling did happen in 2022. I won’t go into all the details but it was certainly a very tough time/period and a lot happened. Compared to those first few years of moving back to Moscow flat sharing with my friend, going out every weekend and travelling every couple of months it was a completely different world that came crashing down very quickly. Anyway, I had to leave Russia in September 2022 (no prizes for guessing why) and I found a job in Egypt for the meantime…but that’s a story for another time…

Fast forward to the time of me writing this and I currently live in Belgrade, Serbia with my fiance. I know, I know you’re probably thinking “but when did you get a fiance?!” or “when did you move to Serbia?!”. I left some gaps in my story I know, but this was only supposed to be an overview and it turned out to be pretty long anyway! The gaps in the story will be explained in separate blog posts I promise. There is still a lot to tell! The most important thing though is that I am very happy with my current situation even if it was a huge rollercoaster to get here! I live in a lovely apartment, I feel safe, I truly love my new home Serbia and I have the love of my life next to me sharing this all with me.