Why Görlitz is better than London

Grzegorz Owsian is slicing mushrooms. Quickly, one after the other. He does it with such practiced ease that you'd think he'd been doing it for years at the Jakobs Söhne restaurant on Jakobstrasse. "No, I've only been here since November," explains the 40-year-old. "Before that, I was in London for 13 years." A move from London to Görlitz? Not at all. He moved to Zgorzelec. That's where he was born and raised. "I learned German at school when I was ten or eleven," he says. But at 24, he moved to London for the first time, for 18 months. Then he returned to the Neisse River for another 18 months, but from 2006 onwards, he was back in London again – this time for 13 years. He did all sorts of things there, Owsian says. First, he was a cook, later a forklift driver, and even a bartender in a traditional English pub. And a few other things that he'd rather not explain in detail.
 

London too big, too fast, too much

He didn't like London, though: "It was too big, too fast, too much for me." He stayed because of work and love. But after 13 years, he'd really had enough: "I'd actually wanted to come back for five or six years, but I always found something else to do." He knows other people who moved there and started families whose children go to school in London. That wasn't the case for him, so leaving was easier than for some. A smaller city in England was never an option for him: "London is big, there's always something going on." You only go to smaller English cities for university or a specific job. He could more easily imagine moving to Berlin: "The city isn't that big, but it has everything you can find in London," he says – referring to music and art. Then, by chance, he learned through an old acquaintance that Café Kugel in Görlitz was looking for a chef. He met with Enrico Merker from Café Kugel. The two quickly came to an agreement. However, he didn't start as a cook at Kugel, but at Merker's other restaurant: Jakobs Söhne. Moving to Görlitz wasn't an option: "I'm from Zgorzelec and already had an apartment there, so I didn't have to look." Besides, it costs less over there. And he can still get around Görlitz quickly.
 
Görlitz/Zgorzelec is a perfect location, says Owsian: "From here you can quickly get to Berlin, Dresden, Prague, and Wroclaw." Moreover, after all those years in London, he needed more peace and quiet: "I have that here." Family and friends are already there, so he didn't have to think about it for long. Brexit wasn't the decisive reason for his move. And he only learned about the advertising campaign by Europastadt GmbH, which aims to attract Poles who emigrated to the UK, after he had already returned home. Since November, Görlitz and Zgorzelec have been courting Poles who once emigrated to Great Britain via social networks like Facebook and Instagram and a dedicated website. The message: In Görlitz and Zgorzelec, they are close to their hometown and can still enjoy all the benefits of the EU. Unlike in the future in Great Britain. For Grzegorz Owsian, however, money played the main role in his decision to return: "The pound isn't doing so well right now." And living in London is really expensive. A room in a shared apartment, where he lived with strangers, cost him 500 to 600 pounds a month, which is roughly 600 to 700 euros. But there were also rooms for 800 and even 1,000 pounds, or up to 1,200 euros a month. "I thought I could earn the same amount of money in Germany but spend much less on housing," says Owsian.
 

A 25-hour position is perfectly sufficient

He's taken a 25-hour-a-week position at Jakobs Söhne. That's enough for him; he doesn't necessarily want to work more. There's plenty more to do, like going out with old friends and new ones. He enjoys concerts and movies. And he practices martial arts: "I used to learn karate in Görlitz, and I want to do that again; there's a very good karate school here." He also travels a lot to the larger cities in the surrounding area, to Berlin or Wroclaw, for example. Just this past weekend, he went to Poznan because some bands from Wroclaw were playing there. Görlitz is a good central location: "I don't miss big-city life." He hasn't found any real disadvantages to living here yet: "And I don't think I will." That's why he plans to stay. Although, he never makes long-term plans: "I don't know what I'll want to be doing in 20 or 30 years." For now, it definitely feels right to be here. And he has never visited London again since he left.
 

Source: Sächsische Zeitung
Text: Ingo Kramer
Photo: Nikolai Schmidt

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