How I dumped

On the eve of two thousand thirteenth years, Senator Sergey Lisovsky jumped to my studio of the “rain” studio to comment on the fresh anti -Sirot law by the rider of the apocalypse. At the end of the conversation, he penetratedly looked into my eyes and summed up: “You simply do not know what love is.” At this moment, a sluggish thought of a possible departure turned into a panic desire to run from this house intolerance where the eyes look.

After the holidays, I already called the realtor. The initial plan was a consonant: to rent an apartment here and rent there. Warsaw was chosen as “there”, where there are friends, an excellent theater, a modest demand for notes about Russian -speaking drama and Soviet architecture, if nostalgia takes the throat. Out of pure mischief, I asked the realtor to give an announcement about the sale - to check how much my little studio costs in Devevo Lane and what number of people it may theoretically need.

Here in history, a fracture came: the results were extremely unpleasant. For three months, from February to April, five wanted to look at the apartment, buy - zero. The price was modest, living space - comfortable and even dandy (those who wish can still find photos on the Locals . Ru website and make sure that I am not lying), the area is brilliant. One -room apartments in the center are offered very little - I remembered this as a recent buyer of such an apartment. But demand refused to grow even in mid -March, that for real estate is a universally recognized high season. The realtor threw up his hands and assured that this was not in his memory. The further chain of reasoning was simple. Who buys inexpensive living space in the center of Moscow? Small and medium -sized businesses. Why doesn't he want to buy it this year? Because it seems to have finally finished it. Who wants to buy it next?

At the end of April, the corner studio between Sadov and Boulevard still went to the metropolitan lady, who wanted to please the daughter, and I finally lost the roots and faced the question where to let new ones. The apartment in Warsaw, which I planned to buy, did not give any hope for the status of a European resident. The house in Spain, Portugal or Latvia gave. Having chosen the Baltic states with which every academic child is tightly connected by childhood, I switched around around in search of friends who acquired something there, and found a friendly acting and directorial pair, who had just bought an apartment in Liepaja.

From the moment of purchase of the house until the moment of finding a card that allows you to be in the European Union as much as you like, two months pass.

I was handed over to a trusted local realtor. He was in charge of housing exclusively in Courland, it is also Kurzem - the western part of Latvia. On the one hand, this was somewhat limited, on the other hand, it made it possible to avoid those obsessed in the teeth and, in addition to costly Riga-Yurmal scenarios and focus on the coast from the Lithuanian border to Ventspils, which, to think, is much cleaner, the wild and steeper than the bourgeois Riga seaside. In addition, it is easy and pleasant to drive on a bicycle. A map with routes is available in any tourist information center. Immediately after the palanks - wild lakes to the pope, where from wooden towers you can monitor birds (one summer, however, burned, but you can’t burn all the towers). Then - a wild, but pretty lyceum with her docks and a museum in an army prison. Next are the reserves of Zimup and Tosmar and the endless churches-chutor to Cape Kolka.

The realtor quickly threw me the mail options. Prices for large and beautiful seaside houses with neat bushes around and renovation inside began from a couple of hundred thousand euros. To be able to ask for a residence permit, it was enough to buy something for seventy and a little. The dreams of a wild farm in fertile fields were excluded immediately - last year, agricultural lands were still prohibited from selling non -residents. This year it has already been allowed, but from the day the Latvian Sejm day, it may be a sharp increase in the minimum cost of housing “under a residence permit”-from 73 thousand in the village and 140 with something in the city to a universal quarter of a million euros, wherever you buy. If on April 24, such amendments to the law will be adopted, and the enterprising president of Berzins, spitting on benefits for the frail Latvian economy, will approve them, then it will only be possible to try to become a resident of the European Union until the end of the year.

A year ago, one could not worry and calmly, slowly, choose. Knowing the price threshold under a residence permit, Latvians, of course, lift up prices, but not radically: in seventy, it is proposed that a local resident could, according to the sensations, buy for fifty. In addition, bargaining is almost always possible - the proposal in the real estate market has long exceeded demand, and the realtors have a saying that every third house was put up for sale in Latvia. What can you buy for 70-80 thousand euros? A couple of hectares of land by the sea - but in a bad district, laid down by patrol boards of silicate brick, remaining from the Soviet regiments, and with a lonely undercurrent barn for housing. The lovely Payzan hut with an apple tree seated in a hundred in forty - but a kilometer from the noise of the waves. An old farm in an abandoned park on a sea cliff, which, however, will require a repair comparable to the cost of the purchase. Or a small piece of land on the first line from the sea with a newly built spacious two -story house, which eventually remained to me after several days of detour of territories and inspection of options.

A couple of times I jumped out onto the fox with a cry "chaos steers!"

The transaction took about a couple of weeks - but the case was exclusively in the hostess who owed the bank: instead of simply transferring money to her account, I had to meet with her in Riga and make a special account, some of the funds from which, after paying for me, the bank left, and part to her. Several weeks after the transaction, ownership of the land book holds registration. When an extract from there and a certificate from the local municipality that you did not owe any payments for the house, you can go to the local migration office in your hands and submit a petition for the provision of a Latvian residence permit.

The only documents that need to be brought from Russia is an extract from the bank that you have at least a few thousand euros on your account, and a certificate from the Internal Affairs Directorate, that you have never tried anything. It is given exactly a month, and it can be taken a little in advance. The decision, in your opinion, is also a month to make a month. Total from the moment the house was purchased until the moment of gaining pink-blue card with a holographic photograph that allows you to be in the European Union and even work in Latvia as much as you like; If you hurry with Moscow documents - one and a half, or even less. Before the Crimea, the refusals of a residence permit were rare (only Luzhkov was given as an example), there is no postcrymist statistics yet. If something seems doubtful in the documents-after a month they can give ten days to bring something else. For example, I was asked for a certificate from the Latvian bank, confirming that the money from the special account of the transaction really left the buyer.

Before obtaining a residence permit, you should go to the local Latvian clinic, make fluorography and get a certificate that you are not sick with tuberculosis. After right in the migration department, you take pictures, hand over your fingerprints - and after a few days come behind the card. Together with the status of a resident of the European Union, you are assigned a personal code that serves in Latvia something like a passport number: you can register in a freshly coooped house, draw up an agreement on it and for this (phone, Internet etc. ), Pay a tax, get a job and so on. The first four years, a residence permit remains temporary - it needs to be extended annually, providing paper in the department that taxes for housing were paid, as well as an extract from a bank account, where you still have the same several thousand euros. Even if the Law on a residence permit is changed, my seventy thousandth huts, thank God, will still be a guarantor of my euro -reisventure.

Pines are green, the sea is blue. My former profession is no longer my profession.

The maintenance of the house, contrary to rumors, costs a funny amount. An annual tax is about one and a half percent of the cadastral value of the house (something like the ratio of land value and the cost of the building placed on it). The cadastral value for obtaining a residence permit should not be below fifteen thousand euros. The right way to increase it is to give the house a commercial status, for a little money, for example, exhausting a license that allows you to turn it into a small hotel (allows, but absolutely does not require). My annual tax is 60-70 euros. Plus 40 euros monthly for security (the house was put on a fire and a non-armed alarm), about 30 for electricity (by local standards it is expensive, but my house is heating the energy that uses energy on a wide foot) and a little more-for garbage collection (I ordered a modest tiner container from the local profile company, which is devastated once a week). If the container is not started, the garbage will dispose of the forest foxes. They do it sloppy: they eat half, and they put out the other in the garden and the forest. For such an unaesthetic solution of their own territory and the coastal pine strip of the landlord, the plot can be fined. A couple of times I jumped out onto the fox with a cry “chaos steers!”, But these experienced residents of the European forest have not been afraid of the frail visitors.

Now in the market, by the way, there are quite a lot of commercial real estate. In the village near my luxurious house is sold - the first floor is composed of sea boulders, the second brick. Half of the cost of restoration as part of the support of small businesses is ready to compensate for the European Union - the main thing is that you open the hotel there, for example, and do not sell it for five years. In the light of what is happening with the Russian media, I am increasingly thinking about developing like this. Good, quiet, nonsense business. Good status is the mistress of the tavern. Times have changed, and I accept these changes for granted. Pines are green, the sea is blue. My former profession is no longer my profession. My former country is not my country.