Slovenia can discriminate far above its weight

As some may know, I am an immigrant in Slovenia. "Immigrant" has a connotation tainted by the US cultural hegemony, evoking images of "unwashed primitives coming to steal our jobs", but I am not afraid to wear the label of immigrant proudly - I was born and raised in the Czech Republic, and now, I relocated to Slovenia; a textbook immigrant.

What do you mean you are an immigrant? You are white!
- Australian I met in Poland

Many think Slovenia is a beautiful country, with awesome people, high English proficiency, and rail transport that leaves a lot to be desired. Few realize that Slovenia is a deeply xenophobic country, where obstacles will be thrown under your feet every step of the way if you dare to try to immigrate.

And I shouldn't be the one to complain. After all, I am "just" moving from one EU, Schengen country, to another EU, Schengen country. And to boot, moving from one Slavic country to another Slavic country, both of which were under the overlordship of Austria for centuries. European mythos of freedom and unity would make you think that this should be as easy as moving one town over. But you would be sorely mistaken.

Amnesia Epidemic

If you'd like me to describe one problem that has followed me through my entire immigration journey so far, every step of the way, it would be "amnesia." Let me explain.

Everywhere you go, everyone you contact, seems to have a bad case of selective amnesia, as if it was a virus that spreads only through the population of this small country.

From landlords who apologize profusely that they "forgot" to reply to your inquiry about accomodation (of course, after it has already been rented to a local), to banks who "forgot" to get back to your six messages over the course of two months asking them if they would be willing to at least have a meeting with you about opening an account with them. Some institutions are so bad at this that you'd think short-term memory loss is in their employee handbook: there was one well-established bank, which I will not name directly, that not only "forgot" to respond to my multiple messages, not only "forgot" to forward my meeting request to the appropriate branch... thrice... but they also "forgot" that I contacted them at all! And when I asked for at least some explanation, the response was as dry as it was swift: "We apologize, but we forgot about you / your ticket / your message."

For everything I will be describing below, just insert two rounds of someone having "amnesia."

The Housing Problem

Before you go to the immigration office (more on that later, this deserves its own chapter), you need to have a place to live. Unfortunately, even the first step is almost insurmountable.

Let me set the scene. You create an account on nepremicnine.net, the leading real estate server, and send a few messages to prospective landlords. It is good manners to write these messages in Slovene, and say a few things about yourself, chief among them, that you are a foreigner. In my case, I included that I was from the Czech Republic, so I was already from the EU.

And then you wait. Most landlords will "forget" about you until it's too late. Some of them want you to have an interpreter, but will reject you with a variety of excuses, ranging from the interpreter "not being local enough" to their area, to misunderstanding you on purpose and claiming that it was you who wanted them to hire an interpreter, for themselves. Yes, this happened to me twice.

My favorite was the "I am not confident enough in my English," whereby they claim that you not knowing "enough Slovene to pay your rent" is a problem, even if an automatic electronic deposit is expected nowadays. To boot, after you showed them that you know more than just the most basic phrases, and are capable of using a translator.

At this point, your only option are real estate agencies, some of which take three months of your agreed upon rent as a fee, plus a few additional fees upon fees, and don't help you with finding places to rent. I was in this situation myself, where I did all the work, the only thing the agent did was stand in the background, because he didn't know English at all, pestering me to hurry up, and for this amazing experience, I was expected to pay 8000€ in total. Yep, for their great efforts, they wanted to charge me 16000€/h.

Government Monolingualism

Let's say that you got lucky and got yourself an apartment. Now, you get to experience the beauty of the immigration office.

I am used to weird things coming from government institutions. I studied European law in university, after all. But I never expected a monolingual immigration office.

In the above picture, you see a sign that was posted at the entrance to the immigration department. Long story short, English is explicitly forbidden. If you can't speak Slovene, fuck you, and hire a 300€/h interpreter, because one won't be provided. Joke's on you, there are no interpreters, because nobody does Czech to Slovene interpreting, and Slovene to English interpreters are booked months in advance.

Look, I am not expecting them to tolerate English everywhere. I am not a self-centered American who comes to a country where the official language is not English, and then has a meltdown when they can't get everything done in English. But come on, this is an immigration office. And you can't even use online translators.

After you spend the whole day running around, filling out obscure forms on the toilet, because there are no tables and the forms you found online were "outdated" and "nobody knows why they're still there" (but only on the English website), you might get the joy of doing it all over again after you discover that the clerk at the desk mistyped a letter in your original home address. But that is your fault, not theirs, and now, it's upon you to fix it.

The Banks

The banks... oh my, the banks. They will not only "forget" to contact you. Not only will they charge you an extra 200-300€ just to open an account, because foreigners just have to pay 200-300€, okay? That's the policy, don't question it. And no, we don't care that you have a residence permit, or that you are a Schengen citizen, you were not born here, so you have to pay 200-300€. But you will, straight-up, be told that you "don't want an account at a Slovene bank."

But even if you have grit and persevere, you will still get laughed at by the extremely unpleasant receptionists. In my case, I asked if it would be possible to open a personal account at the bank alongside a business one, and the receptionist just started laughing hysterically, saying to their coworkers: "this foreigner thinks he can get an account here" in Slovene, thinking I didn't understand. Well, I was then condescendinly told to basically screw off, don't bother the bank with this.

To be Continued?

Unfortunately, even after almost two years of trying to immigrate to Slovenia, I am still not done. This is where I am right now, doing the whole circus of trying to contact the government and fighting their "amnesia".

If this is how you are treated as a foreigner from another Shengen country, which is a huge advantage and privilege, I don't even want to know how you might be treated if you are trying to come from outside the EU.

In the future, likely after another year, which is how long I estimate it will take me to get to the next step of this byzantine process, I will make a follow-up to this kafkaesque labyrinth.