Expatriate Tales: How people can become attached to their adopted country.

Today’s tale is not a travel blog but it is a story about travel, particularly permanent or semi-permanent travel for work. Having been a working expatriate in multiple locations for many years, I can empathise with both concepts. I have always been fascinated with the way people adapt to new environments and cultures (or not) and how some can integrate seamlessly and take to their new domicile like a duck to water whereas others struggle and long for their home place. I am sure studies have been done on this but I haven’t seen any so this is a brief attempt to analyse, compare and contrast, with special focus on one particular case.   

For many years, I worked for a company who, at any one time, might have had numbers of Irish people ranging from a few dozen to hundreds based in various overseas locations. Some employees loved their new situation and couldn’t wait to renew their contracts and sign up for another stint; others would just do their six months or a year, all the while counting days until they got back home. A person’s family situation would naturally have a bearing on the attitude; if someone was married with a family, the pull to home would be very strong. However, most of the people we based overseas were single and most were relatively young. The amounts of time they spent in a foreign location range from one day to forty years or effectively a lifetime. The one day scenario was a guy who arrived in Moscow in mid-winter, took one look at the weather, resigned and got the next plane home. The lifetime people are still there, are totally integrated and have effectively gone native. There are many in between, some of whom have married locals and settled elsewhere; there are also some who started businesses abroad and prospered.       

Many Irish people emigrate to English speaking countries such as the USA, Canada, Australia, etc and easily adapt. Others do the same in continental Europe and elsewhere. However, the places I’m going to highlight are a bit more daunting than that. Try Russia, Ukraine, China, Thailand, Pakistan, the Middle East and South America. It can be daunting for a young person to find themselves in a foreign country where they don’t speak the language and where few of the natives speak English. In any country in the world, you are never far from an Irish bar and many of our people spent a lot of their down-time in them, which is understandable. By contrast, some lived independently and never went near them. Others formed Irish groups. I was probably somewhere in the middle – I was anxious to learn about the culture and people of my adopted lands and I tried to visit as much of the countries as possible. I also paid more than the odd visit to an Irish bar and I always kept in touch with happenings at home. To be fair, I still had a home base and a family to return to. Others aren’t as lucky and have to make a total commitment when they emigrate. Many of the people I worked with were young, carefree, and just starting out in their careers. They still had ties to home but perhaps not as strong as I had. 

In terms of contact, nowadays the internet helps a lot but as recently as twenty years ago, you could not listen to Irish radio or stay in touch with Irish media, which many people obsessively do today. Some people get homesick and long for their native place, clinging to things like Irish music, culture and sport. As I’ve said, some actually count days until their next trip home or until the expiry of their overseas contract. In the past, many of these people had to emigrate for economic reasons and sadly, many never saw their homeland again. In the modern era, air travel permits regular returns but if I had someone working with me who was still counting days, I would feel they were probably not suited to the expat life in the first place. In any event, I think this constituency is very well documented, both in song and in story, so I’m not going to examine it here. 

There is however another cohort who embrace their new surroundings, grow to love it and never want to leave it. I found this particularly prevalent in Russia, some might say strangely as it may not seem the most inviting or comfortable country to settle in. Surprisingly, Russia and Russian people, when you become familiar with them do have a certain allure. The country is the largest on earth and has an awful lot to offer. Many of our expats succumbed to this and never left, fully integrating into the culture and making their own independent lives. The rest of this story is about one such individual, who fell so much in love with Russian culture and people that he never wanted to go home.

Some of the things we take for granted in Ireland and most European nations are social supports and healthcare. While they are not perfect, it is very rare that anyone will slip entirely through the cracks in the system. Not so in other countries, unfortunately. In Russia, despite its socialist past, social welfare supports are minimal and while it does possess an excellent healthcare system, it has become expensive to avail of it. So, what do you do when you settle in a foreign country, you grow to love its people and culture but then you either lose your job or become ill or, worst of all scenarios, both. 

The Irish Embassy tries to keep track of all Irish expatriates but inevitably many disappear. I was at a function in St Petersburg one time and I met an Irish guy who spoke some Russian. As I had lived in the city for a number of years, I enquired if he was new in town. He informed me that he had lived there for eighteen years. There were about twenty five other Irish in the city at the time and none of them had ever come across him. He had lived quietly with his wife and family and was not aware of our presence in his adopted city. He was as astonished to meet us as we were to meet him. We invited him to join our Irish group and he did. 

Another guy who went off the radar completely we will call Dave (not his real name). Although he had initially been brought to Russia by my company, it had been many years before and I had never heard of or met him. Our first encounter came after I was approached by a group of non-Irish expats, mainly Dutch and British, none of whom I knew. They asked to meet as they had heard there were other Irish in the city. They told me that their friend Dave had been living and working in Russia for fifteen years, loved the place, but badly needed medical attention and financial support. He had fallen on hard times; his business had failed and his marriage had broken down. He was living in a hostel, which these people were paying for; they were also supporting him financially. He had had a hip replacement operation but it had been of poor quality and he was in failing health. As we were an Irish company, they felt we might be willing to help a fellow countryman. They had apparently tried the Irish Embassy and while they hadn’t refused to assist, they could not provide financial support and there were complications: Dave had been living and working illegally for fourteen of his fifteen years. The visa he had acquired upon entry had long since expired. It was not too difficult at the time to live illegally and evade the authorities. In fact, it was rumoured that there were a few million people, mainly from ex-Soviet states doing this. The problem was that the penalties for this were severe. In most countries around the world, if the authorities detected you residing illegally, they would just deport you; in Russia, you might well have to serve a prison sentence first. Our friend Dave not only did not have a Russian visa; because he hadn’t visited Ireland in many years, his Irish passport had long since expired. He had also borrowed heavily and owed a lot of money, mainly to private individuals. 

But to our first encounter; I visited the hostel with the expatriate group and met Dave. He was bedridden and the poor man was in severe pain. He was also stick-thin and wasn’t eating, claiming the food he was given was inedible. The hostel was adequate but of poor quality. It was obvious that he needed help; but here’s the thing – he absolutely refused to consider returning to Ireland to seek medical help. As far as he was concerned, Russia was home and he wasn’t leaving. I told him that we could give him some limited financial support but unless he was willing to cooperate and help himself, there was little we could do. 

Ultimately, as his condition deteriorated, he put his pride to one side and his Dutch and British friends persuaded him to go to Ireland for medical help, but he only agreed on condition that he be repatriated to Russia immediately after recovery. We then had to have serious discussions with the Irish Embassy, who were naturally nervous about getting involved in what was effectively an illegal operation (assisting someone who had committed a criminal offence to leave the country). Thankfully, data were not computerized in those days and accurate records of entry and exit were probably not available. So we concocted a story that he hadn’t been in Russia very long and that he had ‘lost’ his Irish passport. The Embassy issued him with a new one and requested the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ignore his non-visa status and issue him with an exit permit.

It still took quite a lot of further coaxing but he eventually agreed to go to Ireland and we bought him an air ticket. We also had to pay for an ambulance to bring him to the airport as his health had further deteriorated. We got him checked in but after that, our problems were only beginning. Russian Immigration rejected Dave, refused to let him leave, and, as he was in a wheelchair at this stage, they told his minders (us) that they had received no instruction from Moscow Foreign Affairs to issue an exit visa (they were correct – Moscow had refused to do it as they had somehow discovered Dave was illegal). I called the Irish Embassy but there was no one available. Unbeknownst to us, the entire affair was in danger of becoming a diplomatic incident and the Irish Embassy wanted to wash its hands of it. That still left us with Dave sitting in a wheelchair in departures, shivering with cold, refusing to eat anything and chain-smoking. Luckily, St Petersburg airport was relatively small at the time and as we were based there, we knew some of the Immigration officials. Shall we say, we ‘spoke’ to one, pleaded our case and he agreed to let our man exit through a ‘special’ gate. Thankfully, he made the flight. 

Almost immediately, the Irish Embassy called and asked: ‘is he gone?’ When we confirmed that he was, they breathed sighs of relief. They then told me the reason Russian Foreign Affairs in Moscow didn’t tell St Pete to issue the exit visa was because someone discovered Dave had overstayed his visa and they wanted to hold him for questioning. The offence carried a minimum three year jail sentence and there was at that time a German guy serving a similar sentence. The Russian DFA were frantically trying to contact the Irish Ambassador but the Embassy stalled and didn’t answer their phone calls from the Ministry until they were sure Dave was out of the country. Where did that leave us on the ground in St Pete? Suffice to say we said nothing, but kept our heads well down lest we be accused of being an accessory to an illegal act.

But back to Dave – when he left us, he appeared to be at death’s door. However, on arrival in Dublin, he was met by VIP Handling and transferred to Beaumont Hospital where apparently he received excellent medical treatment free-of-charge. His hip recovered fairly quickly; he also began eating again and regained his strength. Then what was the first thing he did? Of course, he went to the Russian Embassy with his brand new Irish Passport and applied for a visa. Unfortunately for him, the Moscow DFA had by then informed the Russian Embassy in Dublin that he was persona-non-grata and the application was refused. Needless to say, Dave was bereft and heartbroken; he could not understand why his adopted country would not allow him to return. To us it made perfect sense but sadly, he was in a different space. He immediately phoned me and initially sought my help with his application but when he realised that I was completely powerless in this regard, he accused me of ‘railroading him out of Russia,’ and effectively ruining his life. I tried, without success, to remind him that he had been in very poor health and all we had done was to try to save his life. That was my last contact with him. As far as I am aware, he settled back in Limerick, where he was originally from, but never returned to Russia and passed away some years later.     

This story is an extreme one but I’ve told it in full because I think it demonstrates what can happen in cases where an expat falls in love with his or her new surroundings, thinks they have arrived in paradise and are planning to spend the rest of their lives in their adopted country. All is fine until something goes wrong, particularly financial or medical. Expatriate life can be fun and can be very rewarding. People get to learn new skills, new cultures, new languages, make new friends, see an entirely different type of lifestyle while at the same time making money. But it doesn’t suit everyone. I think nowadays some companies put employees through rigorous testing before assigning them to overseas roles. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case back in the day and it often led to mismatches. So beware, if you are thinking of emigrating or if you are offered a job overseas, think long and hard before taking the plunge. It may suit you perfectly but in some cases, it may not. If you are the type who adapts easily and you make the place your permanent home, make sure you have all the necessary supports in place. It’s usually fine when you are young and healthy and in employment. The problems tend to occur later, so always ensure you have a back-up plan should all else fail.