I arrived in Montenegro on May 21st to work on the Montelibero project. During this time, I have personally accomplished a little for the project: I settled in relative proximity to the plot of land being acquired as part of the project, participated in clearing the territory so that the surveyor could mark the cadastral boundaries of the plot and the future road leading to it, and submitted documents to be appointed as the director of the LLC Montelibero, which is currently in the process of registration. Until the company is registered, the possibilities for further offline activity regarding the land are limited.

Many are concerned about the cost of living in Montenegro. Here is a summary for the first month.

A total of 834 euros was spent — this is only for myself, excluding expenses within the framework of Montelibero. However, this amount includes some items that will be significantly lower in the future.

Housing cost 282 euros; it will be much less moving forward. First, the first 7 days were in a hostel at 6 euros per night. Second, when I rented long-term housing for 120 euros a month, I had to leave one month’s payment as a deposit, with a potential return not for a long time.

113 euros were spent on furnishings. For instance, I brought almost my entire desktop computer from Russia, except for the monitor and the case because they are heavy, and I forgot to take the router. I had to buy used hardware locally. Or, for example, the apartment turned out to have no electric kettle or clothes drying rack. In the future, I expect one major expense in this category, and after that, it will almost vanish.

A very unpleasant expense is the 30-euro tourist tax, which is 1 euro per day of stay in the country. The tax must be paid until a residence permit is obtained, which in turn is tied to the registration timelines of the company where I am the director. So this expense will decrease next month and eventually disappear completely. However, company maintenance costs will begin; but in my case, fortunately, these will be paid for by the project — a kind of social package for an employee with a monthly salary of 80 euros.

The wildest expense item from the perspective of former residents of Russia is the cash-out commissions, which cost 29 euros. Local ATMs charge 2% + 5 euros. In supermarkets, of course, you can pay by card, but between people — only cash; there is no “I’ll transfer to Sber via phone number” here. This is a serious reason to start earning cash here or making useful acquaintances for more profitable cash-outs than via an ATM.

170 euros were spent on shops, and another 54 on establishments. These expenses can be optimized, but I would assume that food and small household needs will continue to cost around two hundred.

In short, if you rent a very modest apartment in a cheap city (Bar is perhaps the cheapest city on the coast), then once life more or less settles down, you can expect to fit within 350-400 euros per month — if living alone. A family will have lower per capita rental costs and will likely fit within a price tag of 300 euros per person.

However, for expenses to stay within this modest price tag, a couple of other conditions must be met. First, forget about smoking; cigarettes are very expensive here, more than 2 euros per pack. I didn’t even start, which is easier for me. Second, you can choose not to apply for a residence permit and instead do a visa run. More on that below.

If a tourist does not pay the tourist tax, the state theoretically threatens to fine them. In practice, only those who apply for a residence permit without having paid their taxes are fined. Therefore, instead of applying for a residence permit, you can simply cross the border with Albania once a month. My landlord actually makes a side income from this: he crowds 4 people into his car, charges 10 euros from each, and drives them to Shkodër, a lovely Albanian town on the shore of Lake Skadar. In Albania, almost all fruits and vegetables are about twice as cheap, as are many items in supermarkets. So many people go there just to stock up, and at the same time, they get a border crossing stamp, which gives them the right to extend their legal stay in Montenegro. So, if you aren’t planning far ahead and aren’t chasing Montenegrin citizenship in ten years, then a visa run is the cheapest way of legalization. No PCR tests are required; I haven’t even seen people wearing masks in Albania at all.

In conclusion, a scattering of general impressions about the country.

The language is related enough to Russian that after a month, you can understand most of what is being said to you, especially if they speak slowly. Ordinary communication happens in a mixture of Montenegrin and Russian, but in difficult cases where this is not enough, switching to English is sufficient and solves the problem.

Locals are quite friendly, although not as breathtakingly hospitable as, say, Georgians. They love to chat: communication with locals almost always boils down to them talking, you occasionally giving one-word answers to their questions, and them being happy that they were understood and that you even replied on topic. They talk little about politics, and this usually concerns the question of whether they should join the European Union, rather than whether some Russians or Belarusians have a dispute with their government. Libertarian values are quite organic for them, though they are not articulated.

Business culture in Montenegro is a legendary topic. You get the feeling that by the time you manage to pull off a more or less complex deal, you will have already gotten to know the counterparty’s entire family and perhaps even become related to them. The price of the deal ultimately turns out to be noticeably higher than expected, but in the process, some unexpected benefits arise that have a completely indirect relation to the original subject of discussion. In short, you have to immerse yourself in it, and it’s harmful to spend too many nerves on it.

There is work here, in principle, both skilled and unskilled. Until your knowledge of the local language is proficient, you can look for work through Russian-speaking groups on Facebook; they are populous and informative. When a person begins to chat fluently, their opportunities expand significantly. Also, nothing prevents working remotely, but you already understand that. The internet is expensive, but the quality is decent enough.

The food is tasty, but the cuisine is not very diverse: meat, cheese, bread, vegetables, fruits. The culture of smoking meat is top-notch. There is fish, but it’s not highly prized by the locals. They eat a lot of pastries, but here I don’t particularly align with the locals.

The climate surprised me at first: at the end of May, evenings were openly cool. Now it much more resembles my idea of the subtropics: hot during the day, pleasant at night. Humidity is not very high and isn’t irritating. I haven’t even turned on the air conditioner yet, but I think it will be needed after some time. The sea is still quite cool, so the beaches are already quite crowded, while the waves are still spacious. They say the locals migrate to the mountains, where it’s cooler, during the height of the heat. I haven’t been there yet, but I plan to.

In general, in terms of tourist attractions, Montenegro is still passing me by. I visited the Old Town of Budva — and that’s pretty much it. Although literally right next to me is some breathtakingly ancient olive tree, 2400 years old, which all the locals speak of with literal breathlessness, and three kilometers away are the ruins of Old Bar — but somehow I just haven’t found the time. Instead, today I plan to visit the tourist center to extend my registration after the visa run, and tomorrow I’ll go to the capital, where I spotted a used scooter (that same expected major expense for furnishings). Perhaps when I have wheels, I’ll be able to ride around the country and explore it in more detail, but that will likely be the topic of the next report.

I have arrived safely in Montenegro. Although “safely” is not entirely the correct word, because many mistakes were made and a lot of money was lost in the process. In general, traveling has become much more difficult compared to 2019, when I last traveled outside of Russia.

The most unpleasant discovery was that you can no longer trust aggregators when buying plane tickets. They will readily sell you a ticket for a flight that you fundamentally cannot use, which the seller already knows at the time of the transaction, and it will be impossible to refund this ticket. Thus, I failed to fly to Belgrade via Istanbul relatively cheaply, and had to urgently buy literally the penultimate remaining direct ticket to Belgrade, in business class, for an insane amount of money. Then, in Belgrade itself, I was not allowed into the city because I didn’t have a PCR test, and I had to spend the night in the transit zone. And when it came time to check in for the flight to Tivat, it turned out that no one would transfer my luggage from one flight to another for me. In the end, I was assigned a manager who literally led me by the hand through passport control (the lack of a test miraculously stopped being an obstacle), then I collected my luggage at the lost & found desk, then at check-in it turned out that the system could not see my ticket, we went to the airline desk where the system finally spotted me, they printed a paper copy of the ticket, and with that, the quest to board the plane was finally completed… What I liked about the Serbs was that everyone took the fuck-up with humor; any formalities were immediately set aside as soon as a real problem appeared, so the journey through the airport was filled with cheerful laughter and jokes in broken English.

In Tivat, I ignored the services of taxi drivers (that was actually difficult), walked to the bus station, bought a ticket to Budva, used public Wi-Fi to tell the person meeting me when to expect me, and after that, there were no more problems.

Heinrich, until the day before yesterday the representative of the only family that had moved to Montenegro as part of the Montelibero project, turned out to be just an ordinary libertarian, exactly as they should be according to libertarian propaganda: businesslike, energetic, polite, paying great attention to building his reputation—and without any obsessive fetishes, which are not uncommon among political and social activists. In short, he and I will undoubtedly get along. I gave him cash for the project fund—although, only someone else’s, since my fuck-ups on the way are unlikely to let me invest a significant amount in the near future, and I’d rather save the remaining money for a deposit for a future landlord to get more attractive terms.

Yesterday, Heinrich and I went from Budva to Bar. If Budva is a purely tourist town, located in a rather narrow coastal strip between the sea and the cliffs, and actively climbing those very cliffs—then Bar is much more spacious, there is plenty of empty space right within the city limits, and it looks somewhat more self-sufficient. At the same time, it doesn’t look poor or neglected, although a certain residual “Soviet-ness” is felt in it. In general, I will try to find housing specifically there; at the same time, it will be significantly closer to the location of our future libertarian locale.

Unexpectedly, they decided to make me the project director—this is mainly due to a staff shortage and the cleanliness of my documents, rather than any outstanding business qualities. But, of course, I will try not to let them down. Naturally, the fund cannot yet afford any competitive salary, so this looks more like a public service. As I understand it, as of today, the fund has already collected about 25 thousand euros out of the 70 thousand required to buy land, and this pace clearly allows for the completion of what was started, most likely without any single participant holding a controlling stake. The day after tomorrow, we welcome another family of settlers.

As for the channel, I hope to maintain the usual pace of publications in the future, about one per day. By the way, a huge thank you to those who, hearing about my troubles with the tickets, sent several unusually large donations. This already covers about a fifth of the losses—and I didn’t even ask anyone directly, because it felt awkward to ask people to pay for the results of my own stupidity.