50 stories - Yotko Vasilev
25 July 2022 Events and Discussions
Melbourne
Travel enthusiast
I moved to Melbourne in 2003 as a permanent Australian resident after a long, long time of dreaming, getting obsessed by it, planning and finally successfully qualifying as a skill migrant. My dream about migrating to Australia started in the distant 1989 just before the collapse of the old totalitarian Bulgarian government. In the few months before that change, it became possible for the first time to obtain international passport and eventually to travel abroad. Funny enough, very quickly after this government change it become nearly impossible to get a visa for any western country and that restriction went until Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union. How easy it is to forget what a different place the world was just 15-20 years ago.
I still clearly remember that distant dream of an exotic land with exotic animals, and intentionally remind myself about the reasons for my desire to come to Australia. I travelled extensively throughout Australia in the first 5 years, before my first child was born, and I still do in shorter distances with the now two children in my family. In between these national travels, I am trying to use, as much as I can, one of the biggest luxuries in the whole human history – to be able to freely travel to any part of the world. Melbourne has been voted the best place to live many times in recent history, but God, there are so many other stunning places to visit, explore and enjoy in Australia and abroad. For me living in Australia has proven to be a lot more amazing than what I had dreamed about for nearly 15 years before my arrival. Australia has given me not only beautiful nature, beautiful surrounding and a stable life but on top of all that was the unexpected gift of an incredible standard of life in combination with enough free time in which to be able to enjoy any aspect of life I may chose at the time.
The story is from the book “Bulgarians in Melbourne” (2017) from Radost Racheva, who is also author of the photographs, provided pro bono for the project.
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