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Comment by briggers | Hacker News Reader

I'm in Sofia, Bulgaria right now, doing contract work for international clients.

Rent is generally very cheap, 250EU/mo for a central apartment (12mo lease). I am staying here only a month however, so am paying a lot more.

Eating out, beer etc is very cheap. Numbeo gets it about right.

Amusingly, most Bulgarians I speak to ask why I would want to come to Bulgaria of all places. I guess it's like many places: great fun to visit or live for a few months but painful for long-term residents.

Upsides apart from cheap living: it's a fun, walkable city with a lot of excellent parks and very little traffic.

Downsides of living here: shockingly corrupt bureaucracy.

That said, I'll head to Romania when my month here is up. I lived in Istanbul previously, so let me know if you want to hear about that too.

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What did you think of Istanbul? I just spent the last half year living and working in Europe, and I was thinking about returning next year, with Istanbul high on the list for a month or two.

Be prepared for more of the same in Romania. Just like most of Eastern Europe, lovely place to visit, horrible place to live long-term.

That being said, hit me up if you're in Bucharest :)

More of the same sounds fantastic. :)

I'll email you around the 20th, it would be great to have a beer and talk shop.

Not the original poster, but I lived in Istanbul for a month a few years ago. I found the people to be the most friendly I've ever encountered in my travels, probably against the expectations of most Americans. Try to live on the European side, north of the Golden Horn, in the Taksim area.

Seconding this. I lived on the asian side for a bit before moving to the euro side. On euro side I was about 3-400 metres from Taksim Sq for 6 months. (Near where the big recent protests - I got gassed going supermarket shopping a couple of times).

Istanbul is a massive city split by the Bosphorus straight (?) into a European and Asian side. The euro side is where most of the tourist, nightlife and business stuff is. The asian side is a bit more like suburbia.

In my experience rent was more expensive in Istanbul than Sofia. Around 400+ Euro per month on the euro side. You'd expect cheaper on asian side.

Food costs were quite low when eating out, but very low when market shopping. At best, around 1USD per kilo of the best peaches on the planet. Like drinking sweetened peach juice. Cherries and grapes the same.

I used to live on the european side and commute to asia to do my market shopping. :D (Better produce).

Sorry for rambling.

Upsides of Istanbul: farmers street-market lifestyle - get incredible produce super cheap. Very happening city full of new experiences. Crossing the bosphorus on a ferry as part of your daily commute.

Downsides: crazy traffic, quite dirty (think HCMC), byzantine bureaucracy, not much english around if you're living like a Turk.

If you go to Istanbul, use my app to navigate the public transport:

https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/transportist/id644276437?mt=...

PM or email or whatever if you want a contact for a livable apartment block right near the centre in a gypsy slum.

You should have just gone to the Biologik Pazar near the old Bomonte brewery... it was pretty close to where you were and was the best I found in Istanbul. (It was a bit more expensive, of course, but still cheap by Western standards.)

And you're totally right about the peaches. And the apricots.

Now for purposes of the discussion:

Istanbul had a nasty flareup a few months back, but otherwise has been very stable. You will need to learn a little bit of Turkish, and it's not the easiest language, but two classes will make the city twice as cheap. It really is a city that gets cheaper the longer you're there, because you get to know particular grociers and as you develop a community, they will direct you toward better deals.

But even at the tourist prices, it's reasonable compared to the rest of Europe. And learning the tricks can take a significant part of your time for the first month or two, which may not be the best for a startup.

Immigration is exceedingly easy. Just have 300 bucks per month that you want in your account. You will need someone to guide you through the process and translate for you, but that's relatively cheap.

I'd say, though, it's not a beginner's city on your own. If you can give it two or three months to get settled, then it's a great option. If you need to hit the ground running, it might not be for you.

1 month is visiting, not living.

Let us know about Istambul please.

Seconded. It seems like a fantastic city, but I'm not sure what to make of the recent troubles or whether I could swing it as an Israeli (but I guess that problem is outside the scope of this thread, still I mentioned it on the off chance somebody has some wisdom to offer besides getting a second passport).

By recent troubles if you mean the protests, rest assured that it's nothing to be worried about. At least from personal security perspective.

By swinging, do you mean the requirements like visa, work-permit, residency-permit, etc.?

While seconding on the previous friendliness of Turks one thing I would add which is also something that struck me from time to time is Turks in Istanbul sometimes in a way are more European than they are "Turkish" (I don't intend to imply that they are mutually exclusive, or anything special for that matter. Just a figurative compare/contrast. I'll err on political correctness for getting the message across.)

PS, I spent about 2 years in Istanbul and loved every bit of it.

I just meant whether or not I can make friendly arrangements to hang around for a month or two, I think I can read between the lines enough here to conclude that the answer is yes. Thanks. :)

shalom, muslim turk here.

nope, nobody will judge you or give you a hard time just because you are an israeli or jew. you can come down here, live as long as you can, make the best friends and living out of it. yes, despite those conflicts and problems between turkey and israel.

Merhaba. :)

There are no real conflicts or problems, just political grandstanding. Glad to know normal people don't buy into it so easily, I'm sure I'll have a lovely time when I visit.

I'm not the OP but Istanbul's been my second city for over a decade.

It's a really amazing place. As the parent says, Turks are incredibly friendly. Having said that, corruption is fairly rife and people will constantly try to rip you off in business transactions. It's not unusual in some jobs to forget being paid your last month's salary (or indeed several months of salary leading up to it) and taxi drivers are mostly the scum of the earth (although it is improving).

There's been a big influx of poorer, less educated and more islamic-oriented people from the east of Turkey for several years and while they may be nice people they're culturally very different to the "white turks" of Istanbul. Taksim's fine, but Cihangir, Galata, Besiktas, Ortakoy and Etiler are (in no order) where I would look to live if I wanted to stay somewhere permanent.

Oh and it goes without saying that the Istanbul police force are not your friends.

> shockingly corrupt bureaucracy.

Oh yeah? Since Brazilian's president's father is bulgarian, I know where did she learn now.

Being Bulgarian, I don't think this has anything to do with Bulgarians, in general, but it's rather an ex-Soviet bloc thing.

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