How is life back home for the Lithuanians who left the UK post-Brexit?

“Have you ever packed your luggage but?”

It was a joke from a colleague on the morning of the Brexit vote in 2016, but it surely left Julius Gunevičius questioning.

“I laughed on the time,” he mentioned. “However then I got here residence and thought: is that how they assume? Ought to I pack my luggage?

“Ultimately we did.”

Julius, who’s 33 and has labored in London as a chartered accountant for 14 years, is without doubt one of the 46,600 Lithuanians who’ve come residence because the 2016 Brexit vote.

The variety of Lithuanian returnees from the UK greater than doubled between 2017 to 2020, in line with figures printed by Lithuania’s Migration Data Centre.

‘We can’t complain’

“I’ve by no means seemed again,” mentioned Julius who returned to Lithuania final yr together with his spouse Vaida and seven-year-old son Benas.

“It has labored out significantly better than what we had been anticipating.”

Julius was “prepared to take the financial hit” of shedding greater than half of his revenue again in Lithuania simply to be together with his family members.

“I’m an enormous household man,” he mentioned. “It’s superb for us to be collectively once more. We’re again on a social community that’s actually necessary to us.”

Watching different returnees get pleasure from a greater high quality of life again residence inspired Julius to make the “troublesome resolution.”

“We noticed a great deal of folks do the identical and be very, very completely satisfied.

“It impressed us.”

His basketball group in London, which was made up of Jap Europeans, modified the identify of its Whatsapp group to ‘Evacuate the UK’ as a result of excessive quantity of people that had been leaving.

Nonetheless, there have been many issues Julius missed in regards to the UK, significantly its multiculturalism.

“It’s the little issues, the creature comforts. Close to our home was a French bakery the place we introduced sourdough, Chinese language eating places with correct Peking duck and naturally, fish and chips.

“We had an excellent life.”

He couldn’t discover something that “got here shut” in Lithuania, regardless of trying to find greater than six months.

‘Not the identical Lithuania’

But others confronted extra severe challenges coming residence.

“Alongside paperwork, pension and taxes, there have been so many issues to consider,” mentioned Dovydas Petrošius, 35, a self-described “pioneer of the remigration to Lithuania”.

“I actually struggled to adapt to life again in Lithuania.”

Such had been Dovydoas’s difficulties that he based ‘Eks Emigrantai, an organisation serving to Lithuanian emigres return residence.

Now he says greater than 70% of their enquiries are from Lithuanians who wish to depart the UK, a lot of whom have lived there for many years.

One of many foremost issues for Lithuanians coming residence Dvoydas discovered working at Eks Emigranti was that “quite a bit had modified” since they left.

“Many individuals have romantic notions of what Lithuania is like,” he mentioned. “They’ve this concept of their minds that life might be implausible, however usually most people they knew have left to different nations or now have their very own lives.

“Life strikes on,” he added.

‘Our pondering and appreciation of the world is completely different’

One other problem for returnees was that British tradition had left its mark on them.

“Individuals come residence, however quickly realise they’ve created a brand new life and new emotions again within the UK, ” says Dovydas. “They miss a tradition which was extra acceptable for them than Lithuania’s.”

He added: “When you lived in London, the place there’s plenty of motion, you possibly can come again to Lithuania and really feel that large distinction, there’s not a lot occurring right here.

“It’s an enormous shock.”

Dovydas knew a number of returnees from the UK who weren’t pleased with their lives again in Lithuania and had already left for nations like Spain.

“You are likely to miss your nation, however these emotions final just for a short while,” he mentioned.

‘These coming residence have their toes underneath the desk’

And these returnees are having an “overwhelmingly constructive” impression on Lithuania.

“Many returned Lithuanians are establishing new companies and implementing concepts they’ve seen within the UK,” says Arminas Jurgaits of the Worldwide Organisation for Migration in Vilnius. “Returnees are extra open-minded and tolerant.

“They slowly however certainly change the overall perspective in society,” he added.

However, Jurgaits believed this exodus from the UK in the end displays the altering fortunes of Lithuania.

“Individuals need entry to housing, schooling, well being, jobs, a secure surroundings, the power to specific themselves and do what they like,” he mentioned.

“These days, returnees can discover all this stuff in Lithuania and the standard of life has improved considerably,” he added.

Dovydas seconded this: “There isn’t any purpose to go for the higher life when you possibly can have the identical circumstances right here.”