Why is the ex-Yugo diaspora in the United Kingdom so small compared to elsewhere in Western Europe?

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mschuster91@reddit

Because Yugos tend to settle in 1 day worth of driving intervals from the homeland. That's why you got so many of us in Munich, and those living further out concentrate near Frankfurt and Hamburg so they can rest in Munich on the vacation trip to the coast. A very few of my relatives actually live in Sweden and somewhere in London, but travel down to Croatia is hell for all of 'em.

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chimpo99@reddit

Not necessarily, Australia has a large Yugo population especially Melbourne.

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JRJenss@reddit

It's been much easier since Ryanair established its bases all over Croatia. British Airways, SAS or Croatia Airlines have ridiculously high fares.

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Organization_Dapper@reddit

The UK is Muslim land. Ex-yugo fought the pedo-religion. Why would they go there? :/

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Immediate_Safety_131@reddit

I guess this is one of the big reasons https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastarbeiter

Many of the countries you mentioned had guestworkers in the 60s and 70s, mostly from former yugoslavia and to some extent greece ,turkey and italy, while uk didnt

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ReplacementCrafty304@reddit

Most ex-Yu diaspora went to Germany and Austria.

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Tropadol@reddit

I’m in the UK and all the other Macedonians I know here (me included) got in with Bulgarian passports when the UK was still in EU. Bulgaria was giving passports out like candy to us.

Now it’s a lot harder to get in.

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PolyphonicMenace@reddit

I (British) used to work with a bunch of Macedonian guys and that’s exactly what they told me - easy to get a Bulgarian passport and then come to UK (pre-Brexit). Except they said they had to pay, but it wasn’t clear to me whether they were legitimately eligible for a Bulgarian passport and that was just the fee… or if there was some sort of low-level corruption involved and you could basically just ‘buy’ a Bulgarian passport?

Crazy guys they were 🤣

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shortEverything_@reddit

The UK is terrible - roads full of potholes, garbage, half empty grocery shelves, shit tonnes of crime, politicians are protected from citizens voicing their opinions, crap building qualities, have to pay for parking everywhere, full of Muslim immigrants from Asian and Middle East. Definitely one of the worst western countries I’ve been to

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Pristine10887@reddit

Muslims bad

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shortEverything_@reddit

Balkan muslims are okay - but not those from Arabia/Asia. Don’t get me wrong the 80-20 rule holds, roughly 20% are good people that fit in European society but the rest probably not so much

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Pristine10887@reddit

Balkan Muslims good 👍 Other Muslims bad 😞

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ElectricalPiglet1341@reddit

I'm born in the UK, I saw more Serbs in Norway than I did in the UK.

I'm not really that surprised that people would prefer to live in other West European countries than here because British people aren't liked as much as other West European cultures since they're known to be rowdy, arrogant, impatient and entitled, which you see for instance in tourism as it disproportionately comes from them. When I came back from Norway I was shocked to see how general bad behaviour was welcomed a lot more and I saw it from people of all ages and all financial classes, it's a cultural flaw. It seems to stem from centuries of global dominance and income inequality so people grow up to believe that they're above others and the law. You see also with the Russians and the Chinese, basically any country with a strong imperial history.

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vordan@reddit

UK is a shitty country.

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Saalle88@reddit

Cause they are racist.

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2024-2025@reddit

UK has never liked Eastern European immigrants, they mostly take in immigrants from former colonies, India, Nigeria, Pakistan etc

They had to accept polish people and Romanians while they were in EU, but they did Brexit to get rid of them.

The only big balkan community I know in UK are the Albanians, but the UK Albanians seem to be more crazy than usual for some reason.

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Pristine10887@reddit

UK has mostly non-Yugo Albanians

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lunapuj@reddit

As a Romanian I had to explain to every brit I meet the difference between a Romanian and a gipsy.

Also lot of them think we are muslims and live somewhere in the desert and I am not fucking joking about it. They literally have no ideea about Romania and we are a boogeyman for them, before us were the Polish but we replace them as the Boogeyman.

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stepanija@reddit

Because the Poms are a bunch of whingers…

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Electro-Choc@reddit

UK has/had agreements that makes moving as an ex-colonial national a lot easier. They took in a relatively tiny amount of yugoslav refugees during the wars. Post-Brexit, forget about it. Other countries (esp Germany) took in huge amounts and gave up trying to make the situation only temporary.

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SnooRevelations979@reddit

They all went to Chicago and St. Louis.

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pbatemanchigurh@reddit

Interesting, the only country I would leave the Balkans for is the UK

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RandyFMcDonald@reddit

The big Yugoslavian migrations of the 1960s and 1970s were directed towards continental western Europe, not the United Kingdom. The later migrations naturally built on earlier ones, and there never was—as there was for Poles and Balts after 2004—a particular configuration of policies and trends that let the UK catch up.

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Uriel42069666@reddit

Ireland ✅ UK ❌

Source evo pozdrav iz Dablina!

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pimp_my_ride8@reddit

I'd rather go back to my small village in bosnia and live of goats than go to the UK.

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Shtapiq@reddit

Why do you think these guys were masters of the seas for centuries? You too, had you been born there, you would’ve wanted to gtfo of there. Plus their women… I mean, come on… /s

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Elegant-Display337@reddit

Why are people downvoting you? You speak the truth.

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Shtapiq@reddit

It’s because of the /s, they really mean it 😂

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kelvarnsen1603@reddit

Well, UK sucks now

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zargug2@reddit

Cuz it's full of albanians.

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pageunresponsive@reddit

The UK is not Europe, or it doesn't feel like it. Lots of people came and left. This is not an easy country to live in. They are better off in Germanic countries.

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neljudskiresursi@reddit

What is UK if not a Germanic country?

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pageunresponsive@reddit

You're going deep into technicalities.

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neljudskiresursi@reddit

It's neither deep nor a technicality, I think of all social media/forums, reddit should continue holding some level of content quality.

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Serbian_Pro@reddit

i think he meant on countries like Germany and Austria. They, especially Germany, have broader range of low profile jobs with relatively high salaries, atleast compared to ex yugo countries. UK couldn't offer than, atleast not in high amount. Weather is also shit and Germany has always been something Balkan people consider a "quality" country, best example of that are cars, even some lower end german cars are considered good quality here, they are often driven for more than 400 000kms.

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anameuse@reddit

It's a slur.

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gregorijat@reddit

Most of them integrated into the UK society. During the WWII most of the “upper echelons” were the ones to emigrate to it unlike other countries.

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Sandzakguy@reddit

Besides other factors i guess bc its way further away from the other countries you named

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For-The-Emperor40k@reddit

Croatian base in the UK is Hungerford in Hampshire apparently

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Miserable_Gur_5314@reddit

They can't swim very well

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samonekatako@reddit

There are more ex-yu people in Ireland. UK is too complicated to get into

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Lysander1999@reddit

It might be complicated for ex-yu people to get to (UK is very xenophobic and has weird politics) but it's clearly not complicated for other countries. Look how many foreigners they have.

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Lysander1999@reddit

'Virtually none' is an exaggeration. Ultimately, the UK has very little to offer. It's a terrible place to live compared to the other countries you mentioned. It's contributed alot to the world in terms of writers, scientists etc but the country itself is diabolical.

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IndividualAction3223@reddit

Yeah, there’s a small community here. A bit of a difficulty to find our food here too

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Tropadol@reddit

Ima puno trgovina u Londonu. Jedna se zove “magaza” i tek tamo sam našao prave ćevapi.

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IndividualAction3223@reddit

Mogu zamisliti kolko si bio sretan kad si našao prave ćevape 🤣😅

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IndividualAction3223@reddit

Hvala ti, znam za Magazu već. Živim blizu Birminghama ali sreća našao sam našu hranu u nekakvoj Pakistanskoj radni 😅 uvoze iz Magaze.

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IndividualAction3223@reddit

A lot are in London. I know others that are scattered, mostly near and within Birmingham, Coventry.

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Veilchengerd@reddit

The UK never contracted for work immigrants with Yugoslavia. Austria, Germany, and Switzerland did.

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peppermint116@reddit

British Serb here, most extended family during the Yugo years went to Austria and Canada, it’s a small community here, and most Serbs I’ve met here myself included are ancestrally from Knin or other parts of Dalmatia and are all pretty much related in some way lol. even the recent immigrants here largely came on HR passports before Brexit.

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GlitteringLocality@reddit

I am dual citizen in Slovenia and there is a very very small pocket of Slovenians where I am born in USA which is why my family end up here. I rarely meet Yugos and if I do they are Serbian as there is a larger area of them in Chicago.

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LowCranberry180@reddit

UK had other sources of migration such as South Asia and Caribbean. Most Turks or Ex-Yugo went to Germany during 1960s inline with guest worker agreements.

So it is about history not like or dislike. Surprised that people doing not know that.

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