-[Dubai isn’t what you expect... find out why (Russian girl in the UAE)]

Guys, before you start watching this video, let me share several important points here. Point number 1. On my first visit here, I really didn't like Dubai. Why would anyone want to live in a city where you can only be in the building with AC? Number 2. I'm from Russia and I'm a world traveler. I love to travel a lot, but many countries' embassies closed in Russia and overall it became hard to apply for visas or to get visas, you know why. So I came to apply from here. And number 3. If life gives you lemons, you should make a lemonade. So while I'm here with some boring paperwork, I will try to make a video too. And it's not gonna be one of those Dubai vacation videos. We will try to see what it's like to live here and not only staying as a tourist. And let's find out why people from all over the world dream to come here. Today I'm moving from the emirate named Ajman to Dubai. I will be staying with Katyusha and Luke. They got this for me. I will be staying only in this and I can't get outside of this. It's your house. This is my friend Kat. I call her Katyusha. She is from the UK, but she used to live in Russia. Together we traveled in the Russian Arctic. I took her in the northernmost McDonald's in the world. We swam in the Arctic Ocean. We have caught sea urchins and then ate them. Tried out shooting with Kalashnikov. And experienced the best weather of the Arctic in October. Do you want to do it again? It was so cold, everything was numb. I couldn't feel anything. It was fun though. A very good experience. I'd recommend. She is a tough girl. Why did you move here? I moved here because my fiancé was offered a job here. So we just moved here. It was nothing to do with the situation right now. Totally unrelated. But now that lots of Russians have moved here. It's really nice because we are constantly around Russians. Do you miss something about Russia or Moscow? Definitely. I think when you're away from somewhere, you miss the things you didn't realize you'd miss. Here, which is pretty cool. Like Gretscher and cottages and that kind of thing. Yeah, just little things day to day. And the winter as well. I mean now it's November. In Moscow it's snowing, right? So yeah, probably that. Guys, before we continue exploring Dubai, let me introduce you to the sponsor of this video, italki. A marketplace that connects online language teachers to students for customized video chat lessons in over 150 languages. And I need to hop on my lesson now. I remember that for 10 years of school that I've learned English, I've never actually used it because I didn't have native speakers in my Russian hometown. So when I needed to actually use English, I was struggling a lot because I learned it in a passive way. I knew lots of words but couldn't really speak. So with the new languages that I'm learning now, I try to use it as much as possible and to practice. That's the beauty of italki. You can have one-on-one customized language lessons with high-quality native-speaking teachers. I'm practicing Italian on italki. For example, there are over 1,000 Italian teachers. And you can filter them down by the type of lesson you want, conversation for work, for a test or for your kids, when you want the lesson. And you can even pick what other languages the teacher can speak. For example, I want an Italian teacher who can also speak Russian. The best part about italki is the payment. You pay per lesson. There is no subscription, no commitment. And lessons start at only $5. Click the link in the description to start learning on italki and get $5 off for your first lesson with the code ELLIE. And this discount is available for the first 50 users. Seasons? How do you say seasons? They blocked us in. That's how we go to the Global Village. This parking is so confusing. I know, I'm going the right way. We got lost at this parking, but now we finally came to the Global Village. It's a place where there are many stands of different countries and lots of food, which we can try. We will see what these stands have. Maybe find the Russian stand and see if they have the real Russian food or it's just fake. We found out that they only open at 2. And now it's 12. What are we going to do for two hours? He said walk around the beautiful institution, which is Carrefour. So weird, it only opens at 4 p.m. 4 p.m. What do they do the whole day? Just sleep? What's the plan, Katyusha? We've missed our car. Our car is over there. It's going really well today. Very well planned and thought out day. We have four hours before the opening of this Global Village and we were looking for other activities, but everything in this city opens at 4 p.m. What do people do here on the weekend? No idea. Eat some food by the beach. I just got some fresh microphone. You can put them in the mic. It's good. Katyusha, do you like living here? For me, this climate is hell. I love it. This is like heaven to me. It's so sunny every day. And the fact that you know it's always going to be sunny and hot. You don't have to think about what you're going to wear. You just get to choose which dress or which T-shirt and that's it. You know what to expect every day. Even you said it when you were walking down here. You live on a resort, kind of. Is it expensive to live in Dubai? I'd say so, but I think everyone assumes so before they come here. It depends where you live, I guess. Similar prices, I'd say, to London rent-wise. But when I was living in London, it was a different situation. Because I was living with two other girls. Whereas now, we have our own apartment. How much is the rent here? How much per month? Approximately. I'm not going to say my price. Approximately like $2,000, $3,000, $4,000. Per month? Maybe. And you said that you need to pay a deposit for how many months? Well, here they do a thing where you pay rent for like... Either you pay four times a year, three times a year, two times a year, one time a year. But it's cheapest if you pay like once. If you pay for the whole year at once. And depending on the landlord, they want different things as well. Like our landlord wanted us to pay for a whole year upfront. So we had to have that money just to pay. And what's the price for SIM card, internet, stuff like this? So when you first come here, and you've got one, like a tourist SIM. And that lasts three months. And the price is quite reasonable. I'd say a bit more expensive. Well, definitely more expensive than in Moscow, for sure. The tourist SIM, right, to top it up. After the three months, or if you want to like start a residency, like visa or something like that. It cancels your tourist SIM and then you need to get like a normal SIM. And that can go up to $1,000. I saw, I'm not even joking, I saw one on the leaflet. $1,000?! Yeah, I saw one on the leaflet for $1,000. That's unlimited. I'm not joking, really. Because in Moscow I paid 600 rubles for unlimited data. Which is like, what, $10 or something? Yeah. Well, that's... We're not here. But it's all these little hidden costs that you think, oh, it's just rent, that's going to be expensive. But actually... Do these prices and costs worth living here? I'd say so. I think it's a good, like, I would only say you should come here if you want to be here long term. Because it is like an investment up front. Like if you just invest all this money just for six months, you're not really going to see much return on investment. You have to come here for like at least a year, two years or more. I think I've heard like most people say, oh, I just wanted to come here for a year. And then they end up staying for like 10 years or something. Oh, wow. Yeah, you kind of get sucked into it, I think, for a long term. Let's just pretend today didn't happen. We just arrived. Four hours didn't happen. You don't know. Go around this pole as fast as you can. A huge line here. And after four hours, we're finally here again. This time it's open. Let's see what it has to offer. We're going to Yemen. Looks like a huge market of spices. And some perfumes. Up for some Yemen honey? Yeah. Moroccan fashion. Well, at least they say so. By the way, I lived in Morocco for one month. I stayed in a surf camp in the village. But also I visited my friends and stayed with them in different cities. I visited eight cities of Morocco. And I tried to wear one of these dresses. I believe they're named Kaftan. So beautiful. You like this Indian dress? But it's not Indian. I don't think it is. Yeah, it doesn't look Indian. But I like it. Look, it's all like patchwork. Not very authentic. It says that these are Indian clothes. But when I stayed in India, they weren't like this at all. They wore sari. Maybe this is from the other part of India. I heard that all the regions are so different. By the way, I also lived for one month in India with an Indian family in New Delhi. And it was such a good experience. I miss my time in India. But I was almost kidnapped there. But that's another story. What is it called again? Lassi. What is it made of? Buttermilk. Why is one twice the size? It comes in a random size. I'll change it. I'll change it if you want. Can I have a bigger one? Yeah, sure. I think that I tried it in India before. And it was very sour. But this one is with mango. The salt is sweet. Very dense. And so sweet. This is so weird. Everywhere they have countries and here it's just Africa. The whole continent. We finally found the Russia part. Let's see what Russian heritage and stuff they have. Lots of matryoshka dolls. Ded Moroz. How are you? I don't know why but only in the Russian part the guard told me that I can't film anything. And then he was following me and checked that I was there. I wanted to show you the Russian stamps but they kicked me out. Of Russia. They kicked me out of Russia. It's not funny. They kicked me out of Russia. We have to go to Europe. Let's go to Europe. We decided to visit the Palm and to see what it's like when you're actually there on the Palm. Kat, you said that there is also another project? Yes, it's called the World Islands. And you can't even see it when you zoom out on a map. But then you zoom in to Dubai and you can start seeing it. They're very small islands. I'm just looking up how much they invested. I believe it's 13 billion dollars to make it. Is it that good? The problem is it was this cool investment project where they wanted to sell all the islands. Because it literally looks like the world. Like the shapes of all the islands together. And it just flopped because of financial crisis. And because they realized that the water doesn't move around these islands. So it kind of stinks. You're on these really expensive islands and it smells apparently. Let's go there and see. We have to test it out. Well, they tried. Look at all of this. All artificial islands. Yeah, I think they just dumped a load of sand to make them. So interesting. Kat is saying that we're already on the Palm. Driving. Yes, I'm surprised because I expected just sand. We're driving on sand? Not driving, but the Palm. I thought that we will need to walk there. No, we can go all the way to the end. I don't know why I imagined it like this. I thought it's just like they put a lot of sand to make this Palm. And that you just walk there. And maybe there would be some cafes and restaurants. It looks just like a usual part of the city. Yeah, there's like apartments here. And I thought that it's very narrow. Like you are on this narrow line of sand. And you see water from both sides. That's how I imagined it. Maybe parking. Are we the only people parking at the Palm? I think so. What's wrong with this place? Why is there no one here? Everyone is sleeping before 4 pm. Oh, yeah. No one wants to be out in the sun. It's not really graffiti. I'm really surprised. Because I thought that the Palm is a narrow line of sand. And you can see all the leaves while walking on the Palm. But it's not like this. Street art at the Palm. It's huge as a picture. There's no bricks. It's not a graffiti? No. Oh! Oh my God! Totally fake. It's not a street art. We came by the water. And it doesn't smell, I think. But no one swims here. Only taking Instagram pictures. Yeah. And there you can rent a boat as well. Over there. It's 200 dirhams. It's like 50 dollars for 15 minutes. Hi, do you work here? Yes, I'm working here. Why is no one swimming? I don't know. It's not allowed here. The rules are only here. Only allowed. It's an allowed area inside only. Swimming area only. Do you live on the Palm? Yeah, I'm living on the Palm. Do you like it here? Yeah, I'm very liking it. Every day it's different people. I'm talking, conversation. And good. Do you go swimming on the Palm? No, it's not allowed swimming in there. Only here. Restricted area here in the Palm. So now anybody swimming is not allowed here. But why? It's safety. Safety precaution, that's it. Dubai is an insanely fast developing city. Very rich and luxurious. However, here are some reasons why I wouldn't want to stay here for a long time. First, a lack of nature. I guess it's just difficult for me to be in a concrete jungle all the time. Second, I like international cities, but it feels like there is no identity here and everything seems just a bit artificial. Third, climate. It's already winter here, but still way too hot and not very pleasant to be outside. Well, I was so tired of this weather that I decided to go somewhere special. A crazy thing. I met my friend from Italy. Buongiorno, buongiorno, ragazzi. I told Ricardo that I really miss Russian winter and snow and he said, well, let's go skiing. And guess what? We're skiing. It's a photo shooting now. It's crazy. This slope is probably one and a half kilometers long. Yeah, it's crazy. No, you should go from outside and see how it looks from outside. And in the middle they even have this house with food and fruit wine. Yeah, Morrifugio. Italian refuge. Oh, come on. I'm ready to leave this place because I finished my business here. This time I liked it much more than in July because in July the climate was just intolerable. Now it's much better. But still, it's definitely not for me. I'm ready to go to the next place. I never planned to come back to the UAE. After my first visit, I couldn't even understand why anyone would want to travel to Dubai. But my life brought me here and I guess this is a part of my journey now. Well, sometimes the most scenic roads in life are the detours you didn't mean to make.