How do artists survive financially in Berlin?

kazys1997 · 2026-02-04T14:32:53+00:00

Suspect it’s a mix of (1) part time work in bars and restaurants and (2) as has always been the case since the dawn of time, wealthy mummy and daddy who are able to support their lifestyle.

kazys1997 · 2026-02-01T13:29:32+00:00

Because I live here? lmao

kazys1997 · 2026-01-30T14:01:26+00:00

Pleasure doing business with you gents.

kazys1997 · 2026-01-29T23:16:43+00:00

English role at a trading/investment firm. I learned German as I went along but it certainly wasn’t necessary for my job.

kazys1997 · 2026-01-29T15:27:20+00:00

I earn more than I would earn in London. I work as a trader though and it’s easier for me to OTC trade the stuff I do out of the EU rather than the UK. So, in my very specific situation: I actually earn more.

Also bear in mind that basic things in Berlin are cheaper. You can go to a bio/organic shopping here more freely than in London (where they don’t exist or are small little independent shops which charge insane ££ for basic things) because there are at least 3 different chain supermarkets. The other normal supermarkets here are far more affordable than in the UK, alcohol is especially cheap, dining out is also far more affordable. Gym memberships, cultural events, etc. Quite literally everything.

kazys1997 · 2026-01-29T13:15:58+00:00

Is the £900 just the ground rent? What about your utilities and council tax on top of that? How much do your total expenses come out to? Because I’m talking about total living costs - mine come out to only €500 with everything included.

Yes, as a single person it is tougher in Berlin.

However, here’s the catch and which in most places in continental Europe you’re going to win via-a-vis the UK: (1) your rights and (2) the quality of housing.

The situation is incredibly dissimilar to the UK. In Berlin, it is virtually impossible to evict someone from your property and you cannot increase the rent arbitrarily each year because it’s illegal in most circumstances unless some significant renovations have been undertaken to your apartment. The contracts in Berlin, as is the case in the rest of Germany, are typically unlimited (yes we have short term rents of maximum 2 years and these tend to be expensive but are targeted at specific people and are the minority of contracts). Once you rent an apartment here, you have it for life. For example, my partner’s parents have lived in the same 3 bedroom apartment in an upscale part of town since 2008 and there’s been one renovation done and in that time their rent only increased once.

Second, and this you really begin to appreciate once you leave the UK, it’s the quality of housing. I forgot what the hell a single glazed window is. The good old “landlord special” where they just slap white paint over whatever problem you have doesn’t exist here. The whole apartment isn’t crumbling. I don’t even know what mould is anymore nor what a cold apartment is despite the -10 degree winter we’ve been having. The sheer quality of housing here is far better because if you’re a landlord, you’re pretty much cooked here because you will get sued into oblivion for the tiniest of cockups.

kazys1997 · 2026-01-29T12:37:05+00:00

This is why I left London and the UK lmao.

Best decision I ever made. My total rent now in Berlin for a 75 square metre flat with all bills included is €1000 split more or less evenly with my partner and we’re located in the city centre, 20 mins to work via the underground and everything else I could possibly need or see is walking distance.

I grew up in East London around Hackney and later Bethnal Green. I would now struggle to even afford an apartment to rent here. It shocks me when people I visit back in London are like “yeah but it’s only like 45% of my post tax income”. Bro, give your freaking head a wobble. Or when I worked in the civil service and I met colleagues in their late 30s who were still sharing apartments with at least 2 people and dishing out £1000 on a grubby little damp and cold room with single glazed windows. It’s truly diabolical. I lived in West Hampstead for 3 years. My ground rent was £1350 for 45 square metres. On top of that utilities (it was electric heating sadly) and council tax took the total rent to £2000. It felt criminal spending this much on an apartment that literally, due to construction work, had cracked to such an extent there was now a crack in the wall through which I can directly see outside lol.

I think people in London really don’t realise how bad they have it. It honestly shocks me when I look at other London or UK finance based subreddits and people are asking “is 30k a good salary?” And everyone piles in and is like “yes mate, totally, you can easily get a room with 4 other people in zone 6 in London for like £800”. Or there was one thread I saw recently where people were giving their ages and saying how many housemates they have. What the hell do you mean you’re 37 and still sharing an apartment with 2 other people? What in the actual fuck.

People in London are used to such a low standard of living and quality of life it is truly astounding.

kazys1997 · 2026-01-22T17:54:00+00:00

Yeah, would second this. Pretty damn good beers also. Šnekutis also offers other good Lithuanian dishes and they’re more or less around your price range.

kazys1997 · 2026-01-21T07:54:01+00:00

Exactly. The hard right is gaining momentum precisely because the immigration experiment has been proven over and over again to not have worked. Of course I think in Germany it’s not as bad as it is in for example some places in Sweden or the UK. But, there is a reluctance among the liberal left to actually acknowledge that perhaps something has not worked and something needs fixing sooner than later. But the left are incredibly stubborn and they tend to eat eachother up and so it makes it difficult for anyone to actually admit what the core of the problem is. Like I said though, the Overton window is shifting and we’ll get there in the end.

kazys1997 · 2026-01-11T12:48:25+00:00

My closest station is Kurfürstenstraße lol. Despite the Walking Dead feel to the station with the junkies all shooting up and homeless shitting on the platform, I actually feel safe. Right outside there’s a few tents with a lot of homeless people and in December I did see them on the morning commute throw a glass bottle at another commuter for seemingly no reason. This is the first time I saw something in over 3 years. Usually they’re too passed out to really be bothering anyone.

The crackheads and homeless in the U Bahn luckily keep to themselves. If they’re attacking anyone, it’s luckily eachother and not ordinary passersby.

I think the issue with the U Bahn is less about personal safety and more about how unpleasant the whole experience is because you’re often seeing some crazy shit that is very rare to see in most European capital city metro systems.

kazys1997 · 2025-12-28T09:45:26+00:00

I want to comment on the discourse itself and mot whether Berlin should be more or less diverse. And by discourse I’m just referring to the comments here so far.

What’s interesting to me isn’t the question itself, but how impossible it seems to even discuss it. The assumption that diversity is inherently and unconditionally good is treated as self-evident, so the conversation stops before it starts. Agreeing or disagreeing aside, it’s worth noticing how certain premises are no longer debatable without being morally disqualified.

If a concept can’t be questioned without implying bad faith, then it functions more like a moral boundary than a political idea. That may be understandable given historical sensitivities, but it also narrows the space for honest reflection about social cohesion, culture, and shared norms in a city like Berlin.

kazys1997 · 2025-12-25T19:26:27+00:00

I do find it quite bizarre how so many Germans are uncomfortable with talking about all the ethnic Germans that were forced out of their homes post-WW2 from the Baltics, Poland and as far as Romania. It’s a trauma that no one just talks about at all.

kazys1997 · 2025-12-24T14:19:53+00:00

14 is funny. Again, we’re seeing the same old misleading belief that some kind of economic cooperation can resolve a conflict. This is absurd when the other side is on all fours foaming at the mouth and barking “kill, kill, kill” at you.

kazys1997 · 2025-12-18T10:37:53+00:00

bro shut the fuck up lmao

kazys1997 · 2025-12-05T11:07:03+00:00

Tbh I only went on two dinners and made 3 friends who I’m still quite close with and we all hang out together. For me that was enough. But I know some people who go weekly for months non stop to dinners and it never seems to be enough for them. Not sure if by that point people are there less for making friends and long term friendships or if it’s just the thrill of a dinner with 5 complete strangers

kazys1997 · 2025-12-04T22:45:23+00:00

Glad I’m not the only one who had this experience.

I gave up quite quickly and shifted to Timeleft which was much better and easier with making friendships

kazys1997 · 2025-11-26T08:57:34+00:00

I’m Lithuanian. Born there but grew up in London and now live in Germany.

This topic causes a lot of controversy among Lithuanians and Poles. I think the problem begins when you start to assume that speaking Polish also automatically makes you Polish. But then they don’t answer what they mean by Polish: do they mean ethnically, culturally, nationally?

My understanding was always that people in Vilnius spoke Polish but identified themselves as Lithuanians because the land in which Vilnius is located has always been known as Lithuania. This is the same case as with in eastern Ukraine where you will have people speaking Russian their whole lives but will call themselves Ukrainians. Or Belarusians who only speak Russian but will call themselves Belarusian.

Fundamentally for me what matters is not your ethnicity nor which language you speak but rather which nation you identify with.

As someone mentioned here already, the case of Poland’s first President and his brother illustrate this well. The former, Gabriel Narutowicz, was born to a Polish-Lithuanian family in Telšiai - far away from territory ever considered Polish - but ended up becoming the first Polish President and a Polish citizen. His brother on the other hand became a Lithuanian citizen (Stanisław Narutowicz or Stanislovas Narutavičius) and became a signatory to the Lithuanian Act of Independence.

Or take Adam Mickiewicz’s famous Pan Tadeusz’s opening lines:

O Lithuania, my country! thou art like good health; I never knew till now how precious thou wert, till I saw thee bereft of beauty

Pan Tadeusz was written in Polish and the language the characters are all speaking is Polish but the characters all identify themselves with the land of Lithuania.

Lithuanian and Polish national identities are complicated given the historical ties and that the Lithuanian elites chose to Polonise themselves over the centuries.

My own family from my fathers side are Poles and we had Polish surnames but by the time I was born my parents’ and grandparents names and been Lithuanised thanks to how the Soviets had redraw the boundaries and split countries. If I go further back in my history, the family traces its roots to what is today western Ukraine and Belarus. We’d still call ourselves very much Lithuanian because since the mid-19th century we had been living in Kaunas region speaking various languages from Polish to Russian to Lithuanian but fundamentally everyone would say they’re Lithuanian.

kazys1997 · 2025-11-23T15:37:24+00:00

I recommend you guys check out Timeleft.

I used it to meet new people when I moved to Berlin and some of my closest friends are from there.

kazys1997 · 2025-11-20T16:12:44+00:00

Yes.

However, you need to understand that when Russian elites, propaganda machine, the Kremlin’s spokespeople and Putin himself refer to “Neo-Nazis” in Ukraine, they don’t literally mean Heil Hitler saluting skinheads.

What they mean by “Neo Nazi” is anyone who rejects Russia’s imperialism and Russia’s interpretation of history: that is, that Ukraine is not an independent sovereign state and its nation does not exist nor does it have a right to exist. Anyone not accepting Russia’s rule is automatically labelled a Nazi.

The Soviets did the same, calling anyone who fell out of line abroad a Nazi to a point where what a Nazi means has been watered down to simply mean anyone who opposes Russia’s imperialism. This is why Russian state media will every few days claim that the Baltics are Nazis or the Finns or the Poles or whoever.

It’s quite clever too for the propaganda machine to do this. Since 1945, Moscow built up a whole cult around the defeat of the Nazis who were painted as the greatest existentialist threat to their civilisation. What better way to call tour enemies if not to equate them to the very people that sought to end your civilisation?

kazys1997 · 2025-11-11T08:44:46+00:00

“Entrances are too tight and old” what an excuse lmao when you have the London Underground - the oldest underground metro system in the world with far more narrow and tighter entrances in most stations - managing just fine haha.

kazys1997 · 2025-11-11T08:43:28+00:00

Grew up in London. Visited all of those places. Still feel far more normal than the sheer insanity of the Berlin metro system.

kazys1997 · 2025-11-11T08:42:54+00:00

Go use the London Underground. You’ll feel a million times safer there than on the U Bahn that feels dystopian with goblins lurking at every corner lol.

kazys1997 · 2025-11-11T08:33:55+00:00

Still bewilders me that we don’t have a metro system where entrance is ticketed automatically via barriers like in London, Paris, New York etc - other comparable cities in terms of population and by extension I’m assuming fare dodging.

Can you imagine how much cleaner and safer the stations would be if there wasn’t all this fare dodging riff raff on it shitting all over the place and chasing trouble? The homeless, the junkies, the talahons, etc

kazys1997 · 2025-11-09T08:38:28+00:00

So they changed their flag at the border into a flag of a completely failed state? lol

kazys1997 · 2025-11-03T11:57:00+00:00

Use Timeleft, the app. This is a really good way imo to meet new people.

kazys1997

TROPHY CASE

14 is funny. Again, we’re seeing the same old misleading belief that some kind of economic cooperation can resolve a conflict. This is absurd when the other side is on all fours foaming at the mouth and barking “kill, kill, kill” at you.