Slovak actress Jana Nagyová (67) became famous for her role in the cult series Arabela, where she played a princess. She made her last film in 1993 and has since disappeared from the camera. A few years ago, however, there was a spectacular comeback. During the period when Nagyová was not engaged in acting, she was not idle. Business a she gradually lived in Prague, Austria, Germany and recently chose Switzerland as her new home. She talked about life in a new country in the show.
“I’m a cosmopolitan person and so is my husband. But moving to Switzerland is a bit more complicated because the laws are different than in the EU. We had to swallow a lot of administration and deal with it. Last year, we were there for a trial for four months, when we were helping our youngest daughter with our son, and we really liked it there.” admitted Nagy, adding that the idea for the change came from her husband while they were sitting on a bench by the lake.
“We looked at that lake, at those beautiful hills, nature. I saw my soul in the reflection of that snow, in that water… It was beautiful. A my husband looks at me like that and asked me: ‘Do you like it here?’ And I say: ‘And not you?’ Then he asked me if I could imagine living here. I didn’t know Switzerland very well at the time, but I answered that I did,” explained the well-known actress.
The couple immediately started looking for an apartment, but in one breath adds that it is not an easy or cheap matter at all. “The apartments in Zurich or Lucerne are extremely expensive, I must admit. My husband is the one who has a good pension because he has many years of service so we can afford it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have gone to Switzerland at all,” Nagyová did not hide the situation.
Finally, they were lucky enough to discover an apartment with a view of the lake and Mount Pilatus. It is rented by a woman whose daughter is a young talented actress. “We arranged a meeting. The owner immediately asked what we were doing, how we were doing it, the Swiss are very careful. So we agreed, Jana’s daughter came from Vienna, and we signed the contract that day. We still didn’t know how to organize it in Germany, but we signed the contract because we knew that if we didn’t do it, the apartment would be gone.” said the native of Komárno.
Nagyová and her husband came home in August, and so the big packing began so that they could move in October. For two months, they sorted, threw away and distributed things, because they wanted to leave for the new country with only the necessary minimum. “We don’t need much in life anymore. We carry everything we’ve experienced in our hearts and heads,” said serial Arabela.
The actress also admitted in the interview that she was relieved after the change because Germany is no longer as safe a country as it used to be. “I was already afraid to go out in the evening. Even during covid, I maintained myself by brisk walking, because there was a big park behind us. For the last 2-3 years, I was afraid to go into the forest by myself, even during the day. It’s quite sad that the world is going down such a dangerous path and we have to be afraid. I wonder where we actually live that I can no longer move freely or be afraid of someone mugging me on the train,” she thought.
“Of course, something can happen everywhere. I never rule anything out, but in Switzerland it’s not that bad because the country is small and not everyone can get there. When we applied for the opportunity to live there, we had to state exactly what we had – property, pension – so that we would not be at the expense of their social benefits. We got a two-year permit, we didn’t even expect more. In this respect, they are very digitized compared to Germany,” explained a well-known Slovak woman she described her experience with local authorities.
“It was enough to copy everything – passports, tax returns, bank accounts – we sent it to the office with everything scanned. They wrote to say thank you, they received such a number of documents, we don’t need to write to them anymore, they will get in touch when they process it. I didn’t want to believe it when we received the permit in two weeks. We could move, we are welcome and they wrote to us what we still need to do right in Švačiarsk. It went really fast. I have to say that they have everything incredibly organized there,” concluded Nagyová.
