Author: Bilyana Mihaylova
Mila Dimitrova was born in Sofia, graduated from the Technical University with a degree in engineering and product design. While still in her master's degree, she started working in a company for high-quality Italian furniture, and with her husband she also had a small gallery for presenting Bulgarian artists. But at one point they put an end to their Bulgarian life and left for Germany - for the city of Gütersloh.
They have been in the new place for eight years now and are looking for their place in Germany - again in the field of furniture and design. In Gütersloh, some of their ideas seem more extravagant, but locals are happy to enter Mila's interior design shop and enjoy it, as the local press writes. Mila would be happy to offer her clients projects for complete furnishings - and not just furniture and accessories, but when the direction is clear, the path to it probably seems less difficult.
When we left for Germany, did you know at the very beginning what exactly you wanted and did you ever think of giving up over the years?
“I wanted a better future for my children - that's the only thing I knew when I left. And if our children are well, then we are well. We were also well in Bulgaria, but we assessed the situation in such a way that we could not fight and that we could not change anything - it was better to look for change somewhere else. It's not that we don't love Bulgaria, but the truth is that we wanted to be able to provide a better future for our children. We left absolutely everything behind, we didn't take anything from Bulgaria, the apartment is untouched. We just left and here we really started from scratch. In the first years I worked - both my husband and I - in factories, and at the same time we started learning the language. To practice the language, I went to make sweets or sew with older ladies so that I could contact them and practice the language to become better. My diploma was recognized - and that was complicated, it took months, and then I must have sent at least 100 job applications to companies here in the area. It was very difficult - only rejections, but after each one you have to get up and move on - to look for a job. I was given a chance by a German company where I worked for two years, but then it changed owners and there was no longer a place for me there. That's why we decided to just jump into the cold water and start doing this work ourselves, which gives me the main pleasure in life – our shop is now three years old.
We've reached a point where the difficulties are so great that you say – no, it can't get any worse, but in the end we haven't given up. It's not easy, I can absolutely say that it's not – it's a daily, hourly struggle. We came without knowing a word of German. My husband came a year before us so he could organize the move - with small children you can't just leave like that. There were difficulties at every moment – nothing happened the first time.
Have you found a difference in the requirements and challenges between Bulgaria and Germany?
Here it's more organized and the procedure is much easier. I learned to be calmer, without losing my courage. And there is no stress – the stress is not as great as it was, for example, in Sofia. Here one is calm to plan one's things.
Do you want to teach people in Gütersloh to like brighter colors for furnishing their homes, how successful is this at the moment?
Every day is different, the people who come in are different. For me, the furniture store is not the main thing - I want to design and show people that with a little help they can save a lot of costs, a lot of mistakes and build their home according to their own rules - so that it is perfect and comfortable for them. I want to make a combination between design and furniture. We have a very wide range of products that allows me to design and build a whole – a home, a restaurant or a hotel. This saves a lot of time and money. I also want to build a partner network of like-minded architects with whom we can work together.
And how do you try to convince the people of Gütersloh that they can leave their furnishings in your hands?
I show them projects, and my service is free - this is also part of the way I want to convince them not to be afraid. I offer a complete furnishing project for free, as long as the furniture is purchased from us. We have clients, but not enough - in small towns, the new is unknown, uncertain and they would rather not trust it than something that is already familiar. It takes time.
You say you came to Germany for the future of your children - do you see it yet?
They are developing well, which is important to us. They are still young – they are 10 and 11 years old, we will let them decide for themselves when they grow up a little more. I would be happy if they went into the field of furniture and design, because this is something that brings pleasure, can be well earned, it is calm as a job and gives you the opportunity to meet many, many different people. You see the result in the end and how satisfied people are. This has always been very energizing for me – building a friendly relationship that remains over time and after the work is completed.
What advice would you give to those who would embark on the same path as you?
To be ready for difficulties, to have strength and to believe in what they want to achieve. It is not easy, for which I will give a specific example – At first we decided to try the existing small business promotion programs in Germany. They are advertised with the words – we help small businesses, bold ideas, brave people, whom we want to help get on their feet and develop their own business. However, it is difficult to even arrange an appointment to discuss the possibilities when it becomes clear that you are from another country, and then it turns out that these programs are not for us - they always found a reason to refuse. I developed a business plan to present it to the Development Bank, which deals with such projects, subsidizes young businesses – but we did not even get to the conversation, because they told me that we did not meet the conditions. I was unemployed at that time and they told me that as an unemployed person I could not receive such assistance, and my husband as a full-time employee could not receive such assistance either.
There are also organizations that were open for help – they gave us information about what we should do, what kind of registration we should do, they were very responsive. So there are both positive and negative things - there are just people who are ready to help, there are people who are ready to refuse you immediately with a smile, even before they have met you. We were prepared for such a thing - after all, we are in a foreign country and we decided to come of our own free will, no one forced us or invited us.
I can't say that it is easy - it is not easy either here or in Bulgaria, it is all about perseverance and hard work. The difference is that here everything is more organized and you know what you can face. This is what we like. There are rules and they are followed by almost everyone.