Eastern European Community/Resources (Jacksonville, Atlantic Beach: renting, crime, to buy)

[TasmanianDevil]

My wife and I have just relocated to Jax. Renting short term and trying to find a place to buy. My wife is European and I am a semi-native Floridian. Lived in Florida for about 20 years off and on but the last 10 were elsewhere.

I lived in Europe (Austria) and Eastern Europe (Ukraine and Russia) for quite some time and traveled extensively there. I speak some of the areas common languages fluently and acquired a taste for some of the food. My wife likes it too as she traveled all over Europe. Are there any areas of town with a significant population of Ukrainians or Russians? Any stores with a good selection of Ukrainian or Russian food?

We tried the European Street Cafe in San Marco but not exactly what we are looking for. They had some tasty sandwiches and the beer cheese soup was good. My wife loved their pretzel bread.

Any areas with a significant European population as well?

Currently we are living not far from the Mayo Clinic but this is very short term; 3 months max is what we anticipate. We are considering the South Jax Beach area, fairly close to JTB but east of A1A. The area seems pretty good and not so touristy/noisy as the more commercial area of Jax Beach. Any major issues with this area we should know about?

My wife really likes Atlantic Beach but our commutes could be really bad. She needs to go to the UNF area and mine can vary by the day.

She was told by coworkers to check out Nocatee and that area seems very popular on here as well. The commute seems like it could be pretty bad for her and at times miserable for me so we'll rule that out. I lived in one of these large planned communities before and I am honestly not a big fan in general.

Our approach for finding a place to live is if you are in Florida, why not be on, or very near water? We have also been looking at PVB but if you are very far down A1A, it seems like that commute can be back when coming back up to JTB.

Any feedback would be helpful.

[JacksonvilleNative]

Found a Russian-Ukrainian Church. They might can point you in the right direction.

Home Page

[TasmanianDevil]

Thanks, that could be a start. I'll give them a call.

[843904]

There's also this: Russian Orthodox Church St. John's in Jacksonville, Florida

[TasmanianDevil]

Thanks, I will check them out as well.

[masstoflor]

Regarding food, check out Amar European grocery store. They have 2 locations. I saw more Russian options, as opposed to Bosnian etc., at the Baymeadows location.

[TasmanianDevil]

Thank you so much! This looks like it will be a great option to check out when they are open. I can't wait to try it out.

[843904]

Curious: what is driving all of this Russian/Eastern European immigration to Jax? It concerns me on a national security standpoint, somewhat.

[TasmanianDevil]

I think the issues are overblown in the media. Frankly a much ado about nothing. Not to turn this into a political thing but the previous president should have acted more forcefully against Russia when they invaded Crime and Eastern Ukraine.

Also you can't lump all Eastern Europeans together. While a lot of them may speak Russian, there is also a lot of animosity against Russia. Putin's invasion of Ukraine went a long ways toward polarizing a lot of ethnic Ukrainians against Russia. Obama let Putin seize Crimea without a shot and did nothing to stop the invasion in Eastern Ukraine. Over a million people have been displaced because of that.

I would also argue that due to Obama's inability to confront Putin in anyway (even ignoring his hot mic comment to tell Vladimir that he'll have more flexibility after he is re-elected) emboldened Putin to be more involved in Syria. This led to more destabilization of the area and increased the refugee crisis that is destabilizing Europe. If there is anyone who knows how Putin is, it is the former countries in the USSR and their neighbors. They have ramped up their defense spending dramatically and it isn't to protect themselves against NATO...

So I don't really want to go down some political rabbit hole but the US media almost always gets it wrong about Russia. They are clueless and I met with our embassy people in RU and UA and they typically had no clue either about what was going on there. I watched Putin play with Obama like a cat plays with a mouse even though the mouse thought he got the better of the cat. It is what Russia does that you don't see that is of bigger concern to me (stealing of technology) and they are nowhere near as gifted as the Chinese in this regard. The Chinese just do it right through our institutions of higher learning.

Anyway glad to discuss offline rather than derailing this thread. Still enjoy the food, not a big fan of the current politics in Russia.

[masstoflor]

One might enjoy the food, fine art, architecture, ballet etc. without be an unpatriotic American. Neither the US or Russia are innocent.