My dream life in Cornwall turned into a nightmare! I gained weight because you have to drive everywhere and the cafes only serve Cornish pasties, it's impossible to get a cleaner and the nearest Zara is 2 hours away

Daily Mail​

18-05-2025

While London might be the centre of the world for some, for Anya Kuvarzina, the bustling capital was too much.
Dreaming of a quieter life beside the sea, walking on sandy beaches and nipping down to the local village shop, the mother-of-one made the decision to uproot her life with her partner and move to Cornwall in 2021.
But the idyllic seaside town of Penzance quickly turned in to a nightmare for the art agent and illustrator.
Instead of beaches and quaint coffee mornings with new friends in local cafes, Anya found herself isolated and lonely.
Rather than expanding her horizons, she felt trapped, relying on a car to complete even the most mundane of daily tasks like the supermarket shop.
Locals complained about her relocation and told her to go back to London; she couldn't go shopping at Zara or Marks & Spencer, and she put on weight because you have to drive everywhere - all while struggling to find a cleaner or any tradesmen to help her do up her new home.
Now five years later Anya told MailOnline she has finally settled in to her new home but has issued a warning to others considering making the move to be prepared for a less than idyllic start.
Anya, 36, originally from Russia moved to the UK when she was 16 and lived in Walthamstow, London for years.
The artist enjoyed going to the theatre, popping in to one of the five local coffee shops that lined her high street and window shopping down Oxford Street.
But during the 2020 lockdown, Anya found herself feeling stuck in her London flat with a newborn baby and rowdy neighbours.
'I just wanted to escape, just run away as far as possible.' she said.
'It was everything together with the neighbors, and with just giving birth, which was traumatic. So for some reason I thought that if we run away it's just going to fix all the problems.
So in 2021, Anya and her partner went on a holiday down to Cornwall and fell in love with the quaint fishing villages.
'I always thought it was just incredible, and so beautiful and different from London,' she said.
And so the couple sold their home and were able to buy somewhere almost five times bigger than their flat in north east London.
While the first few weeks were lovely, Anya said she didn't realise how isolated she would feel in the remote location.
Anya explained she had anticipated spending lots of time at the beach but between doing up the house and looking after her daughter, she didn't have any time to enjoy he view she had relocated for.
Describing her routine, she said: 'Working online every day, taking care of the kids, cleaning the house and solving daily problems. And we didn't even really have any of those moments that I thought I would, like surfing every day.'
'I just felt more and more isolated, and actually hit rock bottom.'
Anya said she struggled moving out of London without the amenities she had previously enjoyed.
She said: 'I always loved going to restaurants, eating out. I love going to art galleries and shows, and I loved shopping, and I completely ignored that, and in my mind created this idea of like, just me being happy by the sea.
'The reality is, we don't even have a shop here for clothes.'
The artist agent revealed that if she wants to go shopping she has to do it online because physical shops such as Zara, Primark and Marks and Spencer are a two- hour train ride away.
Anya said: 'I like cool shops and I worked in an independent clothes shop in London. And I loved all the quirky brands but I'm not able to get anything shopping wise here.'
The mother-of-one said she even needs a car to do her weekly supermarket shop and her home is so remote she can't walk anywhere which led her to gain weight when she first moved.
'I've gained weight here because to go anywhere is you need a car And just going out for a walk by the time you get to the sea you need to drive quite a distance so then I've found myself not going out as much as when I was in London.'
Anya also revealed she can't even treat herself to the odd takeaway, explaining that they take a long time to arrive and there are limited options.
'In London I always ordered something on Deliveroo, and you can get anything you want within 15 minutes but here you have to plan it out,' she said.
'Waiting for a takeaway here can take you two hours and there's nothing on Deliveroo. Nothing on Uber Eats other than McDonald's, which is not what I would order.'
Anya also confessed she struggled to meet new people and do without her familiar chain brands.
'In London when you're in a coffee shop you're with like-minded people. You see, other families who are just like like you, whereas here we don't even have a Costa, or Starbucks,' she said.
'There are some coffee shops, but just not as many. You need to actually make an effort to get to them and some of them are half an hour away.'
The Penzance local also explained that she hadn't considered the number of tourists before moving and found that many of the local businesses are geared towards the influx of summer visitors.
For example she said she can never find a regular bakery and instead has to fight through hordes of tourists only to be greeted by rows upon rows of Cornish pasties instead of a sourdough baguette.
'Everything is geared towards tourists,' Anya said, 'So, for instance they'll have ten pasty shops selling Cornish pasties but there's no coffee shops for people who just live here.'
But the Londoner told MailOnline that while she feels like a local, she's not always been treated like one and recalled one instance where she was told off for her parking by a neighbour.
Anya explained that as soon as she began to apologise, she was told: 'You shouldn't be here, you're a tourist, go back to where you came from'.
Other barriers to Anya assimilating included not getting involved in local gossip and the Londoner revealed she didn't realise so much of rural life was conducted on Facebook.
Because Anya wasn't in the local groups she found it difficult to find a cleaner or tradespeople to help her with her new home.
She explained: 'Getting a cleaner was impossible. They only want to do the Airbnb's, they don't want to do private clients.'
The mother added that tradespeople had a similar attitude and it took her a long time to find a property due to the high prices and volume of short-term lets for tourists.
After trying and failing to make the best of her new move Anya moved out on her own with her daughter and started her own business Art Lab Agency.
She said having her little girl was a godsend and while the first few years were hard, Anya has managed to make friends and get in to a routine since her daughter started school.
Anya said: 'It really helped me with my daughter, getting to stage where she was going to school, and I was meeting more people through taking her to classes.
'I was meeting people, and the more I talked to them I actually realised there were people on the same page. I've met some people who've moved down because they were escaping their own demons and I actually found a group of friends who are in the same situation as me.'
Now she's looking on the positive side and appreciates the slower pace of life, more disposable income and the new circle of friends she has.
'It's not like super perfect,' she said, 'but, on the other hand, it does give me a lot of stability, and I have a friendship circle now which is really supportive, and it's very family friendly, and it is very calm.'
She advised others thinking of making the move to record their London life including basic things like shopping, or going to a cafe then see if it can be replicated on holiday in somewhere more remote to see if it would work.