About the project

About the «Vibe South of France» project

This site is the public front door to a living Russian-speaking community in the South of France. It exists for exactly one thing: to help our people find their own and join the chat.

Why this site exists

The community has a lively Telegram chat, but finding it is hard when all you’re doing is googling “Russians in Montpellier” or “moving to the South of France”. This site is the bridge between search and chat: you look up an answer to your question, find an honest, useful page, and along with it an invitation to your own people.

That’s why the model is simple and the same on every page: an invitation card on top (want the chat? one tap) and genuinely useful text below it (even if you never join, your question is answered).

What we believe

  • Honesty beats volume. Better fewer pages with verified facts than hundreds of empty clones. We don’t churn out templated pages just to pad the count.
  • No making things up. Addresses, prices, schedules, contacts — only what’s real and verifiable. What we don’t know, we say “check in the chat”.
  • No hidden tricks. What a person sees is what a search engine sees. We don’t hide keywords and we don’t feed robots a different text.
  • The community is not a product. Joining is free, and people’s contacts are published only with their consent.

Who runs it

The site and the chat are run by community volunteers — ordinary Russian-speaking residents of the South of France for whom this isn’t a job but a way to help their own. So in some places we know a city inside out, and in others we’ll honestly point you to ask in the chat.

Contacts

All conversation happens on Telegram: t.me/vibe_montpellier. That’s also where to send suggestions, corrections, and requests for a guide to a new city.

Frequently asked questions

Are you a relocation agency?
No. We’re a non-profit, volunteer-run community. We don’t sell services and we don’t take a cut. Everything here is people self-organizing to help one another.
Where do you get your city data?
From open official sources (préfecture websites, OFII, CPAM, CAF, parish schedules, transport operators) and from the real-world experience of people in the chat. Anything we can’t verify, we don’t publish.
How do I add my city or fix a mistake?
Message us in the chat at t.me/vibe_montpellier. If your city has our people and real data, we’ll build a detailed guide. Spotted an inaccuracy? We’ll fix it.

This is your chat in the South of France

Questions about moving, housing, doctors, schools, where to buy buckwheat — and just good company. ~400 people in the chat answer in Russian every day. Free.