Goran and Sanela Aksentijevic lived in Canada for years, but after the pandemic, they returned to Serbia with their family. Goran decided to renovate his family estate in the village of Draca near Kragujevac, and now he owns a flock of around thirty Romanov sheep.
After living in Canada for 12 and a half years, Goran Aksentijevic returned to Serbia at the end of 2021 with his family. Together with his wife Sanela, he decided to renovate his family estate in the village of Draca near Kragujevac. Although he had never been involved in agriculture before, Goran had always thought about returning to the countryside.
„I worked in a restaurant, in the kitchen, first as a helper, then I became a cook, and then the head chef. I also had a small private business for snow removal. We looked at what we should do and how we should do it, and we decided to try it in the countryside. Currently, we live in the city because we don’t have the conditions for the whole family to move here, but the plan is to live here in the countryside one day. You are on your own land, in your village and town. We don’t have as many worries anymore, I am here, working for myself, for my family, for the estate, it is much easier and more relaxed than there,“ said Goran Aksentijevic, a farmer from the village of Draca, Kragujevac.
„I lived in Canada for 24 years. When I met my Goran, there was always this awareness that we would return one day, the children came one after the other and we have three of them. The coronavirus made us talk more and think about what we should do and how we should do it, and then we decided that the social life here is better for the children, it is much easier on our estate. We also brought our dog Leo, who is Canadian, we simply couldn’t leave him, everyone told us we were crazy, but he has such a soul that he can’t be left behind. As you can see, we are raising sheep, and every member of our family is important to us, including him, who was a part of our family there, so he came with us on the plane,“ said Sanela Aksentijevic.
Today, on his estate in Draca, Goran has about thirty Romanov sheep, which, as he says, are grateful for maintenance, fertile, and provide quality meat and milk. He is on the verge of having thirty registered animals so that he can benefit from state subsidies.
„I did some research on Romanov sheep on the internet before deciding on them. I think the best feature is that they are fertile and give birth to two, three, four lambs, sometimes even more. Their meat is very tasty and good for eating, they are easy to raise and quite resistant to diseases and cold, where winter doesn’t really bother them much. I am thinking of completing that production system by making sheep cheese and drying the meat, I just need to build a cold room. I hope that at some point I will have the opportunity to live off this and engage in this, that is my goal to move here with my family,“ Aksentijevic stated.
Neither Goran nor Sanela regretted leaving Canada and returning to Kragujevac, and as they say themselves, their desire is to live off their own work with their family in the countryside.
