Goran and Sanela Aksentijević have lived in Canada for years, and after the pandemic, they returned to Serbia with their family. Goran decided to renovate his family estate in the village of Drača near Kragujevac, and today he owns a flock of about thirty Romanov sheep.

After 12 and a half years of living in Canada, Goran Aksentijević 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 Drača 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 Canada, in the kitchen, starting as an assistant worker and then becoming a chef and eventually a kitchen manager. I also had a small private business for snow removal. We first thought about what we would do and how, and we decided to try living in the countryside. We currently live in the city because we don’t have the conditions to move the whole family here, but the plan is to live here in the countryside one day. On your own land, in your own village, you are in the city. We no longer have as many worries, I work for myself, for my family, for the estate, it is much easier and more relaxed for us than there,“ said Goran Aksentijević, a farmer from the village of Drača, Kragujevac, as reported by RTV.

„After living in Canada for 24 years, when I met my Goran, there was always the awareness that we would return one day, the children came one after the other, and we have three of them. The pandemic made us talk and think more about what we would do and how, and then we decided that it is better for the children to have a social life here, that it is much easier on our estate. We also brought our dog Leo, who is Canadian, we simply couldn’t leave him behind, everyone told us we were crazy, but he has such a soul that he couldn’t be left behind. As you can see, we are dealing with sheep, and every member of our family is important to us, including him, who was part of our family there, so he came on the plane with us,“ said Sanela Aksentijević.

Today, on their estate in Drača, Goran has about thirty Romanov sheep, which he describes as grateful for maintenance, fertile, and providing quality meat and milk. He is on the verge of reaching his goal of having thirty registered heads to qualify for government subsidies.

„I researched the Romanov sheep a bit on the internet before deciding on them. The best characteristic for me is their fertility, giving 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 bother them too much. I am thinking about completing the production system by making sheep cheese and drying the meat, I just need to build a cold chamber. I hope to have the opportunity to live off this and engage in this at some point, that is my goal to move here with my family,“ Aksentijević stated.

Neither Goran nor Sanela regret leaving Canada and returning to Kragujevac, and as they themselves say, their desire is to live off their work with their family in the countryside.