The Putin Exodus: The New Russian Brain Drain
publications.atlanticcouncil.org
publications.atlanticcouncil.org
The political climate and economic instability, combined with knowledge of historical precedents makes me believe that Russian people’s future is very dim, as is their past over the whole life of that troubled country.
When we immigrated in 2012, I already had a son and as a father I couldn’t find it conscionable to state.
I didn’t want to be someone who decided to stay in Germany of 1935.
What are you referring to exactly ?
Now I totally see which aspects of 1935 in Germany parent has in mind when thinking about contemporary Russia.
I can see how Sarah Kirsch's birth was a foretelling sign for things to come.
Totally helping, totally awesome.
"Because Hitler" is way too vague. It doesn't tell anything about which events seem similar to OP and how the situation in the country is evolving. Unless he means Putin is acting and thinking like Hitler which is a gross generalization and still doesn't tell much about what's happening.
By that reasoning it follows that OP should have left the country when Putin was first elected president in 1999.
edit: Also, Hitler became head of state in august of the previous year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_in_Germany
So, why 1935 and not 1934 ? But that's okay, OP clarified things https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19521632
I am curious why this is downvoted and people seem to be OK with the Hitler rising to power comparison when we usually have political conversation here that are going much much deeper in the details of things.
Right now russian government is trying to create own "internet", separated from the global net, control every call/sms on the phones and every bit of traffic.
Law about the "fake news" started today: if some person wrote a commentary (or post/article) about the people from the government (or their friends) and content was negative, then this person will be charged with fee. If you think that somebody is going to check that news are real or not - you have no idea about "laws" in russia :)
I had a conversation with my grand-mother years ago about if it could have known it was better to leave. Some people knew, of those most couldn't leave.
Russia's whereabouts appear now and then on the TV but it's soon replaced by something else so it doesn't stay on our mind for long (enough ?).
I actually don't have a lot of info about russia. I know they engage in online trolling, that they have a whole org dedicated to bashing the EU and NATO in the media and that at some point there was a weirdly oriented map in the president's office that showed Russia as somehow cornered by continental Europe.
I also hear about how journalists are threatened by politics and the murder of that woman on Putin's birthday. And the invasion/incursion.
But then nothing changes here and Brexit linger on and on.
Interestingly Sigmund Freud only left the continent when the anschluss happened so it's quite hard to predict that kind of thing.
The reasons are not political though. Even though her salary effectively halved, she says her quality of life generally improved, because:
1. The weather is better.
2. The food is better.
3. People are nicer.
Which caught me off guard somewhat because Poland is not really known for any of these things.
Hell, for the exactly same reasons I spend a considerable fraction of the year in Italy instead of Warsaw where I'm based.
The elections in 2011-2012 were undoubtedly faked to a major degree. But these years most people in Russia praise Khuylo for the victory in fratricidal war with Ukraine.
Just one of endless examples: Military Academy of Strategic Rocket Forces now has department (faculty) of Orthodox Christianity. It's just one of examples of total madness and degradation - church gains more and more power in Russia.
Back in 2007, it was very certain that the country was bordering on turning North Korea any day. As somebody faring from a more or less privileged background, my parents heard of credible rumour of Kremlin looking up to "quick, clean war," and that was the last straw for them.
I saw tons and tons other far-easterners from Russia in China, Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea. Some leave for jobs, some move permanently.
Back in nineties, there were mostly engineers leaving for plumpy jobs in Chinese state companies, but in this wave I see far more regular people.
Upd: HN, the place where you get downvotes by agreeing to answer some questions. That's why I stopped coming.
In some areas Russia still becomes a better place to live, but if you compare it to Europe proper it still lacks in so many ways and the gap is not closing anytime soon, if not getting wider.
And the only news which come is about new restrictions on public life and political free speech.
As my colleague said to me 5 years back, "all of my canaries are now dead"
Your colleague should not keep his canaries in a mine in Siberia!
Joke aside, thanks for your comment, sorry for the downvotes, and good luck to you
And how has the 'work life' changed in the last 20 years? Basically, since the Internet became a thing. Can you tell a distinct difference?
I was on internet before my first job so ot is hard to say. It's a mixed bag. There are jobs which are bureaucratic hell (especially in large Soviet-survivor companies outside large cities), there are jobs which pay peanuts and productivity is non-existent (government sector), but then there's modern economy with nice offices, passable atmosphere and fine work-life balance. If you're not in IT and not splurging on natural resources wealth somehow, the pay is low.
Another thing is, since this 'freedom' for LGBT is relatively very new, most of them experienced very troubled childhood/puberty. It must have been very hard to fit in, not disappoint parents etc. yet feeling so out of place compared to rest of the crowd. Russia as a nation would benefit greatly from such an openness in long term, but I can't see it happening anytime soon.
Been there once (Elbrus), generally common folks are really nice, but this soviet mindset of fuck-it-all-lets-drink-some-vodka (and other like that) are bane of a modern free Russian society. One of examples how just having a lot of smart people isn't enough if there is enough negative things to counter-balance it. World moved to greener pastures, but Russia still seems like stuck in 1991.
2. Maybe I was like that before 2008 or so. Didn't make a difference either way.
If there was other Russian state, like Taiwan is for China, I think I'd jump ship and go for it. There isn't.
Upd: HN throttles me so have to answer here:
Even before 2014, Ukraine put their bet on propelling Ukrainian language and culture. Which from my perspective put them in the same ballpark as Czechia or Croatia. Surely, most people in Ukraine still speak Russian but their culture is 2nd class citizen.
Belarus is a small and boring dictatorship. They're either going the way of Ukraine or, as rumors go, get annexed by Russia. Back to square one. But otherwise it could be an option.
As for placing interests of Russia above my own: aren't we all do it sometimes in any country? Actually this is a trick question since Russians as a nation way overspent on loyalty to regimes in XX century.
Are Belarus and Ukraine too distinct from Russia to you? I realize that historically, these were part of Ruthenia and then Lithuania (and Poland-Lithuania), but ethnographically, they are still part of the Rus cultural spectrum like Novgorod and Muscovy were and unlike, say, Kazakhstan or Georgia.
Ukraine is a questionable choice since they seem to want to get away from any commonality with Russians as soon as possible, including the language.
You saying otherwise is making me question your motivations.
I moved from Russia in 2012, and would gladly move to Ukraine, if not for that movement away from the Russian language.
1. Russia and Ukraine were the same country until 1991. The culture was exactly the same until that time. Until less than half a decade ago, Ukraine was led by a Russian puppet. Believing the culture is "different" is blatantly ignorant or deceitful, and it's unlikely the poster is the former.
2. Russia is stressing the difference between itself in Ukraine to rouse support for its take over of Crimea.
This is how a nationalist can strongly oppose a nation's current government, when the government is not caring for the nation's prosperity (in the nationalist's eyes).
Most liberation movements across the world were and are openly nationalist.
That may be because you wrote Russian nationalist (a person with strong patriotic feelings), when you possibly meant Russian national (a citizen of a particular country).
I think you might have meant "Russian national" instead of "Russian nationalist". Calling ones self a nationalist around here is highly unpopular because that term is loaded with negative connotations for left leaning upper middle class Americans that mostly make up HN. You say "nationalist" and people think of someone that stands for everything that's the opposite of they do and then they down-vote.
Don't be fooled with Dostoyevsky and Chaikovsky legacy - these times are gone and people who had read more than 1 book of Dostoevsky or can name at least one work of Chaikovsky - they are pretty rare, around 0.01% of population. If you have good education - it's a reason to hate you. If you can't afford good education but read a lot of books - it's a reason to hate you even more. And I'm talking not about hatred from kids - adult, grown up people sincerely HATE anybody who loves ANY kind of culture. Books, dancing, music - anything.
So when internet removed the borders, it was just question of time when "brains" will start "draining".
I haven't actually tried the experiment, so I could be under-estimating what the reaction would be. But, yeah, I agree. People who equate the two countries don't get it.
That said, doombolt quoted a colleague as saying "all of my canaries are now dead". Well, most of mine are still alive, but they don't look too healthy...
Right now it is still fairly safe to be an "American dissident". There are a lot of things wrong with the US, it has its share of inequality, injustice, corruption and human rights violations, and it seems like we're going more one step forward/two steps back at the moment, but progressive change is still something you can fight for.
There is still a chance of winning, and more importantly, it's still safe to lose. Not in the "things can't get worse" sense, but in the "if you come at the king" sense. In the US, you can challenge the reigning kleptocrats, expose their crimes, embarrass them, and then fail to remove them from power, and while it is frustrating and depressing, you can still live a long and happy life.
It's when that last part stops being true[*] that I would start asking myself if it is time to get out.
Arguments for staying: high rate of pay I guess. Also, maybe some people enjoy living this way. I don't!
There’s just a tremendous amount to unpack here.
The United States is a vast, nonhomogenous, capitalistic culture with it’s fair share of issues.
The war in Iraq was a travesty and reconstruction efforts were unmitigated money grabs by a certain subset of well connected contractors.
The war in Afghanistan has gone on for almost two decades and appears unlikely to ever be “won” in any traditional sense of the word.
Despite that, our continuing presence there is actually a rather mature decision to not let millions of Afghani peoples fall back under the oppressive and horrid Taliban rule they were under before.
We have issues with undue corporate influence, and the issue of voting weight disproportionality among our citizens when the Senate, gerrymandering, and Electoral College are taken into account are indeed insane.
However. There is a very clear difference between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans, excluding this horror story of a Presidency, have something like 38 times the number of indictments as compared to Democrats when taken on an equal number of years in power.
Republicans consistently expand the deficit while cutting social programs.
They investigate Benghazi for six years then moan about a two year investigation.
Enough about that distinction, but it goes on. The Republicans are a drastically different party than the Democrats. And no, the Democrats aren’t perfect.
But you know who had plans for fixing infrastructure and the opiod crisis? Democrats. And they still do. Go look at their policy positions. Staggeringly enough there actually well thought out and decent, progressive policy initiatives laid on Sanders’, Warren’s, and Clinton’s websites.
Finally. The young people of America are fantastic. Gay rights have moved forward dramatically in the last two decades. The MeToo movement is helping to stamp out a culture of sexualization and rape throughout our industries.
We produce culture, and planes, and tremendous advancements in science, and research.
And our framework has held up pretty damn well against a clearly authoratative demagogue.
The post WWII period which has been centrally defined by the rise of American Hegemony features plenty of mistakes, but it’s also been the singular most peaceful era of global history and seen the greatest decrease in world poverty.
So please don’t reduce us to “drugged to muh gills” and “endless war”.
FWIIW I was born in the US and lived here almost my entire life; I don't plan on dying here. Good on you for sticking it out: I'll vote with my feet while I still can.
And the Democrats who started those wars.
And the Democrats who give tax cuts to the wealthy.
And the Democrats who get indicted for corruption constantly.
The idea that the Obama administration is as left as we can get is some seriously revisionist history which disregards which party was continually blocking any attempt at progress the other party made.
The Democrats never blocked Supreme court nominees for a year, or stone walled any attempt at legislation put forth by the other party.
No Democratic Senate Majority Leader ever said “our only goal is to make this guy a one term President”. And during the Bush years there were many examples of bipartisan initiatives which went forward.
That all ended after Obama’s second year as President when Republican’s won the House and Senate and decided the only thing they would be for was being against Obama.
You’re placing the blame on both parties for the Obama administration and yet only one party is to blame for the abject lack of forward progress during that administration.
And despite that, under Obama millions and millions of American’s gained healthcare, gays got the right to marry, the United States came out of an absolutely tremendous recession, the US scaled back it’s wars in the Middle East, and the US regained some of the respect it lost under the Bush administration.
And yes, I, and the US as a whole absolutely produce tremendous amounts of culture, technology, science, and research.
No idea where you think Hollywood movies come from, or many of the advances in healthcare, or silicon valley came from.
Many advances in healthcare? Name one! The US population's average lifespan is declining; something that has never happened before. Yay muh "health care" and alleged medical advancements. Hollywood is garbage, and I don't watch it, basically, at all. Your civilization is declining, physically, culturally, even technologically. The last interesting technological thing the US did was search engines, and that happened in the 20th century.
Anyway, you can console yourself with the fact that I'm leaving! And every time I interact with people like you, or your ideological opposite, I'm more determined to GTFO the sinking ship while I still can.
However...where else would you go? A Nordic country? Switzerland? I think you would want some place high on the freedom list that has a good economy and also a strong enough military to not have to worry about getting steamrolled. I don't think there are too many that meet that list.
Switzerland is hard to beat as far as long term stability goes, but one of the reasons it is hard to beat is they don't just let anybody in.
Yea...a little weird as an American citizen, I have trouble comprehending places which basically don't ever let you become a citizen.
That his approval rating holds steady at 42% no matter how awful he gets, and that congress supports him is what is super disturbing.
They do have the number of immigrants per country. But it is very possible that the people who ended up in, say, Rural Colorado, don't have the same profiles as those the survey picked.
Also, speaking of foreign interference: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/support/supporters
Or maybe those were proportionate, even restrained responses to warmongering activities by the US, such as.... er... the Obama attempt at a diplomatic 'reset' with Russia perhaps? Maybe it was scrapping the Bush era defence shield plan that pushed them over the edge, or maybe cancelling sanctions against the Russian arms export agency was the last straw.
In fact this is probably literally true. If there's anything we've learned about Putin, it's that cutting him slack just gives him more rope with which to hang you later.
Putin views NATO moving eastward as a threat. He's not totally insane to do so - Hitler nearly broke the USSR starting from the middle of Poland. If he had started from the middle of the Ukraine instead, the USSR might well have not survived.
But that history only makes Putin not totally insane. He's still mostly nuts on this, because first, NATO is a defensive alliance. Second, there is exactly zero appetite in most of the NATO members for any kind of a major war - even a defensive war, I question whether they would actually fight the way the treaty requires them to. And third, the reason NATO is expanding is because those countries feel threatened by Russia and therefore want a big block of allies to protect them. They sought membership in NATO; NATO or the US didn't push them into it. If Russia were less aggressive, those countries would feel less need to join NATO.
Wake me up when Russia foments a coup in Canada and the US annexes Vancouver or whatever.
Russian government isn't nice, but the US and Nato have done nothing but make the situation worse, and justify Russian repression.
I just don't accept that the US fomented anything in Ukraine. The people on the streets were Ukrianian citizens. Legitimate native protesters are routinely painted as foreign agents, but that doesn't make it the case.
There is no real reason for Ukrain and Russia to be at odds like this. Ukrainians have done nothing whatever to deserve the shoddy, dishonest knives in the back Russia has been dishing out to them. Ordinary Russians should be ashamed and humiliated by the way their government is ruthlessly betraying Ukrain and bullying ordinary Ukrainians at every turn. All they wanted was to function as an independent state and have friendly relations with the rest of Europe, but this was too much for Putin to stomach. What kind of example would that set for Russians?
Ukraine now has an active, boisterous and unruly democracy just as it should. That's a sign of health, compared to the sham opposition groups that always vote with the government and suspiciously overwhelming approval ratings you commonly get under oppressive regimes.
I don't think the Russians are innocent snowflakes, and I'd sure as hell rather live in the US than Russia, but it's super obvious what their grievances are, and that the US continuing to push NATO closer and closer to Moscow, and our various ham handed attempts to influence their political system is hugely dangerous.
Since you bring up Georgia; how do you explain how our dude in Georgia, Saakashvili, showed up running a big chunk of Ukraine for a while? Does that not seem shady and "the US running Ukraine like a satrapy" to you?
Shelling Russian troops. As I remember it, that mostly involved Russian tropps, er, on Georgian territory. It was a messy conflict though.
As for Saakashvili, last I checked he wasn’t an American, so what does he have to do with America running anything?
Of course I know the answer. Trying to smear the activities of local citizens, by blaming their activities on foreign powers, is a despicable attempt at de-legitimisation that’s frankly shameful.
Even if I were to let that pass though. Suppose all those Ukrainian citizens out on the streets in the Orange Revolution were all paid US agents. That’s between Ukrain and the US, or between Russia and the US. How does it in any way justify the appalling treatment of ordinary Ukrainians and Georgians by Russia? How can Russia justify waging war against these nations on the basis of the actions of a third party? It makes no sense, of course because it’s a naked attempt to de-legitimise local citizens and change the subject.
Saakashvili is no longer a "local citizen of Ukraine" the last time I checked. He was a US puppet, imposed on Odesa Oblast. I don't think he'd ever BEEN to Odesa before; we were keeping him on ice in Brooklyn (oddly over an apartment I've stayed in) after his insane attempt to invade Abkhazia.
I suppose by your lights, the US isn't presently fomenting revolution in Venezuela, and Pinochet was totally a native Chilean organic response to Allende. Fine: if the last three years has taught us anything, it is that some people will believe anything as long as it is told in the US media.
Anyway, even if the Russian does do something crazy like attempt to take Georgia, I really don't care! It's not my business. I don't want a nuclear war over Georgia. This is a legitimate and sane political position, which somehow the military industrial complex has convinced people is actually crazy talk and that I should risk duke nukem for a country 5000 miles away most people confuse with a southern state (which has 3x the population of Georgia the country).
Still, the point is none of this America bashing in any way justifies Russia’s appalling abuses of of Ukraine and Ukrainians. It’s like a husband blaming his wife beating on how annoying the neighbours are.
Saakashvili is presently not even a Ukraine citizen any more! Imagine that!
What is being alleged, or at least vaguely suggested, is America causing a coup that would not have otherwise happened. That's simply, obviously not what occurred in Ukraine and anyway they've had many free and open elections since. America and the EU was exerting diplomatic pressure in exactly the same ways as Russia (except for poisoning Ukrainian politicians with Dioxin), none of which justifies military action.
Another thing is annexing territory of another country, that was given to that country by your previous shared and fair agreement. That agreement also mandated Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons under guarantees that Russia will not threaten it’s territorial borders.
This is how WW2 started - Hitler’s pretense was that he wanted to protect and unite the territories full of Germans that want to be part of fatherland and that were lost in WW1.
"If you give me Austria, I promise I'll stop there."
"Only the Sudetenland. Last one, I promise."
"Danzig... this is really, truly the last one, I swear."
LIE - an effort the Atlantic Council was deeply involved in
LIE - the east of Ukraine has historically always been a part of Russia
Highly subjective - my informal poll is those people wanted to be part of Russia (they tried to secede from Ukraine in 95). (other polls pre-war has shown no more than 50/50 pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian)
LIE - the US and Nato have done nothing but make the situation worse, and justify Russian repression.
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/11/02/phony-corruption-excus...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Crimean_referendum
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/06/world/crimea-parliament-v...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Autonomous...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO
I can't provide a citation for east ukraine being part of Russia, as all the old maps simply list it as "russia." Even in the brief "independence" of 1917, the East (capital in Karkov) immediately went communist under Russian direction and proceeded to conquer the rest of the place, except for the Polish west, which came later.