Thinking of emigrating?

Russia Today summarises findings of a survey by the Levada Centre which says that the percentage of Russians wanting to emigrate is at a historic low.

The poll says that a surprisingly low 9% of Russians "are having thoughts of emigrating" while 81% "have never thought of uprooting to another country".

However, a survey from the same pollsters two years ago


said that 22% of Russians wanted to move abroad, with that percentage rising to 38% of businessmen and 45% of students, and 70% were planning to stay there.

For me that stats probably reflect a couple of things; the increase in people planning to stay could reflect the attitude of wanting to stay for the sake of the motherland in difficult times or, bearing in mind the level of students and businessmen who'd leave, the percentage who will stay reflects the perceived lack of opportunities to leave [possibly made worse that the value of any savings in Roubles to go abroad would have been slashed by the currency's recent fall].


Asking my wife, Lily, many people would actually move abroad given half a chance, especially to create better opportunities for their children. Perhaps this desire to emigrate might previoulys have been among younger people but that possibly now extends to people who are middle aged as they've been badly affected by yet another financial crisis (the last one was 2008) financially hitting their net worth/ the value of their property/ their salaries etc. People now see that they can't win in Russia; they can't save for their future.

From speaking to people when I was living there, I thought that the greater issue for people wanting to get out of  Russia was simply the opportunity to travel abroad and the cost and visa regimes often made that harder for them (whereas we take for granted our UK passport which means you can pretty much travel anywhere freely). I agree with Lily and the survey that younger people dream of going abroad and keep that as an ambition until life gets in the way.... jobs, kids, partner who says no...

In Britain, we shouldn't forget how lucky we are for our ability to travel or move abroad to work or retire, whether temporarily or permanently.

Bon voyage.

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If you're Russian, would you emigrate? Comment below to explain why or why not...