'Shame and anger': why young educated Russians are leaving the country en masse

After the outbreak of war in Ukraine, educated young Russians began to leave the country en masse, but some left even before that. They shared with the publication Fortune with their stories and told how difficult it was to leave, but also impossible to stay.

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Three months ago, Sonya, a 25-year-old girl working for a large mobile games company and moonlighting as a tutor, made one of the most difficult decisions of her life - she left Russia.

She had an old but cozy communal apartment in the center of Moscow with her boyfriend and two other neighbors, a tight-knit group of friends, and she attended classes at the local dance academy several days a week - the passion of her life.

"This is my home. My family and friends are there. All my life. How can you refuse all this? she wonders.

But like countless other young, educated Russians, Sonya, who asked to be identified only by her first name, packed her bags and fled the country after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

According to the FSB's own estimates, more than 3,8 million Russians left between January and March of this year.

Some left for work or travel, but many left because of Russia's war with Ukraine. Other estimates place the number of people who left because of the war between 300 and 000 million. The exact number is still unknown. According to a recent survey by the non-governmental organization OK Russians, the average age of Russians who left the country after February 3,8 is 24, with 32% of them having higher education.

And as the war approaches the six-month mark, the country is experiencing a second wave of emigration. Now people and families are leaving who needed more time to settle their affairs. While estimates vary widely, this year's mass exodus is comparable to the initial emigration from Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed and 1992 million Russians left in 1993-1,2. The exodus of educated citizens, experts say, could destroy sectors from journalism to academia to technology.

Sonya was part of the second exodus. In March, she bought a ticket for the cheapest flight, which cost $650 (only a little less than her monthly salary of $750) and left in May. She, in her words, realized early on that life in Russia "is unbearable because of the war, the state in general, inhuman and anti-democratic laws and the ruined economy."

“Every day we experienced and still experience an uncontrollable flow of shame and anger,” she assures.

For a better future

Almost overnight, Putin's war with Ukraine has turned Russia into a global pariah and plunged the economy into chaos.

International leaders condemned the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Western countries brought down unprecedented sanctions on the country, including disconnecting it from the SWIFT international payment system.

On the subject: 'This is an idiotic war': Russian paratrooper, who visited Ukraine, told what he thinks about the invasion

Since February, more than 1000 global companies have curtailed their activities in Russia, limiting employment opportunities and access to goods and services for Russians. Inflation jumped to almost 18% and real wages fell 7,2% in April.

In the first quarter of this year, the number of Russians living below the poverty line rose to 20,9 million, or 14,3% of the population, from 12,4 million in the last quarter of 2021, an increase of almost 67%, according to the Russian government. . Former Putin aide Andrei Illarionov said in April that number could double or triple as the war continues.

As a result, young people in Russia see an uncertain and unstable life ahead because of the war. They oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine more than other demographics, according to polls and experts, because they want neither war nor isolation from the rest of the world.

“They feel more strongly than other groups that the war has robbed them of their future,” Ksenia Kirillova, a specialist at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), told Fortune.

Last June, 23-year-old Roman Pastukhov left his hometown of Blagoveshchensk, a small Russian town from which China can be reached in 5 minutes on a pontoon. He knew he had to leave Russia to pursue a recognized postgraduate degree and received a scholarship to study environmental science and technology in Japan.

Pastukhov said Russia's social, political and economic problems that have accumulated over the years have made life in Russia unattractive.

“The average job will get you nowhere,” he said, citing low wages, high inflation and an unstable ruble.

Pastukhov and his wife Anastasia planned to return to Russia to see their family and decide on the next chapter of their lives. But Putin's war has confirmed that life there will only bring financial instability and repression. After February 24, Pastukhov lost access to his investment accounts due to Western sanctions against Russian banks.

He says that at first he was most upset and afraid for his friends in Ukraine. Now he is appalled at how state propaganda affects Russians.

“We realized that we would not be able to return to Russia in the near future. Once we enter, we may not be able to get out. For now, staying out of the country seems like the safest option,” Pastukhov said.

“The creative class that I know has already left Russia”

For more than a decade, 32-year-old digital artist Grishanti Holon (professional pseudonym) has been involved in radical art groups, including the infamous anti-government collective Voina, and has been putting up anti-Putin posters.

Despite such activity, the government recognized his work and awarded him the title of "Talent of Russia" in 2019. But he says that life under the Putin regime had by then become unbearable because free creative and political expression was impossible.

By December 2021, "the atmosphere had become so tense" that he left Moscow for Bali with his partner and professional team. The artist believes that if he tried to do this after the start of the war, he would not have succeeded.

“I am more than sure that I would have been detained and put in jail,” Holon admits.

After the outbreak of the war, he stopped the NFT digital project in partnership with the Russian state bank Sberbank halfway through, as he did not want to support the country's war effort, even indirectly.

Now, says Holon, “the vast majority of the creative class that I know has already left Russia. Our community in Bali alone has several hundred members.”

Academics, activists and tech workers are also leaving en masse. About 10% of the Russian technical workforce has left or is planning to leave the country.

Elena, a 31-year-old freelancer who creates content on YouTube, shared her story of how she fled Moscow for Istanbul in March. Her elderly parents ask when she will return, but Elena says she does not plan to do so because, as she herself said, "the news and ideas coming from the Russian government scare me."

She has now learned basic Turkish and opened an account with a European digital bank. Elena says her friends have settled in Brazil and South Korea.

“Educated people who understand the real situation are leaving the country; sell their houses, draw up various documents and learn foreign languages,” she explains.

In January 2021, Andrey Gusev, 36, head of blockchain game development at Sabai Ecoverse, left Zelenograd, a small town near Moscow, for Phuket in search of a better career. He has no plans to return.

“Seventy percent of my friends who were in intellectual fields … such as information technology, science and engineering have left or are actively looking for ways to leave Russia,” he noted.

Another tech worker, Alexander Salomatov, founder of the metaverse and crypto consulting company Soulmate Consulting, left Moscow for Bali in January of this year. He wanted to develop technology projects with a global team and user base, which seemed difficult in Russia. But it was the war that solidified his belief that “now is not the best time” to live in Russia and traditional allies like Belarus and Kazakhstan.

“I can’t imagine what good will happen in Russia if all the most talented, energetic and enterprising people leave their homeland,” says Holon.

Lost human capital

An exodus of human capital — tech workers, scientists, journalists and anti-war activists — could wipe out certain sectors and hurt the Russian economy, which is already reeling and largely cut off from international trade and business.

The country has now lost "its most valuable human resource," said Michael Reynolds, director of Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian studies at Princeton University.

“These are young, educated, talented and entrepreneurial Russians who, with their education and skills, could become leaders in the Russian economy and contribute to its growth,” he stressed.

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Some Russians will continue to contribute to the domestic economy by working remotely and by organizing export-import operations in countries such as Turkey, Armenia and India, can act as a sanctions buffer. But "much of that talent will be lost," Reynolds predicts.

Experts say the Russian economy will not just collapse due to an outflow of talent.

The supply of talented and skilled workers remaining in Russia is “enough to keep the economy afloat,” said Margarita Zavadskaya, a senior fellow in the social sciences at the University of Helsinki.

Approximately only 30% of Russians have passports allowing them to travel abroad.

“But those who replace those who leave are likely to be, on average, less qualified and more politically compliant,” she suggests.

Some young Russians who have stayed, such as poet and teacher Katya V., who told her story in March, say she and her friends who stayed in Russia did so to support their families and protest from within.

“I don’t want to give up everything here so that the government enjoys ruling without any resistance,” she said.

“But the bottom line is that the Russian economy is losing competent and competitive workers,” Zavadskaya emphasizes.

Putin has sought to portray the country's brain drain as a positive thing and has called Russians who left the country and those with pro-Western views "traitors" who seek to destroy Russia.

“The problem is that their slave mentality is there, not here, with our people. I am convinced that such a natural and necessary self-detoxification of society will strengthen our country,” Putin said earlier.

But the government is showing signs that it cannot let the emigrants go so easily.

The Russian human rights organization Perviy Otdel reported in May that FSB officers began contacting relatives of those who had fled the country, asking them to return.

And Russia's prospects for rebuilding and re-accumulating its lost human capital will end up being difficult in the short term under Putin, who is still in power.

“The economic revival of Russia is possible only if the destructive war ends and the existing political regime collapses,” Zavadskaya is convinced.

Russia will need to be promised economic and political stability to win Russians back, Reynolds said. But, he emphasizes, "there is no chance for stability now."

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