But as the war rages on, more Russians are deciding to pack up and leave.
“The way migration works is that once the flow begins and people start finding out how to do things — get a flat, apply for asylum, find a job or start a business — that prompts more people to leave. It becomes a self-fulfilling cycle,” Batalova said.
An exodus in the hundreds of thousands
There is no concrete data on the number of Russians who have left the country since the start of the war. However, one Russian economist put the total at
200,000 as of mid-March.
That figure is likely to be far higher now, according to Batalova, as tens of thousands of Russians have relocated to Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Israel, the Baltic states and beyond.
“If you look at the various destinations where people have gone, these numbers do ring true,” she said. And that’s not even counting Russia’s large overseas diaspora, many of whom are in Southeast Asia, who have chosen not to return home following the invasion. Batalova puts that figure at around 100,000.
In the tech sector alone, an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 professionals left in the first month of the war, with a further 70,000 to 100,000 expected to follow soon thereafter, according to a Russian IT industry trade group.
Some start-up founders like Vladimir, who runs a software service for restaurants, have decided to relocate their businesses and staff overseas, choosing countries with access to capital, such as France, the U.K, Spain and Cyprus. Vladimir is moving his wife and school-age child, as well as his team of four and their families, to Paris.
They follow more mobile independent Russia tech workers who have already flocked to low-visa countries including Indonesia, Thailand and Turkey.
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