As many as half of the Russians who went abroad after their country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and Putin’s mobilization later that year have returned home. We know this both from official Russian sources and the statistics of the countries to which emigrés fled. We spoke with a few returnees about why they decided to come home and how Russia changed while they were away.
According to Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service, 668,400 Russians left the country in 2022. By the following year, according to Russian news outlets, between 120,000 and 334,000 of them had returned home. Bloomberg Economics estimated that “return migration” accounted for as much as one-third of Russia’s GDP growth in 2023, writing that returnees tend to have higher salaries and better working conditions. Those we spoke with described the financial hardship, visa issues, mental illness, and homesickness experienced while abroad.
“I never wanted to leave Russia for good. I guess I can’t imagine being a citizen of another country,” said Andrei from Yekaterinburg. “Although Russia has to overcome some major challenges and no one knows how long before it gets on track, I know it can become a place where people will want to live – not in the sense of forcing themselves to put up with a government they despise out of patriotism, but in order to help Russia prosper.”
Andrei left Russia shortly after Putin ordered a mobilization in September 2022, but began thinking about leaving as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine “when strict laws [on military censorship] were passed and it became obvious that speaking out publicly against the war brought with it huge risks.”
Andrei, who first went to Kazakhstan, as did many Russians when Putin announced mobilization, moved on to Georgia several weeks later, then he spent more than a year and a half in exile. “I thought I would stay away until the war was over,” he said. “Obviously, an end to the war wouldn’t bring with it the ‘beautiful Russia of the future,’ but there would be less internal repression. When there were changes on the frontlines in fall 2022, it seemed that the war might end in the next year or two.”
However, Andrei quickly understood that his expectations were unrealistic, and he had to decide whether to live abroad permanently or return to Russia, which he did.
“When I told my friends abroad that I was returning to Russia, they all thought I was nuts and asked why, but most of the time I got that reaction from people who had cut off all ties with home,” Andrei said. “What’s more, some are members of the LGBTQ community and others had already drawn the attention of the authorities because of political involvement or run a high risk of being targeted, so they’re very vulnerable in Russian society.” Andrei said that he felt much safer after going abroad, and “the feeling that no will come after you is worth its weight in gold.”
After Andrei returned home, he said he saw that “the impression that Russia wasn’t at war was still there… There were fewer Z symbols on display but more advertisements for contract soldiers and gratitude to ‘Russia’s heroes.’ Otherwise, it is as if the war doesn’t exist.”
One of the main reasons for Andrei’s return was financial difficulties, which were mentioned by all the other re-emigrants we interviewed. Andrei calculated that he spends about 30 percent less in Russia than he spent in Georgia.
“In that respect, you naturally feel less stressed in Russia. Even though the Russian economy is nothing to write home about, at least the fluctuations in the exchange rate don’t make you so nervous. In Georgia, if you get paid in rubles, you can instantly become 10 percent poorer in a day or two.”
In addition, Andrei still had friends and relatives in Russia, some of whom are engaged in politics. “I started to understand politicians who were returning to Russia and people who don’t miss their government, but do miss their home and everyone and everything that connects them to it.
“But I want to stress that returning to Russia is probably a privilege for those not on the authorities’ radar, who aren’t independent journalists, and don’t identify as LGBTQ. It saddens me when Russian emigrants say that they won’t ever return home and think that even ten years from now things in Russia will still be bad. The longer the war goes on, the less likely it is that these people will ever return.”
Rustem is a Crimean Tatar who was born and raised in Crimea. At the time the peninsula was annexed in 2014, he had just turned 16, the age at which Ukrainian citizens receive their first internal passport. “They were giving me my Russian Ausweis [1] My family and I were determined not to get those passports, but they threatened that I wouldn’t be allowed to take my finals,” Rustem said.
In 2016, Rustem began living in Moscow off and on, and, after Alexei Navalny was arrested in 2021, he understood that “everything was going to hell in a handbasket,” so he left Russia and moved to Georgia. At that time, it was easy for Rustem to enter Georgia, but now it’s become standard practice to restrict Russians with passports issued in annexed Crimea from entering the country. “When entering Georgia initially became off-limits for Crimeans, I got very worried and decided to go to Moscow to apply for a new external passport that had the Moscow code of the issuing Ministry of Internal Affairs office. My little stratagem worked, and I returned to Georgia,” Rustem explained.
Rustem lived in Georgia until the spring of 2023, when anxiety over the unpredictability of Georgian migration policy convinced him to not to “test fate” and he returned to Russia. “I simply didn’t want to worry whether or not [Georgian] authorities would allow me to re-enter the country the next time. Rumors started circulating that I might have to show my internal passport, and if the authorities see the word ‘Crimea’ on it, they might permanently bar me from entering.”
Rustem said that it used to be easy for Crimeans to get a Ukrainian passport in Kherson, but when he contacted the State Migration Service (SMS) of Ukraine before Russia’s full-scale invasion began, SMS authorities refused to process his documents and “advised him not to go to Kherson.”
“I can get a travel certificate that confirms I’m a Ukrainian citizen, enter Ukraine with it, and get a Ukrainian passport, but that also means that I’d have to ‘pay my debt to the motherland’ and I don’t want to die on either side of the battlefield,” he explained.
“I was thinking about other countries I could go to besides Georgia, but the issue is that I have a Crimean residence permit. Europe and the US are completely off limits to me.” [2] Rustem added that it’s important for him to live close to Crimea. “Since I’m a Crimean Tatar, I don’t want to live far from there. The ideal scenario would be for me to live in Crimea and die a free man.”
Aside from all that, Rustem has the fewest issues with Ukraine, which he thinks is just trying to survive. He would like it though if Ukraine would change its migration policy so that people like him “could wait out the war there without paying taxes in Russia.”
Game designer Anya left Russia in March 2022 and was in exile for two years. The company she works for relocated its employees to Armenia. “At first, I didn’t have any problems and felt euphoria because I had money, I was renting a house with friends I got along well with, and everything was new – impressions, places, and food,” Anya said.
When Anya’s lease expired, she decided to live in another country where, in her own words, she might be even better off, and “took off for Serbia,” which is where her problems began.
“I couldn’t establish a sole proprietorship because of high taxes. Without a sole proprietorship, I had to make a visa run every 90 days, which I was ready to deal with. However, I had problems withdrawing money from my business account to my personal bank account, so for almost a month I didn’t have any money. I realized that I still felt like a traveler and wanted to go home, but I didn’t know where my home was.”
It was then that Anya decided to return to Armenia, but by then the cost of food and rent had gone up and “at one point, it became a big headache because I had to pay half of my salary for a less-than-ideal place to live.
“As my financial problems got worse, I fell into debt. My bouts of depression, which had begun back in Serbia, got worse. I started getting pharmacological therapy, which also cost a lot. I adopted a cat and tried to make myself feel like I was home, but each month everything got harder. As the weather got colder, so did my apartment, I had problems with my landlord, and my cat got sick.
“I was constantly on edge and always woke up still tired. I wanted it all to be over. Everything really wore me out, so I bought a ticket home. I thought, whatever happens, happens. I can leave anytime.”
Anya said that she “doesn’t regret returning home one bit.” Her panic attacks stopped, she could continue paying for therapy, her mental health started to improve, and her depressive episodes went away.
“I made the right decision, but it was a tough one. I felt like I was giving up and showing weakness, but I was just exhausted and needed to get off the merry-go-round of endless problems.”
If Anya had better understood what awaited her overseas, there’s a chance she would have restarted her life abroad differently, for example, by immediately meeting with a psychotherapist to get acclimated.
“I always wanted to return to St. Petersburg, where I had come from. I felt as though I was being forcibly uprooted from the place where I was supposed to live my entire life. That feeling only grew stronger because of all the mental and financial problems I experienced.”
“When I was leaving Russia, people were less exhausted by the endless war or something… It was like there were mobilized prowar people and mobilized antiwar people, and neither side got what they were expecting,” according to Sasha Kvak. After mobilization began, he went to Kazakhstan and founded the Point of No Return project, which helps Russians in exile and deserters. Six months later, Sasha returned to Russia and plans to run for the Moscow City Duma this year.
“I planned my trip for a long time and weighed all the pros and cons,” Sasha says. “On New Year’s I got together with my friends and girlfriend in Yerevan and realized that I missed everyone in Russia terribly. The risk of going to jail in Russia is really unpredictable, so you just have to accept it, but the other risks are easier to avoid.”
Although Sasha said he feels more anxious in Russia than he did overseas, he was thrilled to return home. “When I was in exile, I thought about Moscow three or four times every day and grew to love Moscow and Russia even more,” Sasha explained.
Many of Sasha’s friends, most of whom live in Europe, discouraged him from returning to Russia. “They’re used to feeling safe and less at risk now that they’re out of Russia. People feel safer even in Kazakhstan, although it’s not the best place for Russians who are against the war, and they get used to that feeling.”
Sasha thinks that when outsiders base their ideas of what is happening in Russia on the news, they have a skewed perception of reality. “When you walk around Moscow or sit in a bar and hear Russians opposed to the war, you realize that things are not so bleak.”
“People should emigrate if they feel anxious and won’t have a hard time leaving everyone and everything behind,” he said. “It feels safer and more relaxed overseas. I realize that emigration is a good decision for people in politics, but it’s just not right for me.”
This article was originally published in Russian by Vot Tak.
[1] A German term for “identity papers” – it entered the Russian language during the World War II Nazi occupation of Ukraine, among other parts of the Soviet Union. Russia’s occupation of parts of Ukraine have given the term contemporary relevance.
[2] The United States does not recognize Russian passports issued in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, including Crimea, and European countries deny such passport holders the Schengen-zone visas for which holders of Ukrainian biometric passports are eligible.
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