Russians Go West
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Russians Go West KHRISTINA NARIZHNAYA OSCOW—A seven-story cube of creative workers are expected to fill the of glass, concrete, and solar Hypercube’s offices, ice rink, and nearby Mpanels rises out of a grassy field cafes. The original plan even provided for on the outskirts of Moscow. Dubbed “the a weather-controlled dome rising over the Hypercube,” it’s the first completed build- complex, though it was eventually deemed ing of the Skolkovo Innovation Center, too expensive and scrapped. intended to serve as Russia’s version of Sil- The Skolkovo Fund president, billion- icon Valley. In less than two years, throngs aire Viktor Vekselberg, hopes the project RIA NOVOSTI SPRING 2013 95 Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 19, 2014 REPORTAGE will stop the brain drain of the nation’s most People leave when they perceive talented individuals. “Many of our leading societies have failed or seem likely to scientists and specialists work abroad and do so, when citizens don’t feel like not in Russia. With the face of Skolkovo, stakeholders in the future of their country. let’s put an additional buffer, a barrier to this Modern buildings, no matter how big or process,” he said in 2011. comfortable, will not create a dynamic Today, 850 companies operate in the economy—only the nation’s best and unfinished Skolkovo Innovation Center. brightest working in a free and open The Skolkovo Institute of Science and environment can do that. High oil prices Technology, still under construction, has can conceal deep economic problems, and sent its first class of 20 master’s students Russia’s 4.3 percent annual GDP growth to colleges abroad to gain experience. rate isn’t fooling its citizens. Emigration of Skolkovo is a small step that shows Russia top talent is the crucial index of a country’s recognizes the problem. But the outflow of current social mood and an important “brains” has not been contained, nor will it indicator of future economic potential. be anytime soon. And right now, Russia is failing. Although the economy is growing, While the total number of Russians an accelerating number of elite Russians who leave for good remains relatively small, are leaving the country. The total number the profile of the typical emigrant has of Russian emigrants hardly compares to changed. When the Soviet Union dissolved, the hundreds of thousands who left in the most common emigrant was a poor, the aftermath of the USSR’s collapse in unskilled young man. Today, it is a well- 1991, but the tens of thousands leaving off professional, says Anton Nossik, a high- today are entrepreneurs, writers, and tech entrepreneur and emigration expert. scientists. Any family that can afford it “People who have it good are starting to is likely to send their children to study leave,” Nossik says. abroad, hoping they’ll find work and According to Russia’s Federal Statistics settle outside of Russia. Service, the number of emigrants peaked at No matter how many technology 145,720 in 2000. By 2009, that number villages the government builds, there had eased off to 32,458, but it has been will never be enough if the country’s creeping back up ever since, reaching social fabric remains weak. Emigration 36,774 in 2011. Over 1.25 million is a measure of how well the Kremlin is Russians have left the country from 2000 addressing the needs and desires of its to 2010 according to Sergei Stepashin, people. In the Soviet years, this metric the head of Russia’s Audit Chamber. Even was less effective since few were allowed to more striking is the number of those who leave. Now, with relatively open borders, say they would leave if they could. One out the ebbs and flows of those who can afford of every five Russians wants to leave their to leave track closely with the effectiveness country, according to a June 2012 survey by of the Putin regime. the Levada Center, an independent pollster. Khristina Narizhnaya, a former reporter for The Moscow Times, writes for the Los Angeles Times and other publications. 96 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 19, 2014 RUSSIA Almost a third of Russian urbanites want to daughter, Yekaterina, a legal a resident of emigrate, according to a survey by Romir, Monaco, an $88 million crash pad in New another independent pollster. York, where she can stay on breaks from “Conversations these days start and end studying at Harvard’s Extension School in with the topic of emigration,” says Masha Cambridge. Both billionaire Sergei Plas- Gessen, a journalist and author of the Putin tinin and mining mogul Sergei Anisimov biography The Man Without a Face. “Where bought their daughters multi-million dol- are you going? Should we all go together? lar apartments in New York City. Israel, Australia, America, Britain, Western Russia’s first president, Boris Yeltsin, Europe ... What is the first step? What, you was the first government official to scan- have not made plans yet? dalize Russians by sending Do you at least have a valid his grandchild, Boris, to visa? This is the banter with faced with the study at an exclusive British which people sit down for criminal chaos school in 1996. Others fol- supper,” she says. lowed. Kirov region gover- and staggering nor Nikita Belykh sent his THE RICH THRIVE poverty of the son to study in England, and Only hard-line patriots nev- 1990s, russians former Moscow mayor Yuri er think of leaving. “There is Luzhkov sent his children no feeling that life is improv- left their new to study in London, alleg- ing,” says Dmitry Oreshkin, democracy by edly to protect them after a senior political researcher the hundreds he was fired in 2010. There at Moscow’s Institute of are even reports that Putin’s Geography. “In the 1990s, of thousands. daughters, Mariya, 27, and there was a feeling of democ- Yekaterina, 25, are living racy, [a hope] that Russia was becoming a abroad. The trend is so common that a new normal European country. But now it’s dif- bill forcing government officials to edu- ferent. There is more potential for the indi- cate their children inside Russia is under vidual in the West.” A recent Moscow State review in the Duma. Vyacheslav Lysakov, Pedagogical University poll shows that 80 the author of the bill, is confident the bill percent of graduates of elite Moscow high will become law after Putin announced his schools would like to study abroad, at least support for it. But if the bill does become temporarily. Another poll by Russian news- law, Oreshkin says, it will likely be redraft- paper Rossiskaya Gazeta claims that only 9 ed to include loopholes so officials can get percent of parents say their children will around it. Ironically, Duma deputy speaker continue to study in Russia and almost 70 Sergei Zheleznyak, a vocal patriot and sup- percent of parents would like their children porter of the bill, sent his daughters to to study and work abroad. study in England and Switzerland. Vekselberg’s own children, Irina and Alexander, studied at Yale University. NOT JUST BILLIONAIRES Business tycoon Roman Abramovich’s Studying abroad is no longer the exclusive daughter, Anna, is studying at West- privilege of billionaires. Professionals with minster University in London. Fertilizer annual salaries of $100,000 are sending magnate Dmitry Rybolovlev bought his their children abroad. All Nossik’s friends SPRING 2013 97 Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 19, 2014 REPORTAGE either sent their children to study abroad in Russian banks, as long they declare it. or are preparing to send their children to Since Putin’s United Russia party controls a foreign school. His five-year-old son lives the Duma, it will likely become law. “They in the seaside Indian town of Goa with his have to make it appear as though they are mother. In just a few years, the boy will fighting corruption,” Oreshkin says. begin school. But it won’t be in Moscow with its deteriorating education system, LIVING HIGH ABROAD pollution, and other urban ills. Nossik It’s not news that Russian elites live says he can relate to the officials that send abroad. Even Vekselberg, who bankrolled their children abroad. “They don’t want Skolkovo Center, lives in Switzerland with their children to live in this system that his family. Billionaire and Chelsea Foot- they built,” Nossik says. “I don’t see any- ball Club owner Roman Abramovich lives thing bad in that. They just want the best in London. Gennady Timchenko, an en- for their children.” ergy businessman and good friend of Putin, Faced with the criminal chaos and stag- lives in Switzerland. Writer Boris Akunin gering poverty of the 1990s, Russians left began spending more time in his house their new democracy by the hundreds of on the French Riviera since Putin took office. thousands. But in the first eight years of the The way Russians emigrate today has new millennium, the outflow slowed; some changed considerably since the Soviet era even began to return. Over the last 12 years, and the 1990s when people left the country economic growth, fueled by oil revenue, has forever, severing all ties to Russia. Today, raised salaries and living standards. Along many keep residences in Russia where they with the returning emigres, capital began continue to make money but live abroad flowing back into the country. But now the with their families. “You have another nest mood has shifted again, especially among but don’t give anything up here either,” the best educated.