Paul Goble
Staunton,
June 7 – Twenty-two percent of Russians say they would like to move to a
foreign country to live and work, up from only 13 percent in 2009, and an
indication that the deteriorating political situation in Russia is forcing not
only high profile figures like Gari Kasparov but many others as well to think
the unthinkable.
According
to a Levada Center poll, the results of which were published yesterday, those
who say they are most interested in leaving are precisely the people that
Russia needs if it is to develop into a modern economy and polity (levada.ru/06-06-2013/mechty-ob-emigratsii
and svpressa.ru/society/article/69062/).
Forty-five percent of students surveyed, 38
percent of the entrepreneurs, 33 percent of the employees, and 28 percent of
the specialists and homemakers, the Levada survey found, say they would like to
move abroad, with the highest figures of all being in Moscow and cities with
100,000 to 500,000 residents and among those who voted for Mikhail Prokhorov
and Vladimir Zhirinovsky in the last presidential races.
These attitudes do not mean that the
exodus among such Russians is likely to swell anytime soon. On the one hand, 73
percent of the sample indicated that they do not want to leave, a figure that
is down from 78 percent in 2009. And on the other, only one percent have
actually taken the step of filling out the necessary documents to depart.
But the growing sense among many
that they would consider moving abroad reflects the fact that 49 percent of
those who said they would are dissatisfied with life in Russia, 32 percent
think the economic situation there is unstable, and 31 percent fear that they
will not be able to provide their children with a reliable future if they stay.
“Svobodnaya pressa” asked two
experts, Leonty Byzov of the Moscow Institute of Sociology and Aleksandr
Shatilov, dean of the sociology and political science faculty at the Russian
capital’s Finance University, to comment on what the Levada Center’s findings
mean for Russia now and in the future.
Byzov said that middle class people
are exactly the group that one would expect to want to leave. Their
expectations are higher, they are more adaptable, and their anger at what is
happening in Russia today, combined with a sense that they are not in a
position to change it on their own, naturally leads them to think about
leaving.
Students as a group resemble
them. Moreover, many of them have been abroad for vacations or studying and
thus do not view the outside world as being nearly as foreign as do their
elders, few of whom have ever been to another country, Byzov says. And they are
convinced that they can make their way there rather easily.
Asked to comment on the fact that
only one percent of Russians have actually taken steps to emigrate, the
sociologist said that emigration is “a quite serious step” and that “one percent
is also quite large,” given the obstacles that many would face if they sought
to realize their hopes of living abroad.
It is important to recognize, Byzov
continued, that ever more people are moving to other countries to life and work. “The world division of labor is an objective
reality,” and it is clear that “in many innovation spheres, Russia will not
become a leader in the foreseeable future.” Consequently, Russians in those
sectors are naturally looking abroad.
Shatilov suggested that there were
both objective and subjective causes for these Russian attitudes. Objectively, “the
labor market of Russia” has too many specialists who are finding it difficult
to get positions in their fields. Not surprisingly, they are considering their
alternatives, including those abroad, although the situation there may not be
as welcoming as they think.
Subjectively, he continues, many of
these people consider the current political regime in Moscow to be hostile to
their values and consider that moving to “the liberal democratic West” would
allow them to feel more comfortable. Moreover, precisely because they have more
income than they did, they not surprisingly want even more from society and
polity than these offer.
And the Finance University expert pointed to
yet another aspect of this situation, one that also affects other countries as
well: Globalization is reducing the significance of borders and also of
patriotism. Someone who feels at home
anywhere “at times loses his national identity” and thus does not have the same
rootedness as did the generations before him.
But “the difficulties which await
humanity in the coming decades will lead to national consolidation,” Shatilov
says. “One can see this for example in
Europe when the illusions of the ‘common European home’ are at the present time
being replaced ever more often by the values of national statehood.” The same
thing, he suggests, is likely to happen in Russia as well.
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