Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 14 – Many in the
Russian Federation and the West were shocked when European countries recently
published figures showing that thousands of Russians are now seeking asylum or
at least permanent residence abroad, but Russian realtors say that behind these
numbers is an even more disturbing one.
Ever more wealthy Russians are
selling not only their dachas outside the Russian capital, a trend Russian
realty companies have been reporting for “many months” but also their
apartments in the central portions of Moscow in advance of leaving the country
(3rm.info/37916-krysy-begut-s-korablyaneuzheli-konec-rossii.html).
This trend has already driven down
prices down and left many properties vacant, realtors say, creating a situation
which neither the Russian government nor anyone else is likely to be able to
cope, according to the 3rm.info site which reported these developments
yesterday in an article entitled “Rats Fleeing a Sinking Ship.”
“For many months,” the site says, realty
specialists have been surprised by the emptying out of elite dachas in
Rublevka, Novaya Riga, and other “’golden’ places” near Moscow. But the departure of their owners abroad in
2010 and 2011 was viewed as a temporary phenomenon and thus did not generate
many concerns.
Because so many wealthy Russians
have now stayed abroad so long, however, many of these villages now resemble “specters”
of their former selves, “in place of wealthy masters in the houses remain only a
few lonely servants, and in place of electric lights in the evening, there is the
dead light of the moon.”
Now, realtors like the Frank Knight
Agency say, the 3m.info site says, the situation has become much more worrisome
because “the [Russian] elite is beginning to sell its apartments in the center
of Moscow. For the first time in many years, prices of Arbat, Tver, and
Khamovnichi apartments in [the Russian capital] are falling.”
What is happening, the site
continues, is a repetition of something that has happened many times elsewhere
in the past, when elites are prepared to sell off everything into order “save
themselves and carry their children to a quiet harbor” when they feel
threatened by the rise of ethnically alien groups and the political turmoil
that the site says will follow.
“If you look around,” this Orthodox
and Russian nationalist site continues, “there are now whole districts where
Slavs do not appear on the streets in the evenings” because of their fears
about the behavior of immigrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus and of
workers from non-Russian regions of the Russian Federation.
What is especially disturbing, the
3rm.info site continues, is the attitude of the authorities. Sergey Sobyanin
has proposed resettling Moscow pensioners outside of the city. That could have serious consequences because “95
percent of Moscow pensioners are Slavs – Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians.”
If they are sent away, there won’t be any mass group to protest the influx of
the non-Slavs.
And that in turn means, this site
says, that “the day is not far distant when the number of immigrants from the
southern republics who have gained a Russian passport and also the residents of
non-Slavic Russia will be sufficient to guarantee any candidate of the Kremlin
50 percent of the votes, even if all the Slavs of the country will vote against”
him or her.
“That day,” it concludes, “will be
the last day in the history of Russia,” and its possible approach explains why
those who can sell their properties for large sums and move abroad are choosing
to do so – even though their departure is exacerbating the very problem for
others that they may be able to avoid.
Of course, the wealthiest may very
well be fleeing not just for ethnic reasons but for others as well, but the
trend this site calls attention to is one that is certain to frighten many
around the Kremlin, even if there is little they can do to change it unless
they are ready for a whole shift in the direction of the country as a whole.
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