Young People in Former Soviet Republics Ever Less Interested in Russia, New Study Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 16 – Poll results from Armenia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgzstan and Belarus show the young people between the ages of 18 and 24 are ever less interested in Russia and that Russians in that age group are ever less interested in them or in other foreign countries.

            But the study, prepared by Tatyana Karbchuk and Anita Poplavskaya of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics using Eurobarometer data and summarized by Svetlana Saltanova for the IQ portal (monitoringjournal.ru/index.php/monitoring/article/view/573 as summarized at iq.hse.ru/news/272496626.html), also shows significant variations.

            While the overall conclusion of the study is that there has been “a decline in the interest of young people from the non-Russian countries in Russia and a growth of preferences for Germany, the US, Turkey and China,” there remain important differences regionally, with Central Asians still far more interested in Russia that those elsewhere.

            The attitudes of young people in the Russian Federation are striking as well, Karbchuk and Poplavskaya say. “Fifty percent do not have relatives and friends abroad, the share wanting to work abroad is declining and interest in obtaining education beyond the borders of the Russian Federation is falling as well.”

            Between 2012 and 2017, they report, about a third of young people in each of the six countries had visited Russia at least once; but the numbers going elsewhere have risen, to Turkey from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and to Georgia in Armenia.  Among Russians, the most popular destinations were Turkey, Ukraine and Belarus. 

More than a third of the young people in the non-Russian countries have friends and relatives in Russia, the result, the sociologists suggest of labor migration.  Young people in Armenia and Moldova increasingly list having friends and relatives in Europe and the United States. But half of the sample in Russia said they do not have relatives or friends abroad.

Moreover, while studying abroad is increasingly important for young people in most of the non-Russian countries – Belarusians and Moldovans are the exceptions -- among Russians, that preference is falling. Armenians increasingly want to study in the US. Kazakhs and Tajiks in China.

As far as working abroad is concerned, Armenians and Moldovans say they would like to work in Europe or the US, Central Asians say they would like to work in Russia, but ever more Russians say they can’t name a single country in which they would like to work, possibly, the sociologists suggest, because of sanctions.

In other ways as well, including choice of goods produced abroad, scientific and technical cooperation, willingness to accept immigrants and capital sources and investment, the countries diverge as well, but the key divide increasingly is between the non-Russians, on the one hand, and the Russians, on the other.