A Quarter of Moscow Residents Ready to Move to St. Petersburg, Another Quarter to Russia’s South, and Only a Fifth Say They Won’t Ever Do So, New Survey Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 15 – According to the results of a new survey of Moscow residents conducted by a development company, 27 percent of Muscovites are ready to move to St. Petersburg and its adjoining areas, 23 percent want to move to the southern portion of the Russian Federation, and only 20 percent say they would not move “in principle.”

            This interest in leaving the place many in Russia seek to move reflects both the impact of covid pandemic experiences with distant working, the desire for more space and less congestion among those with experience in the city, and the fact that the cost of living in Moscow continues to rise faster than incomes there, experts say (svpressa.ru/society/article/527558/).

            Large majorities say they are less influenced by the amount of income they can expect than the possibility of having larger residences and less congestion; and of course, those who wistfully talk about moving aren’t necessarily going to depart. Dreaming about leaving is one thing; actually doing it is quite another.

             But the survey found one intriguing pattern that could have a major impact on Russian life in the future: Native Muscovites, those whose parents and grandparents have lived in the city, are far less likely to say they are ready to move elsewhere than are those who have come in recent years.

            The reasons for that are multiple, including the fact that many of the former have far better residences than do the latter given that many of them having housing inherited after the distribution of housing after the fall of Soviet power. But the fact that so many of those who do want to leave are recent arrivals points to something else.

            Not only are recent arrivals in the city more likely to leave because of costs and memories of what life was like elsewhere, but they are certain to return to regions and republics beyond the ring road with negative attitudes about the Russian capital and thus deepen the divide between Moscow and what Muscovites often dismiss as “the provinces.”