During the presentation of the report on emigration from the Russian Federation.
Two-faced statistics
According to Rosstat, the number of emigrants who left Russia from 2011 to 2015 increased significantly: in 2011, 29,500 people were recorded, while last year it was 51,800. At the same time, the authors of the report note that the statistics provided by Rosstat should be treated with extreme caution, as they are often many times lower compared to data from recipient countries.
For example, if we take the statistics of the leading countries receiving Russian citizens – Germany, the USA, and Israel – a significant difference can be seen. Rosstat reports that in 2013, 3,979 Russians moved to Germany, while the German statistical office gives a figure of 33,233 people from the Russian Federation. According to Rosstat, 1,485 Russians emigrated to the USA that same year, while according to US statisticians, it was 9,753 people. To Israel, according to the Russian side, 1,090, while according to the receiving side, 4,094 people.
Thus, as noted in the report, 'it can be stated that to obtain a realistic picture of the scale of emigration from Russia, Rosstat's annual data need to be adjusted upward by 3-4 times.'
Where Russians go
The researchers created a typology of countries that Russians prefer to move to. The first category includes the already mentioned traditional emigration countries – Germany, the USA, and Israel. The second includes countries with a high standard of living, where mainly representatives of wealthy strata and highly qualified professionals relocate. These are the UK, Switzerland, Austria, Australia, and Scandinavian countries.
The third category includes EU countries with a lower cost of living, which have simplified legalization mechanisms – such as Spain, Italy, Greece, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland. Finally, the fourth type includes countries attractive for business emigration, rentiers, educational and scientific migration: Turkey, Japan, South Korea, China, and others.
Five waves of emigration
The authors of the report divided migration flows into several waves. In the first wave (1990-1994), refugees and ethnic migrants went abroad on a permanent basis. The departure of scientists at that time was temporary, but later often turned into permanent emigration. In the second wave (1995-2000), entrepreneurs and students (mainly students) appeared.
The third wave (2000-2005) was joined by rentiers, as well as potential brides and grooms. 'Marriage became a convenient form of naturalization,' explained one of the report's authors, CCI expert Olga Vorobyeva. Finally, representatives of business joined the migrants of the fourth (2006-2010) and fifth (2010-2015) waves. At first, these were mainly small and medium-sized entrepreneurs. At the beginning of the current decade, big business began to 'leak' more noticeably.
'Push' motives
According to experts, when leaving the country, Russian emigrants are guided by socio-economic and socio-political motives. The first include unstable conditions for doing business, criminal approaches in regulating the economy, low salaries, low state spending on science, and lack of clear growth prospects. Among the socio-political ones are sympathy for opposition views, the danger of open participation in protests, and the weakness of civil society institutions.
Answering a question from Deutsche Welle whether the listed political reasons, together with the activation of the protest movement in 2011-2012, caused the growth of emigration from Russia in recent years, the presentation moderator, CCI member and deputy director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO RAS) Yevgeny Gontmakher answered negatively. 'The main reasons are still socio-economic,' he said. 'The main flow of 2012-2013 went regardless of politics. It would be an exaggeration to say that 2011 provoked a wave of emigration, as was the case in 1917.'
Who benefits
According to researchers, on the one hand, emigration is an entirely positive process. 'Seemingly, everyone benefits: people get the opportunity to satisfy their needs, Russia avoids an accumulation of critically minded citizens, and the host country acquires human capital,' says Olga Vorobyeva.
However, on the other hand, according to her, Russia loses its most active citizens in the person of those who leave. 'Those who remain are doomed to slower development. This shifts the emigration process into the realm of development problems and problems of the future. This is fraught with the loss of demographic and intellectual potential,' the expert notes. Also alarming is the fact that 'elites do not associate their future with Russia. They take out not only capital but also their children. That means those who make decisions about the country's development are not actually motivated by anything.'
The second author of the study, CCI expert Alexander Grebenyuk, emphasized in his speech that the most depressing fact is the departure of a large number of scientists from Russia, i.e., a virtual 'brain drain.' 'This is not circulation but a loss,' he stated. 'We are losing scientists irrevocably.'
Incidentally, the study showed that among foreign scientists living in Germany, natives of the Russian Federation rank first: in 2013, 3,672 scientists from Russia worked there.