source: content/en/posts/immigration-2022.org@ 04b56e4

#+TITLE: Immigration experience after events of 2022
#+DATE: <2024-10-30 Wed>
#+LANGUAGE: en

* Immigration experience after events of 2022

[[../../public/images/wkz-immigration.gif]]

I had left Russia in September of 2022 as many other Russian
developers. Not sure if I did it permanently or temporary. I've moved
to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)][Georgia (country)]] (also named Sakartvelo) with the help of [[https://trop.in/][Andrew
Tropin]] (big kudos to him) as a temporary solution after [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_mobilization][partial
mobilization]] was announced in Russia. That temporary solution did last
2 years already and third year is to come.

[[https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/flights-out-of-moscow-russia-putin-intl/index.html][The aircraft tickets price went high]] immediately after partial
mobilization, so the only choice left was to move by land. The only
Russia-Georgia border was [[https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/10/03/in-photos-russians-fleeing-putins-draft-queue-at-georgian-border-a78957][stuck in a huge traffic jam]] before even we
started to drive. It took us ~3-4 days to manage to drive there facing
corruption, closed oblasts (Russian administration borders) and buses
on roads with ongoing mobilization. My mental state was bad, because
it felt like the country can be closed at any moment (government can
accept new laws extremely quickly, like for 1-2 hours). I don't want
to concentrate my story on that part much, because there are already
many evidence published.

So we passed the border after all the struggle and stayed at the
longest traffic jam of my life. Both borders were quite easy to pass
thankfully. I had a two hour long small-talk with FSB guys at spring
before when I first tried to leave Russia, so I was nervous.

I decided to migrate extremely low on cash: I had about $600-800. So I
needed to find a job to grind my way for a living in a new
place. Luckily the tax-rate is extremely low here: only 1% for small
business and 0% for micro-business. I wanted to stay outside of Russia
as long as I could, so I found a job in a two-three weeks as Symfony
Developer (php) and made some money to stay here for some time.

** Why I have left Russia in a first place
- Men can be mobilized. Mobilization thing is still going.
- USD and EUR were prohibited or limited at banks atm and
  VISA/Mastercard stopped working + sanctions (mostly minor)
- [[https://www.investing.com/currencies/usd-rub-advanced-chart][Ruble became weak]]. There is less and less reason to work with it,
  because it drops all the time and salaries usually don't get
  re-indexed.
- Many random censorship blockages of Internet resources (and other
  media for example books). For example GNU Mailing lists were
  banned. Also [[https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-guix/2022-03/msg00004.html][Guix servers were banning ru IPs]], so you can't use
  substitutes there, which is critical for such system as GNU Guix.

  - Censorship is strong enough to get you into jail just for [[https://roskomsvoboda.org/en/post/gigest-apr-2022-kritika-derzhavy/][posting
    online that war is a war]]. ([[https://roskomsvoboda.org/en/cards/card/safe-posting-rules/][Instruction on how to not get arrested
    for posting]]).

  - Censorship is strong enough to get you into jail just for LIKES
    and REPOSTS of some materials. For example there is ongoing thing
    of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_foreign_agent_law][FOREIGN AGENTS]], if you repost them without marking YOU will be
    fined.

  - Censorship is strong enough to get you into jail for [[https://meduza.io/en/feature/2018/05/23/russia-finds-a-new-tor-criminal][hosting TOR
    exit node]]. In general in Russia you have a feeling that everything
    is prohibited if otherwise is not stated, not the other way
    around. The state has a centralized control over society.

- Political propaganda became [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine][too wild to handle]]. Schools started to
  have propaganda too ([[https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/02/17/russian-tv-airs-wartime-patriotism-lessons-for-schoolchildren-a80253][Уроки о важном]]).
- I was arrested once at the protest (and after that police might be
  interested in you)
  
Those reasons you might find a bit silly, but I believe if you are
involved into IT it would be a shame to be not connected to the rest
of community especially if you are into free software. Internal market
might be ok, but I think it would suck like it sucked in USSR.

Majority of my Russian friends stayed in Russia. Immigration is costly,
standard of living will be lower and there is no guarantee that
immigration is even the answer. I find myself that I might return
any-day if something critical happens to my friends, family or
something else. At the same time would be nice to distance from Russia
even further.

** Tbilisi

[[../../public/images/tbilisi.gif]]

[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tbilisi][Tbilisi]] is a capital of Georgia. It is very nice city and I like being
here. At the time of arriving it had lots of support of Ukrainian
people and lots of hate to Russia expressed in wall graffities and
demonstrating Ukrainian flags. It was a bit of a shock for me, because
in Moscow if you do something like this you just get arrested, you
literally can't even write something on a wall without being punished
hard. Also Tbilisi has lots of EU flags, because the state and people
want (or wanted) to be in EU hard enough.

The currency is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_lari][Georgian Lari]] (GEL). And when I've arrived it was
something like 20 rubles per lari, now it is 35 rubles per lari. Ruble
has dropped for at least 33% if you ask me and lari became much
stronger currency compared to it. It was easy to buy crypto here, it
became a bit harder after the regulations, but it is still
possible. Yet I don't use this, just noting that you can see some
Bitcoin shops in the city, which was a surprise for me because there
is literally none in Moscow.

*** Arrival

[[../../public/images/tbilisi2.gif]]

I've arrived with no plan at all. I was randomly luring the city with
a backpack full of my clothes + my Thinkpad. My phone was low on
charge, so I've stopped a random taxi driver and asked for direction
to hotels. Because [[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65790759][~100-200k Russian migrated at the same time]] (not
exactly to Tbilisi) all hotels were full. Gladly that driver invited
me to his house, I've recharged my phone there and ate. After he
proposed me a deal to rent his country-side place. Knowing that
everything has high prices right now I've agreed.

It was 40-60 minutes away from Tbilisi which felt actually far away
and it was on a mountain, so it was colder. Tbilisi itself is very
warm city, when I've arrived in the end of September it was +33
Celsius. I was using my winter clothes because the border was located
in mountains, so it was cold there.

[[../../public/images/tbilisi3.gif]]

After settled down in a country side, I've came back to Tbilisi
city. I've bought a local sim-card, Georgia doesn't has stupid
limitations for tourists, so I've bought same sim-card as locals. Went
to the bank and opened VISA card with no problem. Other Russian
fellows had problems with that, so the process is a bit random, but I
particularly had no issue. After that I went and registered a small
business. It took me 1-3 days to do everything, which is extremely
quick and it was easy in general. After all of that done I was ready
for legally earning the money.

After that I found a job and after several months moved to the city to
better neighborhood.

** Why Georgia is nice

[[../../public/images/tbilisi4.gif]]

- No VISA required :: Russians can stay here for 1 year without a visa
  as a tourist and than do the visa run and stay another
  year. Ukrainians can stay for 2 years straight.
- 0-1% business tax :: probably the lowest in the world
- Rent is cheaper :: I think the minimal is $300-350 per month
  here. It was even cheaper before big migration wave.
- Products :: Products are generally cheaper than in EU (I hope)
- Community :: Many Russian-speaking people are here. It means that
  Georgia is a good place for meetups, conferences and other
  activities. For example there is a hackerspace F0rthsp4ce. @akater
  organized [[https://gitlab.com/akater/emacs-tbilisi-meetup-page/-/blob/main/public/index.org][Emacs meetup]] and @tropin did [[https://fosstodon.org/@w96k/112483547960128437][guix meetup]].
- Russia :: Georgia is close to Russia, so friends, family and other
  can come here more easily compared to other countries.
- Climate :: Georgia has a warm climate. There is almost no snow at
  winter and generally very warm.
- Nature :: Georgia has a lot of mountains and caves and it is great
  for hiking.
- Georgian are friendly :: hospitality is their feature
- Free (Libre) Internet :: Mostly not blocked at all.
- No bureaucracy :: It was extremely easy to open a business and bank
  card. In general country feels much less trouble than others, I'm
  sure that EU has much harder procedures for everything.
- Minimum regulation :: Georgia feels like it has low government
  regulations in general, but it might be only a feeling. Russia and
  Moscow felt much more over-regulated, you can be arrested if you
  cross the road in non appropriate place for example.

** Why Georgia is not so nice

[[../../public/images/tbilisi5.gif]]

- Russia :: Russia is too close and has influence in Georgian
  politics. Also it might be dangerous for activists.
- Citizenship :: It is mostly impossible to get a citizenship. You
  need to stay here for 10 years with a permit for a living and
  government often declines providing those.
- Less jobs :: If you work outside of IT it is much harder to get a
  job compared to Moscow.
- Less salary :: If you handle to get a job it will be less
  profitable. My brother works here and get 50% less. I might guess
  that IT jobs has the same downside here, but not sure.
- High import fees :: You need to pay 20% fee if you order stuff from
  Internet markets above $100.
- Hard language :: Georgian language is very hard to learn compared to
  others. It is old and niche language.
- Visa problem :: Many embassies requires a permit for a living in a
  country before your visa request, so I can't for example do a visa
  in Georgia. I need to go either to Russia or seek other countries to
  get a permit. The only exception is Spain Embassy in Armenia which
  works as a proxy for Embassy in Russia, so you can get a visa
  without a permit.
- Internet is expensive and slow :: In Moscow I've paid $3 per month
  to get 40MBit. Here 45MBit costs $12.5. It is actually not so
  critical as packet losses and overall quality.
- Electricity shutdowns :: Compared to Moscow it happens a bit too
  often and it depends on your neighborhood.
  
** Other options
Of course Georgia is not the only option for migration. It was for a
moment because of mass emigration and prices, but in general there is
a choice. EU and other countries closed its borders for Russians or
made it harder to get a VISA.

If something happens to Georgia, most likely I would move to one of
these countries:

- Serbia ::
- Montenegro ::
- Spain ::
- Portugal ::
- Argentina ::
- Urugway ::

Most options has a common problem - *T* *A* *X* *E* *S*. They are extremely
high. In Russia the tax for individual business is 6-12%. I'm not
saying that this is a bad thing in general, but it is a bad thing for
the guy, who wants to start living in a country without having
billions beforehand. 15-22% is kinda nice, but still quite high
compared to Georgian 0-1%.

** Conclusion

[[../../public/images/georgia_mountains.gif]]

Overall I'm glad that I've left Russia. Even if I would return it is
nice to have an experience living abroad. I never been abroad before
and generally I'm more "sitting at one place all my life" type of
person. I've found new connections here and not feeling alone, maybe I
even became more social here. I hope other Russian fellows who decided
to not participate in government actions are doing well.


/Peace./