Preface

I guess I can be called a climate refugee, because the only season I like is summer, which is one of the main reasons why I choose to settle in Thailand when I left Russia about ten years ago. That said, Russian summer is amazing and I try to spend some time there every year. Unfortunately, COVID drama prevented me from visiting Russia for a couple of years, and then the war in Ukraine introduced too much uncertainty to justify a visit.

Things have calmed down, recently, so I decided to spend two months in Russia and here are my reflections on that visit.

Crossing The Border

Needless to say, the war is still ongoing, and it was hard to figure out the current border crossing policy. Both sides of the conflict rely heavily on propaganda, which makes it hard to assess your personal risks. Some people said that the folks who stayed abroad for too long can have issues entering the country, so I was prepared for questioning and a possible phone check. Phone checks are still pretty uncommon, but they do happen in many countries nowadays, so having a dedicated travel phone is a must.

The reality is, the Russian border is more open than ever, I didn’t even need to talk to an immigration officer. Both departure and arrival stamps were mandatory five years ago, but it looks like they’re no longer required. I just scanned my passport and a machine told me to move along, which is pretty nice.

The customs officers didn’t check anyone and one guy even offered me a SIM card with a fake identity, which is actually outrageous given the latest terrorist attacks in Moscow and across the country.

Moscow

Moscow was my first destination, and I can’t say that it changed in any significant way. It seems slightly cleaner and the most noticeable difference is the number of Chinese cars. Those cars satisfy all the price segments, and they are pleasure to drive. A person I know sold his Lexus immediately after trying Zeekr 001, because the superiority of Chinese cars is simply staggering.

I had an interesting conversation with a recent immigrant from Tajikistan. He moved to Russia a few months ago, but he also worked in the Czech Republic, Poland and UAE. We discussed working conditions, salaries, and racism, and he noticed that the level of xenophobia in Russia bumped up a notch since the latest ISIS attack. He was mistreated by an asshole police officer during some random car check, and he almost got deported for complaining about verbal abuse and for talking back to an officer. Luckily for him, the judge sided with him and cancelled his deportation order.

He worked in construction and taxi, and he currently makes about $1,500-$2,000 a month after tax, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but he said that it’s the highest income among all the places he worked before. It was a bit surprising but it makes sense, since the cost of living in Russia is still low and the taxes are pretty much non-existent. He learned the language and is planning to marry his girlfriend and start a family there.

Samara

Samara was my next stop, and it also happens to be my hometown. It might not be well-known, but Russia makes its own cars and most of them are made in this city. They have a tough time competing with China, but their cheapest models are more affordable (mostly due to protectionsim), and you can buy a new car for about $7,000. People in richer cities make fun of those cars, but they often dominate the market in the poorer areas. LADA released a few new models in the last few years, and they actually start to resemble something usable:

Kazan

Russia is in fact a federation, and it can only survive by giving a lot of autonomy to its ethnically and religiously diverse regions. Kazan is a beautiful city, and it’s a home of Tatar ethnic group. Although some Tatars are Orthodox, most of them are Muslims and it shows.

Locals do seem to milk their autonomy, and they often refuse any means of payment except for cash or a direct bank transfer to their own personal accounts. The federal government is clearly aware of that, but it doesn’t want to risk any tensions which can fuel separatism.

Sochi

The climate and architecture in Sochi reminded me of Phuket, the only exception is that Sochi is actually walkable. It’s reasonably well-developed, but it has some annoying infrastructure issues caused by undocumented guesthouses using ACs during summer season. I experienced electric outages a few times, so having a power bank is a must if you’re staying in a cheap guesthouse on the outskirts of Sochi, as most tourists do.

Sochi is a popular destination for internal tourism, since it’s warm and it’s located nearby Black Sea. Unfortunately, the beaches don’t have any sand, and I’m not a big fan of rocky beaches. I don’t think it’s the best choice if you want to swim in a sea, both Turkey and Thailand are not that expensive, and they can offer you a better experience.

That said, Sochi isn’t only about getting a sun tan, it also has a big theme park and a top tier alpine resort. I visited Rosa Khutor, and I was impressed with stunning views and well-developed infrastructure.

Opinions on War

TLDR: People largely don’t care.

There is a popular misconception about Russia being a hyper-centralized Orwellian state where people form some sort of hive mind and subscribe to government-fed narratives. This can’t be further from the truth, and in fact, it’s much closer to an opposite extreme. Most people, including me, don’t like Putin and the government in general, and the whole country is severely disintegrated. There is a reason why Russia uses a mercenary army instead of a regular one, it simply lacks state capacity to organize and motivate people in an effective way.

It was pretty hard for me to find Russians who wanted to bother talking about the war in Ukraine, and it has nothing to do with fear or oppression (not a single person I met had those feelings). The key to understanding this way of thinking is understanding the distance between an individual and the state. If you distance yourself from your own government, why would you care about some events abroad? There are a few NAFO-style freaks who’re really consumed by gov propaganda, but I never heard any aggressive rhetoric from the actual war vets or any person with a thinking capacity in general.

I met a guy in Soshi who fought in Lugansk and was severely wounded in legs. He can walk, but it’s not as easy as it was before, and you never hear any bravado from those types of guys. They respect their adversaries, and they never talk shit about Western weapons or Ukrainian soldiers, which is a popular pastime activity of the armchair warriors consumed by propaganda. That guy regrets joining the army as a volunteer, and he admitted that money was his main motivation.

The propaganda tries to frame it as a Great Patriotic War, but the reality is more prosaic. People see this conflict as a yet another employment opportunity, it’s just a job and people understand the risks. As Prigozhin used to say: our business is death, and business is going well. That also explains why people aren’t bothered by this war, no one forced the mercs to accept this job, so no one is surprised or outraged when things go south.

My personal position is not that different either. I had a great deal of sympathy towards Ukraine since my family is from that region, and I had a largely positive opinion on Western governments but when the facts change, your opinion is supposed to change, too, at least if you try to be rational and seek the truth.

Obviously, the last Maidan was a coup, I was always well-aware of that, but it doesn’t bother me at all, because I hoped that Ukraine will use this opportunity to liberalize and grow its economy, which can be beneficial to Russia since it would set a good example. Unfortunately, the only things that post-coup government was able to grow are poverty, corruption and Nazi ideology, which changed my opinion of their government from cautiously-positive to indifferent.

The West also showed its true colors by fooling the Ukraine with empty promises and introducing cruel sanctions against the people who have nothing to do with that war. Personally, I wasn’t affected in any significant way, but I know many good families who had to deal with some serious issues. My line of thinking is actually very simple, I’m trying to be nice to people, by default, but if they are trying to harm me or support any harm going my way, I’d support anyone who can make them suffer.

My most important personal takeaway is that you may hate your government, and you probably have a good reasons to do that, but you will always be treated much worse in any other place. You will never have more rights and freedoms anywhere except your own country, so you should never turn against it, and you should think about your national interests long-term. Polititians come and go, Putin is not immortal, and he wasn’t wrong when he said that the West is also full of shit. Hopefully, he will be replaced by someone more talented, but I don’t really think the West would like the actions of a more talented leader, since power is often a zero-sum game, and the current Western elites aren’t interested in strong and sovereign Russia.

Sanctions

Obviously, people who say that Russia is thriving are either stupid or lying. Same goes to people who say that it’s in tatters. In fact, nothing has changed in any significant way. Stories about Western brands leaving Russia are a joke, I had no problem buying all the trendy Western products in Russia, and the choice is actually even better than in Thailand.

In my view, it’s simply impossible to sanction a sufficiently advanced economy with a huge pool of educated people. Low taxes and free markets are taking care of any emerging issues promptly. Visa and Mastercard leaving the country seemed like a big issue, but now I understand why the government spent a lot of effort building its own payment card system: MIR Pay. This system works like a charm, and the payments are literally instantaneous, probably because the servers are now much closer, geographically.

Trends I Don’t Like

As an anarchism-leaning person, my main interests are individual rights and freedoms. I don’t like any government, since they all have the same parasitic and predatory nature. Here are my highlights on the darker trends in Russia in particular, but most of them are indeed global:

Rampant Internet Censorship

Both Proton Mail and Twitter are banned in Russia, so you need to find a good VPN service in order to access them. This was the most annoying thing during my visit. Luckily, there are many services which work reasonably well and can be paid with bitcoins via Lightning Network. Necessity is mother of innovation.

This is indeed a global trend, and it’s really concerning, given that VPN use can be criminalized in the future. The worst case is when different countries can lock their citizens out of important information, so we need to work on different ways of circumventing Internet censorship.

Lower Quality Journalism

All the independent media are long gone, so the only reliable source of information is a set of trusted Telegram channels. If Telegram gets blocked, people will lose the ability to know what’s happening. It’s almost suicidal to do any political journalism in today’s Russia, so your only options as a journalist are either leaving Russia or focusing on less political content such as regional news and issues.

It’s not that journalism is flourishing globally, but self-censorship is definitely more advanced in Russia, and it’s more likely that this trend will spread worldwide. I can understand the logic of the state, since most political journalists were funded by foreign interests, and they lied to their audience about some very important things in a very vulnerable period, which led to more censorship. Unfortunately, there are also a few good and honest journalists who were affected.

Higher Tax Rates

Currently, individuals and small business should pay 6% to 13% in income taxes, depending on how you register your employment. 13% is the default flat rate, if you don’t apply for a special 6% rate (self-employed and small business), and having a flat tax rate is very unusual for a country. Starting from 2025, Russia will introduce a progressive tax rate with the highest bracket of 22%. That’s obviously the worst development of the last several years, the last thing I want for Russia is embracing EU-style distributive “justice”, but the trend is clear.

Some people foolishly believe that taxes will be lowered after the war, but governments don’t work this way, once they extract more money from the people, they will get used to it. Government is like cancer, it can only spread.

Attitude to China

Many Russians do love China nowadays, and I have mixed feelings about that. It’s not that I have anything against China, but I understand that each country is obliged to prioritize the interests of their people, and many things are in fact zero-sum games. In other words, it’s dangerous to depend too much on any single country, China is definitely our situational ally, but we need to diversify our trade.

Conclusion

I did enjoy my trip and I felt as safe and secure as ever, but I was annoyed by having to use a VPN service to avoid obnoxious Internet censorship. Moscow is still the only Russian city which I find comfortable for a long term stay, in fact I find it the most comfortable place to stay in, globally, but only during the summer.

Unfortunately, many things aren’t really getting better, and there are a few concerning trends. It’s hard to predict the future, but I tend to be pessimistic on such things. I don’t believe that systems can be changed from within, any group in power will only want more control and will inevitably engage in more rent seeking. My point is: nothing can be changed for the better by doing politics, so it’s better to work on things which enable us to take our power back, such as Bitcoin, because it’s our best bet if we want to limit our governments and protect our freedoms.