How to Select Regions, Cities & Towns If You Want to Emigrate to Russia or Ukraine?

“If I lived in the middle part of Siberia, then I wouldn’t be near the West from either side of the globe.” – Luke Skywalker, continued from the main page.

Aunt Natalia says:

Dear Luke, Fellow Pioneers & Aspiring Settlers.

Latitude-wise, Former Soviet Province is relatively uniform in women’s attitudes. Central TV and Press are everywhere, forming the common “communicational background”. Also there should be jobs, goods, housing & conveniences, books and entertainments to keep people from growing as desperate as angry, self-destructive and… fugitive.

Comrade GL has evidently given some good directions from Siberia. Now what can I add since you asked?

1. You can spare your effort from measuring and comparing the exact degree of “traditionalism” per geographiс unit. It is like defining the median temperature of patients per entire hospital…

…but more futile, because temperature is just one criterion, and “marriageability” consists of many ideas and habits about a thousand biggies and trifles of daily life, for This Very Man and This Very Woman.

When they meet, these ideas and habits may even transform, to a different extent (sometimes the more under the influence of cross-cultural discovery) – two-way, reciprocally! – or contain exceptions for the Significant Other. (A nearest example: I don’t measure myself by “cooking qualifications”, yet I always collect interesting recipes, and can pop up to swing into some of them for the pure inspiration of pleasing the man a new time… which is dozenth-power more fun than treating friends, with whom we go to cafés, buy / order dainties, or do with teas-fruits-sweets.)

Even imagining if there could be Luke Scale of Femininity introduced and womenfolk ranked along it, – a plus-minus hundred of your “Top Brides” per 10000 of population won’t influence your quest! You meet 5, or 50 girls of some similar traits, whom God or Fate sends to the kind of man you are (not the statistical thousands of all types!), and need but 1.

2. It’s hard to be King & Queen in no Kingdom. Excitement of adventure calms down, and you start noticing Environment, – it just bursts into your life, revenging against neglection.

Relying on what I’ve said about the relative proximity of chances, think not where you can meet a Princess, but where you can LIVE with her.

If you find yourself in love with a girl from a messy location… Picking a flower at one place in Russia only to move to another place in Russia is far from productive. Imagine, you are a total stranger. She ought to be your guardian until you’re able to become hers, as it is due. And suddenly she has to lose even those footholds and backups she used to have…

I forecast there are very many “Alien Princesses” all over “Siberia” you can fall in love with, head over heels!

Also it would be risky to judge a place by people’s attitude to you. Everywhere you’ll face a mass of indifferent people, and a vanguard of attentive encounters who’ll downshine them into oblivion, by pampering a stranger into fairy-tale bliss in the best way of Traditional Hospitality to Guests,.. which sometimes may have nothing to do with routine habits of the neighborhood.

Like, those Siberian men who burnt down a village priest’s house with himself and all his family inside, because he had not let them take away church appliances and icons for selling to buy booze.

And here I give a casual “photo session” of Standard “Real (Cool)” Russian Guys. Fervent commentors characterize them as the Face of Province (over 90% population) and the Face of Violence (over anyone helpless against the gang, or appearing slightly better-off). Some argue that morals also dwell beyond capital cities, and it’s metrosexual idlers and yesterday’s louts that badmouth these guys in deserved fear. I would agree with both points, and underscore that

(1) the pandemic air of province is Lack of Interests and Achievements Other than Drinking and Fighting; those who “grow out” of these shoes, strive “out of the bog”;

(2) do your face-reading homework to avoid bad risks.

So, think as an astronaut. Heading off to the Siberia System? Okay.

Find there a “planet” with safe and compatible climate (natural, socioeconomical, even architectural or what else you may find important as to be surrounded with) where YOU can Comfortably Survive in, and with enough infrastructure previously developed. Retain the cord of connection & oxygen supply after landing.

(As an alternative, imagine splurging in a bog to flounce your time and effort keeping your nose above the surface and Putting Up With All Around…

…you know, to a Russian first time abroad, the Top Cultural Shock is shampoo-washed pavements, and a Mindblowing Wild Adventure is needing no dust-off after sitting on the rocks of the Alps. On such contrast, it feels depressive back at home.

For all this, you need Signals of Civilization, and preliminary Distant Exploration.

Then your telescope, probe, pass code, source of Force, and SOS station = INTERNET.

UPD: Unless you’ve hired EIU or “Mercer” for surveys of such detail… )

Look if a city / town is mapped on the Web. I don’t mean “if there’s a such-named dot on a Google map”. I mean, whether this location has any “virtual representation” of its Vital Facilities: banks, transport services, businesses, housing, medical clinics, etc. Unless it’s such a backward alley of Galaxy where mostly disabled aborigines, and mutants have remained, – the place must have developed some online network around itself. At least in Russian language. But what you need is an alien-friendly interface of interest, support and common language!

So, rely on English-language resources. Just stay alert for “pirates” specially baiting for gullible travelers. There are.

Wikipedia gives nice basics for “Siberia” and “Siberian Federal District“. These entries readily contain a bunch of links to cities and regions. So you can browse the Web for each of them. (Luke, check Akademgorodok!)

Choose a region by its natural landscape, if you wish, dig carefully for the “dossier” on the locality’s ecology, but also keep in mind the following criteria of prime importance.

* Banks. Is there any solid, all-country-level, preferably international or foreign-invested bank partnering with any of those operating in your country, and compatible with common systems of electronic payments? Foreigners arriving with cash are at risk of robbery, fraud and violence; also there are customs limitations on cash import-export. But those who use cards, travel cheques and such other products may turn helpless where there’s no facility to have them processed.

(Local ATMs also tend to play naughty with foreign cards,.. if we give the [expiring] credit to the numerous complaints. Which complaints have become notorious as a marker excuse of the hoards who come on Pennypincher & Freerider Bridal Tours. If you find yourself a victim of technology, it’s advisable to fix the problem before you start dating, or struggle with it together with the girl.)

You’ll need such a bank still further on, unless you find a fat deal of local-bound work requiring no side incomes, and sufficient local supply of goods and services to sustain your “comfort zone”.

Let me mention here that postal service is a dire bottleneck in Former Soviet Union connectivity.

* Demographics, and crime rate. Are more children born? Don’t young people flee? Do incomes grow? Is violence subsiding? If not, it’s probably not the best place to live – even for hard-baked Former Soviet Russians!

(Who say, “After a nuclear war, it’s only we and roaches who’d survive.” In new economies, same mess remained, and more troubles added.)

* Industries, training, staff recruiting services. Job-hunting & freelancing Web portals. Does the region have optimistic economic prospects? Is there foreign investment and international activities? Are there multinational offices? How high is unemployment? What experts are needed? At what fee? How intensive the demand is?

Would YOU find a good occupation there? Would you find a VERY good occupation there if your Princess can’t or shouldn’t work? Would you have better prospects for the moment when you have children (and it may happen anytime!), and when her parents grow old and helpless (if not yet)? Or, maybe you can offer any bargain to the local businesses to become their partner?

Why not try arrange yourself a landing ground before leaping into nowhere?

Actually, I hate to speak “jobs”: humiliating-limited pay for whatever you have (not “can” or “want”) to do, recycling your time and person into the unmasterly master’s hands. Shady as Russian businessmaking may be (Dreiserian America’s Conquest XXI remake), employment is far more treacherous and lawlessly exploitative here: “put up or hit the road, complaisant workforce is waiting at the door”.

More considerations on expatriation, occupation and marriageable dating in “Pearl Diving”

* Housing. Real estate Web portals. Any apartments sold or rented? At what price? What do they look like? There’s no such fraud, scam, rattletraps disguised as “decent” property, and lousy public utilities like in the field of Post-Soviet real estate. Rent something or book a hotel through an established agency, make local friends, and have them help you to check out a neat abode of suitable quality / price ratio. Take professional care of paperwork.

Remember that the Head of Family is supposed to [sooner or later] provide a separate living space for his Family. The frequency of cases when a young Russian couple stays with parents doesn’t make this situation less afflictive and unstable.

Local orders make it quite unlikely for you to have a landplot and build a house in the woods. (Ok, let’s fantasize you do, and even find a way to get electricity… but no authority would bother bringing you running water and sewage! Yes, time to learn a folk euphemism “to go to the wind”.)

* Healthcare. Foreign insurance is paper. Local insurance is wishful thinking. Public healthcare is disaster (locals-only, anyway). Great national & municipal specialized medical institutes are great. Post-treatment service is mockers on them. Self-financed clinics are remedy.

Even if they don’t have their own websites in English or Russian, are there any institutes and clinics at least in the reference directory?

* Internet providers, and fair supply of power. The Cord I’ve mentioned. Many Russian people dream of living in the middle of nowhere and doing outwork, freelance or e-commerce anyelsewhere in the world. Which is quite plausible, yet at risk of those electricity blackouts and heating cut-offs that strike even the capitalliest Moscow (episodically) and hazard everything in province, – townwise, neighborhoodwise or even regionwise when some natural or industrial trouble happens.

* International civil lawyers and, desirably, a diplomatic entity. Corrupt bureaucracy is the nastiest part of Russian reality. When a foreigner is involved, they “like to” mess everything up more than they usually do (however unimaginable), send him to cleaners, but give no guarantee of his coming out clean with no more mess to face.

You may be as lucky as to never run into a street policeman who’ll go extorting a bribe on the grounds of assuming you are “rich and helpless”, but when it comes to putting on the functions of a member to the foreign society, especially doing any business, – just stay prepared for some “fun”.

Have I forgotten anything? )

Sincerely,

© Comrade Natalia

(…please link to this page when using some information from it! ;)