Last year, Tucker Carlson scandalised America by travelling to Russia and interviewing Vladimir Putin. As US viewers denounced the idea that one ought to speak to an enemy such as Putin, Tucker strolled around Moscow, filming himself taking the subway, buying a burger from the new Russian McDonalds, and going grocery shopping in a Moscow supermarket. Behaving, in fact, like he was in the West.
Back home, Tucker had some good things to say about Putin, as well as some bad things. But it was the streets and shops of Moscow that really “radicalised” him. The West likes to paint Russia as poor, miserable and oppressed, but Tucker described a perfectly ordinary modern society. The discrepancy between what Tucker had been taught to expect and what he actually saw in Russia didn’t just unnerve him — it made him angry.
Of course, one might point out that Moscow and St Petersburg are Potemkin villages of sorts, covering up the reality of deep poverty in much of the rest of the country. But none of this is ultimately a matter of facts. The conflict between the West and Russia today is now seen as ideological and existential, just as the conflict between communism and capitalism once was. To say something nice about the Russian enemy is to take his side; to say something nice about him that also happens to be true is seen as even more treasonous. Communist Russia was rife with stories about American workers being treated like dirt, toiling under truly awful living standards. After all, America was capitalist, and a capitalist society could never be a good place for a worker to live.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the epic tension that had built up over the decades between the US and Russia fell apart rapidly. Russians queued up to eat at McDonald’s or to buy blue jeans, and they also emigrated to America in droves. Some of them wanted a more stable place to raise their children than the dystopian nightmare that was Nineties Russia, others saw in America a more agreeable form of culture and ideology, and others still just wanted to make money. In 1980, the number of foreign-born Russian speakers in the US numbered less than 200,000. In 2011, that number had hit 900,000.
Since then, however, things have changed a great deal. The US is no longer the Mecca of foreign talent it once was, as it dives deeper into a geopolitical showdown with Russia, China, and the Brics more generally. The West is faltering both militarily and economically; the US empire is overstretched, practically insolvent, and facing growing exhaustion and disillusionment at home. To complicate this, the West’s own ideological tenets about freedom of speech and respect for human rights ring increasingly hollow. Even Westerners are losing faith in the American project.
While Tucker Carlson’s trip to Russia was a one-off, there has been a small but growing trickle of news stories in Western media featuring Americans deciding to brave the Iron Curtain in the other direction. The reasons they give are eerily similar to the ones heard from dissidents in the past: the political system in the West is broken and the politicians have lost the plot; the ruling ideology is out of touch with ordinary people; the standard of living is falling and the cost of living too high. Mostly, the reasons given today have to do with politics rather than economics: in this telling the West is just too “woke”, too materialist, and too sclerotic. Russia, for its part, seems eager to offer “political asylum” to any Westerner with a big enough bone to pick with their home country.
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SubscribeAbout two million people migrated , or fled, to Russia after 2014. They had been already stripped of pensions and medical supplies in Donbass and Luhansk. .4 mn live there now which was 6..5vmn. Nobody ever interviews them.
I wonder who downvoted me? Someone who doesn’t like facts?
I expect you got extra downvotes for complaining about getting downvotes.
Downvotes are a badge of honour here; someone noticed you.
The big thing about Europe is that we have a free world, choice of where we live, the right to criticise our government about anything, the ability to say things on the internet to make our feelings known, great schools, a real future for our children, a surfeit of energy sources to keep us warm…
But none of this is true, is it? We have been taken over slowly in a silent revolution. I am too old now but I would try Russia any time. Even if only to sit in front of a roaring coal fire in winter.
I think you make a very good point. I’m not even sure anymore what exactly i’m getting from my “freedom” here in the West. The fact that Carlson received so much criticism for going to Russia doesn’t make me feel any better. I’m a Capitalist at heart and see it as an integral (not necessarily ethical) part of a democratic state, but I don’t respond well to the constant big-bad-wolf story about Russia when I look around me. The West strikes me as a craven beast lashing out in its final days. When I see all the homeless off the streets, real improvements in education, real, active policies on civil rights, real responsive health care, a real justice system and police force, an end to corrupt power politics, then I might begin to judge Russia.
Russia is acting the big bad wolf in Ukraine. Or hadn’t you heard?
I think you’ve missed my point. I. talking about the quality of our freedom in the West, as opposed to what it’s purported to be.
Carlson received criticism for going to Russia for the same reason that Lord Haw Haw received criticism for going to Germany.
Which was what?
Aiding the enemy…..
How? In what way?
Giving airtime to the brutal warlord that runs the place.
The discrepancy between what Tucker had been taught to expect and what he actually saw in Russia didn’t just unnerve him — it made him angry.
He was angry about how America’s ruling class allowed this country to degenerate. How the streets of its once somewhat safe cities are now littered with vagrants and zombies. How its police are effectively barred from arresting anyone and if they do, it won’t matter because prosecutors won’t prosecute. He’s angry at how schools are turning out often illiterate high school “graduates,” and how its subways and transit systems resemble hellscapes.
As to freedom, which is a nice idea, one of the presidential candidates is openly hostile to the First and Second Amendments. Her party reflects that hostility, especially to the First. People remember John Kerry whining about how free speech impedes the Utopian fantasies people like him hold.
Interesting (as many recent Unherd articles).
There is a very high stake US election in 2 weeks. Depending on where the dice falls, the West might Kamalapse. I mean a young brit engineer with conservative values might consider fleeing Starmeristan to get such a visa.
Interesting article. However, I think for most people trying to escape the dysfunction of the West, and looking for a safe place to raise a family, Eastern European countries are a better option, not least since there isn’t conscription (yet).
Is there anyone on Earth more loathsome than Martin M?
One major practical issue: most people speak some English. Few speak Russian or other non-Latin languages well enough to hold down a job there. This sharply tilts the playing field, even before you allow for xenophobia (the Russian government may want skilled immigrants, but its citizens may be less enthusiastic).
A job at troll factory 55 Savuchkina St in Leningrad beckons, commenting on UnHerd 12 hrs a day. That’s how Champagne Socialist does it.
Really? I had CS pencilled in as an entirely British (but slightly cantankerous) member of the Corbynite Left.
It’s too cold.
Vodka is cheap though.
Awful drivel.
Though interesting in terms of a state assuming it owns its workers and the technology they developed and that they can’t take it anywhere in the world they chose to, because then that would be “traitorous”. A global market is exactly that, for everyone.
This type of brain is probably negligible today but might intensify when the Ukraine War ends.
I notice that the writer doesn’t state any concrete number for people who emigrated from Western countries to Russia in any given year. If he did so, presumably his argument would be exposed for the drivel it is.
Tucker Carlson and the American TV crew didn’t stay, of course; nor did Lee Harvey Oswald. I think Edward Snowden did, though.
The interesting thing is that if you’re immune to politics then you could, possibly (I don’t know for sure), have a pretty good life, as long as you weren’t enlistment age. But otherwise they seem to have what so many people in the West want. Just learn to keep your mouth shut.
Someone might think that they’re immune to politics, but is politics immune to them? I doubt that in Russia politics is immune to anyone.
There are plenty of people in the West immune to politics, by which I mean they don’t even notice it and it doesn’t make any difference to their lives.
Plenty of people. I’m in a poker game with a diverse group. Maybe four of the 10 even care about politics and it’s rarely discussed.
You mean like here in the West?
No, I mean that Russia is a militaristic one-party state with a huge internal security apparatus and state-controlled media. It’s hard to avoid that, even if you’re indifferent to it. And maybe some of your family members and/or friends aren’t indifferent, and you should probably care about them (I don’t mean “you” personally).
You (personally, or someone else) might respond by talking about the uniparty and woo-woo who knows what Western governments are really doing and the mainstream media and the blob and cancel culture and all the rest of it. I don’t accept that any of that makes anywhere in the West equivalent to a near-dictatorship such as Russia. And I challenge anyone who thinks like that (who, admittedly, ISN’T immune to politics) to move to Russia and try their luck as a below-the-line commenter on Pravda (if it still exists, and if it allows btl comments; but you know what I mean).
I mean that Russia is a militaristic one-party state with a huge internal security apparatus and state-controlled media.
juxtaposed with the US, this is a difference in degree but not in kind. We, too, have a huge spying apparatus, a DC cabal known to the natives as the uni-party, and what functions as state-controlled media. Why do you think so many are attacking Musk and X? We’re not at the point of killing dissidents just yet, but Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro are evidence that the US regime is not opposed to jailing them for a while.
You are one of Lenins usefull idiots if you believe there is little difference between the West and vile dictatorships like Russia and China.
Go and tell that to Navalnys widow and many others murdered by Putin.
Great post.
Still downvoted by Lenins usefull idiots in the West.
Maybe Russian trolls…
The difference is that this country has a lot of thing we do not like and you have to keep your mouth shut
I’m not sure what you mean. But there are many people here in the West who find themselves in trouble for saying what they think.
Burgess, Maclean and Philby “migrated” there too!
My first thought exactly. Give us the numbers.
Do you have any data to back this up? Anything? Because from what I see, since the war with Ukraine started there is a huge brain drain from Russia to countries close and far. You can now hire great Russian tech talent that has left in the last few years all over the place (from Georgia, Poland, the Baltics to Brazil and Argentina). So I think the whole basis for the article is flawed. Please provide numbers. Otherwise this is more disinformation…
Agree, this article is so exaggerated, there may be a few people going there from the west, but plenty of young Russians have fled Putin’s war to seek economic opportunities elsewhere and avoid being drafted and turned into canon fodder for Putin. You really need to get your head examined if you want to move to Russia and that horrible regime, regardless of the problems in the west which are trivial in comparison.
True: my nephew was a techie in Kharkiv when Russia invaded Ukraine. He and his highly techie Ukrainian partner got out and first set up shop in Romania, then Vienna, Austria. His Russian counterparts also got out and they’re also now in Romania and other countries too: and they all continue to work together, from wherever they are. Tech surpasses identity politics, national politics and any commitment to one particular country it seems.
Brain drain to Russia? Dream on comrade. Brain drain to China more likely. How sad.
This seems a bit hyperbolic. All told about a billion people live in the ‘West’ – sure, some of them are going to move to Russia. But not enough to matter, either to Russia or the West.
More fundamentally, migration is in many ways a long-term investment in a country. You’re making a bet that years or decades in the future, your quality of life in that country will be better than it would’ve been at home. That seems like a bit of a ropey decision re. Russia.
To nitpick this line specifically:
‘with economies entering what now looks like a phase of almost permanent stagnation due to the energy crisis’
Russia and other petrostates have far more to worry about than Western countries on energy, long term. The energy transition is happening. The pace at which solar is expanding globally is very rapid, batteries are going to get more efficient and more and more industries are going to electrify. This year, over 50% of new cars in China will be electric. This is not just because of climate change, but also driven by geopolitical and efficiency realities. The IEA, and even OPEC, keep bringing forward the year they expect oil demand to peak. You can question whether that’ll happen in 2030 or 2040 – but literally anyone with half an eye on energy can tell it’ll happen.
This is very bad news for states whose budgets are reliant on oil sales. Combined with political uncertainty (what happens when Putin dies? He can’t rule forever), military risk (do you really want to be drafted in a war? Or your sons?) and demographic headwinds (central asia is too small and not young enough to supply Russia with migrants forever), I’d seriously question the wisdom of moving to Russia long-term.
Great post.
Whole article is moronic.
I happened to be born in Soviet Block.
It was bad enough but Russia is even worse.
Lenins usefull idiots don’t understand realities of dictatorships like Russia or China.
If it goes well, you might be fine.
But sooner or later you might cross someone important over business or love.
Then you don’t have legal system to judge you case fairly.
No human law lawyers like Starmer or Sadiq the d**k to save your bacon.
All pro Russian clowns on here clearly ignore cases of Westerners arrested in Russia, China or Iran under false pretences to be used as bargaining chips.
Those are all very good reasons to immigrate to Dubai – or even Estonia
If you’re a middle class professional, Moscow may not be so bad; but if you want to run a business then good luck
Interesting article. Lots of attention has been paid to how countries, like Ireland for instance, lure corporations with low rates of corporation tax. Surprising in a way the same’s not been tried more extensively with individuals.
By the way, if you want safer streets, cheaper houses and a better education system, try Japan. The weather and food are better than Russia, and you won’t run the risk of ending up on the Eastern front.
It has. Monaco is an example.
Germany is considering a personal tax reduction of 10-30% for immigrants for at least the first three years. There are quite a few problems with this:
– Immigrants by definition are highly mobile and can quite easily relocate after the tax discount ends. If “normal” tax is a disincentive to come, it’ll be a strong incentive to go. It’s a lot harder to shift corporate offices.
– People bring far greater liabilities and need more services proportional to the potential tax revenue they bring than corporations. If Apple moves to Berlin nearly every extra € in tax paid is a net gain for the government no matter what the tax rate paid. If Abdul moves to Berlin almost all the tax paid by Abdul – or more if he’s not a super high earner – is needed to fund the services he needs, so tax discounts will mean even fewer immigrants are net contributors.
– It is a timely reminder that higher earning citizens are being farmed for tax. Implicit in the offer of a tax discount to foreigners is the idea that high earning citizens are unlikely to move abroad to lower their own tax bills. The unintended consequence is more citizens will themselves start thinking more seriously about what their global opportunities look like – and frankly Germany is a poor prospect compared to many European countries let alone the USA – and decide to leave.
– It is political dynamite. Corporations don’t vote and corporate tax sweetheart deals rarely disadvantage native companies. If Apple gets a sweetheart deal and brings jobs, then most citizens think this is a good thing. The exact opposite is true for people and special tax reductions reserved only for certain people like immigrants. Me paying a higher tax rate than Abdul on the same earnings puts me at a disadvantage, and I have a vote.
Given all these problems with the idea, I am nearly certain Germany will implement the plan.
and I have a vote
Which is virtually useless.
You’re right, it’s not been very effective so far… hence I think the German government will press on and create even more division and decay.
Why do you say it is “useless”? Because other people have voted differently to you?
I’m afraid this advert to take a mid-life gap year in Russia is on the wrong forum.
I am a senior engineer with experience in manufacturing and construction and with several decades of employment left to look forward to. Presumably just the sort of person Putin wants to recruit.
I also comment on UnHerd.
UnHerd commenters are on the whole contrarian, anti-authority and above all can’t keep their mouths shut. I’d be dead in a fortnight. So would (nearly) everyone reading this.
We’re not doing a good job of making sure our fellow citizens don’t sell their freedom for a few shekels lately.
Post script: on the other hand if Putin wants to recruit the kind of engineers who are happy to keep their mouth shut for money – whether about a regime or a project – I think we can happily send them over.
As Napoleon was imagined to have said: “Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake. It’s rude.”
Russia is a wonderful country and deserves to do well. Russians very much deserve better than Putin. Adam Curtis’ interesting series Traumazone gives a real feeling of how badly the collapse of the USSR was handled in the 90s by all involved, and how it led to the oligarchy of the security establishment. It could have been very different.
Countries mostly get the governments they deserve. Russians deserve Putin, just liked they deserved Stalin and Ivan the Terrible.
First if all you say Russia is a totalitarian state, then you say the Russians deserve what they get. How does that work?
The Russian people have a natural predisposition to being governed by tyrants, and that’s what they get. Don’t forget that under Yeltsin and initially under Putin, Russia was democratic. Putin even stopped being President due to term limits (he put Medvedev in). However, he soon did the usual “change the Constitution, President for Life” thing, and hardly anyone in Russia raised any objections.
The Russian people have a natural predisposition to being governed by tyrants, and that’s what they get.
So everyone’s happy: Putin gets to call the shots and the people are happy with that because it’s their natural disposition. And our concern is what, that they’ll be strong enough to take over Europe?
Exactly.
Morons on here blame the West for Russian ills.
Whereas, if you know Russian history, it was always the same.
Whether Tsarism, Communism or Putinism it is always poverty, violence and murder.
All in the cause of genocidal Russian imperialism.
I am going to put in for one of these “Shared Values Visas”. I’ll say that I am in favour of “unprovoked invasions of neighboring countries”, and “committing war crimes”. I’ll be a shoo-in.
Careful – you’d be in jail in no time calling it an ‘invasion’. It’s a special operation, comrade.
I’m working on the basis that Ukraine won’t be the last.
Comrade?
Unprovoked is stretching it.
Let me clarify: When I say “unprovoked”, I mean that neither Ukraine nor anyone else provoked Russia into mounting the invasion.
I used to be pretty bullish about Vladimir Putin’s program of national rejuvenation, of which immigration-encouragements like this are a part. Basically, as a full-spectrum conservative/reactionary, I realized that many of Putin’s criticisms of the West were valid.
Then came February 2022 and the beginning of the Ukraine War, which put paid to my enthusiasm. An invasion that was probably supposed to take only a few weeks stalled in the face of bad logistics and infighting in the armed forces, and now, 32 months and 600,000 Russian casualties later, and even after resorting to bottom-of-the-barrel measures like recruiting from prisons and press-ganging university students from Africa, Russia still hasn’t subdued its much smaller enemy. (The Wagner coup in June of last year doesn’t inspire much confidence in Russia’s leadership, either, things like that just don’t happen in functional countries.)
I wrote about the Wagner coup and how it affected my views on Russia in my own substack post entitled “A Failed Bismark and his Barbarians: What happens when a leader isn’t up to the task of national revival.”
https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/a-failed-bismarck-and-his-barbarians
Unlike a lot of people in the West, I’m not exultant about Russia’s failures. Much of what Vladimir Putin has tried to do is actually good and necessary – but it seems to me the man became too obsessed with the faults of his enemies, both real and perceived, to focus on building strong institutions in his own country.
So, to answer the main question, No, I wouldn’t move to Mother Russia. (Except in an extreme case like if the government is trying to trans my child.) It isn’t because I’m not fed up with the West’s ruling class, or even because I don’t sympathize with Vladimir Putin’s goals – I’m just too skeptical of his ability to follow through on them.
That’s the thing. Alone he can’t follow through on them. He needs our (Non-Russian) help. Going to Russia doesn’t mean signing up for a better sugar daddy government like we have here in the West. It means you will be an active participant in the creation of the Russian world. Putin and Russian elites create the dream, imagine it, and take the lead in its execution. Western expertise makes sure it will actually succeed. You’re not thinking in a creative manner. Nobody succeeds without support. The reason that Western governments ask nothing of you, yet seem to be all-powerful is because of a long legacy of support and commitment from the public (and the extraction of human and natural resources from the rest of the world). This power & success doesn’t magically happen, and to expect this from Russia or Putin is spoiled at best, insane at worst. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”.
“He needs our (Non-Russian) help“. Let’s redouble our efforts to not give it to him.
Hateful attitudes like this are exactly the reason why people are starting to like Russia. Enjoy your soulless Western world with your soulless people and your frozen heart.
Why would we give help to a country inhabited by a barbaric people, and ruled by a brutal warlord? They have given the West a lot of trouble in the past, and will in the future.
As a long-term admirer of Russian culture myself (studied and travelled as a tourist to lots of it – not just Moscow/St Petersburg) I’d be interested to know if you actually visited? Lovely people but flipping hell it is depressing – you can get that from reading the literature. That is before the very real probability that you and your (un-trans’ed) children are used as cannon fodder in the latest attempt to “protect the motherland”. Outside of the metropolises life is a grind. On the other hand so is the UK and our 2nd city is Birmingham so go figure. If only they played cricket.
If Russians played cricket, they would cheat.
So do the Australians.
Absolutely.
Fair point. I should say that although I live in Australia, I support the country of my birth (England) in cricket.
“Much of what Vladimir Putin has tried to do is actually good and necessary“. What is it that you say falls into this category.
I’m not sure Russia stands much chance of luring in our best and brightest. It doesn’t take much research to see how utterly impoverished and ruined the place is.
Compared to what?