Tens of thousands of professionals flee Putin's Russia to Turkey

The life of journalist Valeria Ratnikova, 22, turned upside down in just five minutes.

The time it took to buy a plane ticket from Moscow to Istanbul.

"I had to act very quickly because there were hardly any tickets left," she says.

She quickly packed her luggage (breakfast clothes, an extra pair of shoes, hygiene products, her laptop, tablet, and chargers), closed the door of her apartment, and headed for the airport.

Behind her were her belongings and a lifetime of hers.

And she doubts not knowing if she will be able to return.

“It was a very tough decision.

I never thought of leaving Russia."

Ratnikova finished her university studies three years ago and immediately appeared on Dozhd TV because she wanted to dedicate herself to political journalism and do it in one of the few independent media outlets that existed in her country, respecting the Kremlin's guidelines.

It was not easy: last year, this television channel, like many other independent media and journalists, was declared a "foreign agent", which means that they must publish their content under that label, in addition to suffering much more control from the authorities.

“Our channel was one of the few that covered the war in Ukraine objectively and our audience grew a lot.

The Government did not like that, and after six days it blocked our website because they said we were publishing hoaxes.

Which is a lie.

At the same time, they approved the law that sentences those who disseminate unofficial information to prison;

that's why we decided to leave”, he affirms.

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Almost all independent media have been closed and up to 300 Russian journalists have chosen the path of exile, explains another refugee journalist in Istanbul who asks that her data not be published.

For calling war war (instead of "special military operation") they can get up to 15 years in prison, more than for murdering someone.

Valeria is just one of tens of thousands of compatriots who have escaped from Vladimir Putin's Russia in recent weeks.

Russian opponents raise this figure to 300,000.

Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Internet searches for terms such as "emigration", "flights", "visas", "political asylum"...

The nearly 50 planes that landed in Istanbul daily from Moscow, St. Petersburg and other Russian cities have been progressively reduced to just 15: those operated by Turkish Airlines and some small Russian airlines.

Hence, prices have risen to over 1,500 euros, at a time when the ruble has lost more than a quarter of its value.

Even so, flights from Russia have landed in Turkey full of passengers for weeks.

The same is happening in neighboring countries that still maintain air connections: several thousand Russian citizens have arrived in Georgia, and about 6,000 a day are landing in Armenia, according to a member of Parliament.

And in Israel another 2,000 have landed.

There are those who are also opting for Asia or countries of the Persian Gulf, but Istanbul offers a more affordable life,

Daniil, a technician who worked with official bodies and feared for his safety in Moscow given his participation in the anti-war protests, denounces: “Everything is changing very quickly in Russia.

After February 24th we woke up in a different country.

Every day new laws are approved, increasingly harsh.

Before the repression was occasional;

now it is massive.

Before you knew that maybe you could end up in prison for your political ideas, now you know that you are going to end up in jail, one hundred percent sure.

I was afraid that a colleague would give me away for something I had said or done."

The fear is not unfounded according to Putin's latest speeches.

On Wednesday, the Russian president denounced the "fifth columnists" who "live mentally" in the West: "The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors, and spit them out the same way as a mosquito that accidentally enters your mouth.”

A Turkish porter transports quilts and bedding to one of the houses rented by the Kovcheg project to accommodate Russians who have fled their country due to the deteriorating political situation, but have difficulty accessing their funds due to sanctions.Andrés Mourenza

The exodus is not only of journalists or individuals associated with the opposition.

Academics, artists, technicians, programmers, designers and other employees of the growing technology sector have also joined.

Alexei Levinson, an analyst at the Levada Center in Moscow, explains: “These are highly educated professionals.

There are those who leave because they feel in danger due to the political situation and those who do so because of the economic situation”.

“Russia”, adds Alexei, “is on the verge of a very bad economic situation.

Due to the sanctions, many companies are leaving or closing down because they cannot provide services or goods.

And this shortage of professionals is going to make things even worse.”

According to this analyst, the fact that Russian leaders describe those who emigrate as “traitors” is aimed at stopping this brain drain.

Anna, a marketing expert and employee at one of these companies, recounts: “On my plane to Yerevan it was clear from the looks of it that it was all tech and

The flight was delayed and a man with an FSB [Russian internal security service] badge came in to do checks.

Around the plane there were also men in military uniform, which was very rare.

It was very stressful.

So when I landed in Yerevan I breathed a sigh of relief."

He stayed in the capital of Armenia for a few days, without stopping to find Russians everywhere: "Even colleagues have left who were those who do not detach themselves from the computer and hate traveling."

Many do not know what will become of them because they worked on projects managed from Russia, but destined for companies in Europe or North America.

In addition, they face a problem: they only have the money they were able to withdraw before leaving.

Western sanctions have made their bank cards stop working and the disconnection of the SWIFT system makes transfers virtually impossible.

The Turkish daily

published this week that there has been a large increase in the opening of new accounts in Turkish banks by Russian citizens.

Anna, for example, has had to use her boyfriend's card, who has been living in the UK for years;

but others do not have that support.

Journalists' associations in Turkey have organized themselves to welcome their Russian colleagues.

Other initiatives, such as the so-called Kovcheg (The Ark), financed by exiled tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, also try to help fleeing Russians.

Generational gap

Three Russian volunteers help a Turkish porter load the duvets, sheets and pillows they just bought from a side street in the Yenikapi neighborhood.

Pulling his wheelbarrow, the porter heads up the steep slopes to the apartment the Kovcheg members have found: a decent rental for six rooms, which will accommodate 12 people.

Those who benefit from this aid must request it, and the association checks their history to certify that they are at risk if they remain in Russia, points out Eva Rapoport, an anthropologist who lived in Istanbul and has joined the project as a volunteer: “I was not involved in no protest movement, but this war has gone beyond any red lines.

And I couldn't sit idly by.

So I help these people who have been stuck between a rock and a hard place,

Daniil and Sasha are the first to arrive at the flat, having just landed from Uzbekistan.

“We were very afraid that we would not be able to go out, that all the flights abroad would be cancelled”, explains Sasha: “It happened to us several times that we could not buy the flights because they were canceled in the middle of the process.

And there are more and more rumors that they will close the borders so that no one leaves.”

Daniil and Sasha fled Russia and arrived in Istanbul via Uzbekistan, fearing arrest for their involvement in anti-war protests.Andrés Mourenza

A little Moscow in Istanbul

Another academic, who prefers not to give her name, explains her flight in that she did not want to stay in "a state that is becoming totalitarian."

In her case, it has broken, in addition to her native country, with her family: “My mother told me that I am a traitor and that I will be ashamed of my decision.

The worst thing is that she has relatives in Ukraine.

I've already given up trying to convince her of it.

The problem is television, my parents spend the day with the television on and state propaganda is like a sect: it tells them that they are going to be lied to and that they are the object of a conspiracy, and they believe that it is the only truth.

They have not learned to look for different sources of information.”

It's not the only one.

“My parents do not support what is happening, but they do not understand leaving the country either.

So we've come to an agreement not to talk about the news.

In addition, it could be dangerous for them, ”says Anna shortly before saying goodbye to the interview.

It's almost 10 pm on Tuesday night and the concert is about to start: hundreds of people wait patiently to be allowed to enter Kadiköy Sahnesi, the room where the popular Russian rapper Oxxxymiron is going to perform.

On March 11, she announced on social media his performance in Istanbul under the banner

the proceeds of which will be dedicated to helping Ukrainian refugees.

Tickets sold out in a few hours.

In the room, the assistants, almost all Russians, chant phrases against Putin and in favor of Ukraine;

and on stage, the rapper says that, despite having written his new album before the invasion, his lyrics “resonate more now”: “You can breathe in fear and stare at the sky / If you resist the shit that surrounds us, don't do it with a sad face / Everything will be repeated, more than once.

But we're alive for now / It's too soon for us to fertilize the black earth."

Several of the Russian emigrants fear that the "Russophobia" unleashed by their government's actions will end up affecting them, although in Turkey there have not yet been cases as it has happened in Georgia or in Western European countries.

“Our mission is to explain that not all Russians support the war.

It is a very important task,” says journalist Valeria Ratnikova.

Especially since they don't know how long their exile will last.

Istanbul 1924 restaurant, formerly Rejans, was founded by Russians who fled their country after the Revolution and civil war in the 1920s.

It became a center for social gatherings and Russian culture in Istanbul.Andrés Mourenza

At the end of an alley that starts from Istiqlal Avenue, up some narrow stairs, there is a restaurant that seems from another time.

It is.

The wooden chairs, the pianola, the chandeliers, maintain the elegance of a century ago.

It's called Istanbul 1924, before it was called Rejans.

And it is one of the vestiges of the Russian community in Istanbul: here the Russian émigrés taught the Turks to drink vodka with lemon, to appreciate new performing arts... The place became one of the centers of political and cultural gatherings of the 1920s, when more than 200,000

who fled their country after the Revolution and the civil war, among them the painter Pavel Chelishchev, the Smirnov family (who established their vodka distillery in Istanbul for four years) or a boy named Vladimir Nabokov [later author of the novel

among other].

Years later, this route to exile was also chosen by another renowned Russian: Leon Trotsky.

“Many Russians come to Istanbul as a stopover to get a visa and go to another country.

But some will stay, because it is close to Russia," says anthropologist Eva Rapoport: "So Istanbul could become a focus of non-Putinian Russian culture, showing that Russia is much more than support for the war."

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