When data analyst Alexey Rostotskiy made the decision to leave Russia, several options presented themselves: where to start a new life?
In Kazakhstan?
In Uzbekistan?
It is finally in Armenia that he decides to flee Moscow, shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, in March 2022, when he feels threatened after having participated in an anti-war demonstration.
"
Russian citizens can stay six months without a visa in Armenia,"
says the 35-year-old expatriate
.
You can cross the border without a passport, and since I didn't have one, I chose to go to Yerevan
.”
Like him, it is in this former Soviet Republic that hundreds of thousands of compatriots have found refuge since the beginning of the war.
Some 650,000 Russian nationals were counted in 2022, but the Armenian Ministry of Economy only counted 110,000 at the end of 2022. The first flow of arrivals mainly concerned young people between 20 and 45 years old, educated and well-off.
Among them, a…
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