The new Russians

"I don't think things are so bad now, and I think it was much worse here in the 1990s. Things will keep getting better and better," says Olya, 18, who sells Coca-Cola in Moscow.     ALSO      Click here for more opinions from Russia's youth

After a decade of adventures abroad,
young generation
choosing to stay home

By Maria Antonenko
Transitions Online

MOSCOW, Russia -- Pavel Doshlov, a 28-year-old economist, sits at the Chinese Pilot, a popular bar among young Russians, explaining over a beer why he has chosen to return to Russia rather than live abroad. "People are more open here, more sincere and funny," he said. "It's a very dynamic place, and young people have big opportunities."

Doshlov should know. He speaks English and Chinese fluently -- even his Russian is studded with English phrases -- and has lived in China, England, and Hungary. But after graduating from Budapest's Central European University, he knew where he wanted to head -- home.

In the 1990s, many young Russians sought better opportunities through emigration. As many as 1 million young Russians may have gone abroad to study in the last decade and not returned, according to some estimates. But riding high on the apparent stability and economic growth of the last two years, young Russians are increasingly optimistic about their future at home.

Doshlov's economist friend Sveta Parilova, 26, also studied in the West and has relatives who have emigrated to New York, but like Doshlov, she chose Russia. "Even if I make less money (in Russia), but still have enough money to live a normal life, then I'm better off here -- I know the language, my friends are here, and I know how it works."

Ten years after the Soviet Union's collapse, Russian twentysomethings can look back on what a decade of reforms and freedom have brought them. These "children of the transition" are a unique generation, raised by a Communist system that was swept away when they were teen-agers. They share a memory of communism with older generations but have had to build their lives in the rough-and-tumble market of the new Russia.

Communism's collapse left no one untouched, but for some, like Tatyana Leonova, 29, the changes brought unimagined possibilities. "When I was 19 or 20, we used to talk about how our generation was unlucky," Leonova said. "If we had been five years older, then we would have founded companies under (Gorbachev's) perestroika. It's only now that I realize that we are the ones who had the golden opportunity."

Leonova is now a Nestle's sales manager for the Moscow region and Belarus, but in 1991, she was an engineering student at the Moscow-based Institute of Steel and Alloys. With a knowledge of English and little formal business training, Leonova has become one of the leading young businesswomen in Russia.

Realizing that in 1996 the time was ripe, she aggressively sought work with Western companies. "Between 1993 and 1996, people did not need to have a specialist education to get a good job with a Western company," she said. "All you needed was ambition."

For others of Leonova's generation, Russia's transition has brought greater disruption and less opportunity. Alexei Ivanov, 30, was attending medical school in 1991, but the transition made his family poor overnight after inflation ravaged people's savings, and he had to quit his studies to work.

"It is now more difficult for people like me to find their place," Ivanov said. "If the system hadn't changed, I would have had a stable life. I would have continued studying medicine and would have gotten a nice position."

But Ivanov -- who works odd jobs to supplement his salary as a teacher -- also appreciates the greater dynamism of the new Russia. "In the end, you make your own way and (that's) worth it."

Parilova's analysis of the current situation is optimistic. "The current reformers have more precise ideas than in the past," she said. "If there will be consistency, then things will improve."

She said she believes that there has already been a change in the attitudes of young Russians. "Before, a lot of my acquaintances went abroad to study and stayed there," she said. "The only people who returned to Russia were (those) who could not find a good job abroad. Now even friends with good (prospects) abroad decide to come back here and work."

According to a survey by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, 36 percent of Russians were dissatisfied with the political and economic progress in 2000 -- the lowest rate since communism fell in 1991.

In 1999, employees at IBS, the leading Russian IT group, established a "Russians Go Home" Web site. The site -- which encourages and assists Western-trained young Russians to move back home -- includes interviews with influential young Russians.

Sergei Vorobyov, a leading Russian head hunter, said that his agency previously had to entice Russian professionals to return from abroad with promises of exorbitant salaries. Now the agency can't handle all the young Russians who want to come home. He proudly declares that "brain repatriation" can be called "a mass tendency."

Doshlov comments, "When my friends who emigrated return for a visit, they always begin by cursing the dirty hallways, the corrupt police, the dour women working in the stores," he said. "But in the end, they are always a bit jealous because I am leading a good life at home."

Maria Antonenko is a correspondent for Transitions Online, an Internet magazine covering Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, and a free-lance journalist based in Moscow.

Related sites:

Russians Go Home (In Russian)




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