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The first Russian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Ivan Bunin, was unable to do so as a proud representative of his country. Introduced at the Nobel Banquet as “the soul of vanished Russia,” Bunin expressed his gratitude to “the hospitality of France” and to the Nobel Committee for awarding such a prestigious prize “to an exile.” Thirteen years prior, Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War had forced Bunin, an impassioned supporter of the anti-Communist White Movement, to leave or face execution if he was discovered on Soviet territory. As a result, he and his wife were forced to live an emigré existence in Paris, joined in the City of Lights by a whole host of Russian writers, artists, philosophers, and other members of the intelligentsia who found themselves in a similar predicament.
"Consequently, Russia is witnessing a second Great Emigration—a massive outflow of Russians willing neither to die a pointless death in Eastern Ukraine nor to live and work isolated from the rest of the world."
Now, exactly one century after the last shots of the Russian Civil War rang out in remote Yakutia, a new warmongering totalitarianism holds court in the Kremlin. Consequently, Russia is witnessing a second Great Emigration—a massive outflow of Russians willing neither to die a pointless death in Eastern Ukraine nor to live and work isolated from the rest of the world. Unlike the first, however, this emigration does not have “creatives” in its vanguard, but rather coders and engineers. The long-term implications of the exodus for Russian economic and social development are nothing short of calamitous.
In the days immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of thousands fled Russia. Represented in this initial surge were those who were previously opposed to the regime—and thus feared arrest or maltreatment—and those with non-language-dependent skills who could work remotely, such as IT professionals. One Russian IT trade group, for instance, estimated that the invasion’s first 30 days saw an outflow of up...