The headquarters of the Russian company Yandex, which specializes in internet research, in Moscow. Sergei Karpukhin/REUTERS
NARRATIVE – The massive departure abroad of this highly qualified workforce threatens the economy of Russia, already under pressure from Western sanctions.
Correspondent in Moscow
The life of 32-year-old Nikolai took an unexpected turn last spring. A few weeks after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the foreign IT company that employed him left Russia. “I was offered either to give up my job or to move out of the country,” says this specialist in automated control systems. The choice was quickly made – direction, Kazakhstan, a country “fairly developed where living conditions are quite normal“. Hear, compared to Russia. “I moved because I don’t support this war. Besides, if I had stayed, I wouldn’t be able to talk about all this openly. And if I had resisted the regime, I would have gone to prison“, he summarizes. Based in Astana, Nikolaï divides his time between his work in information technology (IT), his main source of income, and his passion as a documentary photographer.
A journey that resembles that of many “aitichniki
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