Understanding Russia’s Brain Drain in the 2010s

Problems of Post-Communism. 2021. Vol. 68. No. 6. P. 521–530.

Деминцева Е. Б.

This article is based on a study that sought to understand the ways in which the highly skilled and young professionals who emigrated from Russia in the 2010s explain and narrate their decision to leave the country. I draw on interviews with these professionals to map out their strategies of presenting and explaining the choice of specific developments to be cast as the turning points on their trajectory toward emigration. As the study demonstrates, most of them saw their personal circumstances as embedded within the broader political and social context they experienced in Russia. An important dimension of the story is their sense of what they present as inability to change their personal circumstances in Russia and the lack of prospects for broader changes.

Ключевые слова: Россия, эмиграция, Russia, emigration, «утечка умов», brain drain, высококвалифицированные специалисты, highly skilled professionals, young professionals, молодые профессионалы