It was not long after Artur posted a picture of his birth certificate showing his Ukrainian heritage to Instagram that he and his partner decided to flee Russia. “We took a precaution to leave,” said Vsevolod, his partner. Artur felt more strongly: “We read the signals,” he said, recalling the abuse he received.
The couple fled Moscow for Istanbul in early March, their lives turned upside down overnight by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising concern among young men about how authorities could demand they show support for the war, including military conscription. Both of their names have been changed at their request.
“The atmosphere of fear in Russia is unprecedented,” said Vsevolod. “There’s no draft right now, but there’s activity. The military networks are active. Whether this is intimidation or preparation for a draft I don’t know.” One friend signed an online petition against the war, and then the police showed up at her family home. Another friend who had already fled to Istanbul received a phone call on WhatsApp from the police, requesting to see him.
Thousands of Russians have fled the country since the invasion of Ukraine, many for Turkey as well as Finland, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia, where the government claims that up to 25,000 people have crossed the border in recent weeks. Istanbul has proved a popular choice, either for transit or a new home, as the closure of European airspace to Russian flights makes Turkey one of the few remaining hubs left that can serve as an escape route.
“In the airport, the authorities were prying, inquiring about return tickets. I deleted Meduza and some of the other opposition news apps because there were rumours that they check people’s phones,” said Artur. Like many, he had heard stories of border guards searching travellers’ electronic devices, looking for suspicious content like support for opposition politician Alexei Navalny, or reading websites that are banned in Russia after new censorship laws.
“The airport was eerie; it was so empty. But the aircraft was unusually huge, and fully packed. You could see all the young, well-dressed people with sad eyes and you understood instantly that this is the self-exiled creative class,” he said.
Many of those arriving in Istanbul are millennials who grew up in a post-cold war Russia, part of a middle class that was used to international travel and working in industries deeply socially and economically intertwined with the outside world. The sudden criminalisation of the word “war” to describe Russia’s invasion of Ukraine coupled with the country’s political and economic isolation turned this reality on its head overnight. Journalists, dissidents and artists fled, worried about what would happen if they cited the war in their work. Others feared being jailed for protesting, or realised that their former lives and means of survival had simply ceased to exist.
“For the first time in my life in Russia, I’m bereft of any vision of the future,” said Artur, who previously worked in the art world. The couple have no idea whether they will be living in Istanbul for three weeks, or three years.
Vsevolod shared his dismay: “Things are so unpredictable right now, we can’t see the future. Anything is possible right now – mentally, we just couldn’t stay.”
In a recent speech, Vladimir Putin attacked Russia’s liberals and upper class, describing them as “national traitors” with “villas in Miami or the French Riviera, who cannot make do without foie gras, oysters or gender freedom, as they call it”. The Russian president sneered at what he called their “servile mentality”, accusing them of being too western “in their minds, and not here with our people and with Russia”.
Yet life in exile is quickly acquiring its own potent anti-government politics. Russian rapper Oxxxymiron organised a charity concert in Istanbul entitled Russians Against War. Tickets sold out as soon as they went on sale.
“At least here or anywhere else in the world we can do more to protest than inside,” said Arsen, a former high-fashion photographer who fled the country with his partner shortly after they avoided arrest at a demonstration in Moscow. He requested that his family name be withheld to protect relatives still in Russia.
Arsen felt he had no choice but to leave, and is trying to make peace with his newfound existence in Istanbul. “If we continue to participate in life in Russia things will never change, not in Russia nor here, not for people who have left. It’s important to try and set up a new life somewhere else,” he said. “We might be able to make money in Moscow, but I don’t want my children to grow up in a society like that.”
The influx of Russians is already causing tensions in nearby Georgia, once part of the Soviet Union, where citizens started a petition demanding that the government end visa-free entry to Russians. “By the time I got to Istanbul, my friends in Tbilisi sent me messages telling me not to come,” said Arsen. “Already people are scared by the number of Russians who’ve moved there. They remember how the regime moves people somewhere, generations stay in a foreign country and then Putin goes there and starts a war to say he’s protecting Russians.”
“We left for good,” he added. “At least until while this regime is in power nothing will change.”
While political repression propelled some Russians to Istanbul, international sanctions have made properties on Turkey’s southern coastline attractive to Russian wealth. “We have no intention of joining in these sanctions,” Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told local channel Haberturk at the beginning of March. “We can’t afford to take sides,” the foreign minister added.
Ukrainians and Russians have long been Turkey’s primary source of tourists. About 4.7 million Russian citizens visited Turkey last year, almost 20% of all arrivals and it has also operated a “golden visa” scheme since early 2017, where foreign nationals can acquire citizenship in just a few months after a real estate investment of $250,000 (£190,000). Aran Hawker, owner of CIP Turkey, a company that claims to be the leader in what he called “investment migration, meaning residencies and passports for ultra-high net worth individuals” said he had seen a “massive increase” in applications from Russian citizens since the invasion of Ukraine began.
“As soon as the war started and sanctions started kicking in, they were quick to shut off bank accounts and credit cards,” said Hawker, describing the moment when applications for golden visas sharply rose. Property in the southern Turkish city of Antalya was already popular with Russians, Iraqis and Iranians looking to invest money abroad, while local outlets suggested that rents and sales prices were rising after an increase in Russian buyers.
Turkish property sales could also face scrutiny from the US Department of Justice, which recently launched Task Force KleptoCapture intended to hunt down Russian oligarchs’ efforts to avoid sanctions or launder corrupt finances, including through property purchases. Officials from the department did not respond when contacted for comment on the issue.
“We don’t want to get politically involved in anything, we just want to help people out. If someone’s even a little borderline, we don’t go near them. We’re careful about what we do,” said Hawker.
