Living in Russia

Russia keeps tax almost out of the picture, so very little of the pay is lost before it reaches you, and a solid amount remains after a typical life is paid for. The fields most open to outsiders are IT and the skilled trades, though that openness is relative. This is among the harder places on the continent to enter cold. The working world runs in Russian, hiring is built on personal trust, and an outsider without the language or local ties faces a steep climb.

Russia sits on both sides of one of the world's biggest migration ledgers: about 9.1M Russians live abroad — the fifth-largest diaspora anywhere — while 7.3M foreign-born residents live inside the country. The diaspora, up 7% over the past decade, is closely tied to the post-Soviet space: Ukraine hosts the most at 3.4M, with Germany and Uzbekistan next. Arrivals follow the same corridors in reverse.