Tale Of Two Russians

From the BBC:
"A tale of two Russians"

More than 2.5 million people have left Russia during the past decade, sparking fears of a new brain-drain.  A third of Russia's young professionals are thinking of leaving the country, according to the Russian market research company ROMIR.  Many of them are making plans to go to countries whose economy is performing less well than Russia's. So why do they want to leave? Grigory Rudko is one of those who was dreaming of leaving and now he has taken the plunge.  A graduate of Russia's prestigious Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, where Sergey Eisenstein once taught, Grigory has moved to San Francisco to launch his own business, an online photo archive called Time Machine. Grigory says it is easier and more profitable to start a business in the US, where he doesn't have to deal with as much bureaucracy and the political issues that irritated him in Russia.  "I wish I could distance myself from what's going on in the country but it proved to be impossible for me," he says. "I was very stressed in Russia. When you have to keep these negative feelings permanently, it's self-destructive, it leads you nowhere, gives you nothing." In Russia Grigory worked as a cameraman for several TV stations and has several documentaries under his belt.  "I travelled to different parts of Russia, filmed in North Caucasus, but most of what I've witnessed and filmed couldn't be broadcast on state TV channels, I had to offer it to the foreign media." "At one point I was just tired of seeing one picture in real life and totally different images on national TV channels". While young urban Russians have itchy feet, most of the older generation and those who live in rural Russia don't even have a foreign passport.  In its research, the Levada Centre, a Russian independent, non-governmental polling organisation, found that 78% of respondents had never travelled outside the country. "Russia might lose the most educated, advanced and critically thinking strata of a society", warns Natalya Zorkaya, from the Levada Centre.

^ This is sad for any country, but when it happens at an alarming rate like it is in Russia it should make the Government stop and think of why people are leaving and come up with ways to prevent them from leaving - without putting a Berlin Wall-style barrier up. ^

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20498711