I grew up in the Cold War (my father was in the CIA). Russians were considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy.
Then, the Berlin Wall came down, and everything changed.
I started to see amazing creativity come from Russia. Music, technology, art, actors, dance, all kinds of stuff. I loved working with Russian engineers. They were some of the best techs I'd worked with. I have a lot of Russian music in my iTunes rotation. I've enjoyed a number of Russian shows, on Netflix. At one time, that would never have been the case.
It really seems as if the door has been slammed on that.
Russian culture in Russia might be done for though, at least for a while.
I feel like that needs to be qualified? Maybe ages 20-40 and of a certain social-economic class can leave fairly easily, but it’s gotta be much harder to leave if you’re too young, too old, too poor, have too few connections, or have aged parents, young children, etc.
It's so rare nowadays.
While i agree with technology, art (painters, literature), dance (ballet), i didn't think Russia brings much to the worlds of music.
Curious what is in you iTunes rotation?
Also, surprisingly, some really good flamenco guitar, and Arabic-inspired stuff.
Some might be from former Russian nations, but some is straight from St. Petersburg.
I’m not really in a position, at the moment, to find the various songs. I have a big library, and it takes a while to find stuff.
I have very eclectic tastes.
> Russians were considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy.
Russia and US stopped being political enemies.
> I started to see amazing creativity come from Russia.
Russia and US started being political enemies again.
> Russians are considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy.
It's not really clear but I think I'm starting to see a pattern here.
Despite the gloomy predictions, Russia keeps doing fine on all dimensions.
War in Ukraine was not a good thing to happen, but Russia is not that badly managed, and the West is not that well managed.
Russians and Belarusians made their mistakes back then. Now it's just a consequence of not fighting for their democracy strongly enough when it was still possible.
This is the thing that kills democracy - it is taken away from you very slowly, step by step, and at any given moment it looks like it's not a big deal. And then when it's a big deal - you realize it doesn't matter what people think. You can't change anything.
In my country (Poland) the fight is still going on, but I'm not optimistic.
On the contrary this war is Putin's multiyear bet on Russia's useful idiots in the West.
US Republicans overwhelmingly supported US military aid to Ukraine in the beginning of the war. However Tucker Carlson and other populists spend the next 12 months lowering that support to less than 40%.
The only reason Russia started this war is because they believed their useful idiots in the West will save them. They are yet to be proved wrong.
I'm confused. Hasn't the US and EU given incredible military aide to Ukraine?
So yes - it was a blunder.
And yes - they are counting on useful idiots in the west now, but that wasn't the plan, it's russians trying to save whatever they can after that initial blunder. You can know that by looking at how long it took for russian propaganda targeting the west to catch up after the start of the invasion in 2022. Usually they prepare the western audiences. This time they didn't bothered because it was supposed to be a quick thing and it was secret even for many russians in the government.
Also - useful idiots are in many countries, not just in USA. EU is hugely important in this war, especially Germany, and they were ruled by useful russian idiots for last 30 years. I'm not sure they stopped being them even now.
> The only reason Russia started this war is because they believed their useful idiots in the West will save them
This is just wrong.
It's not even that complicated. His bet was that the West would respond the same as we did with Georgia, Chechenya, and the Donbas/Crimean invasion of 2014.
It was 'safe' to assume that the West would react the same with a complete invasion of Ukraine. Seems like not.
If Putin was smart, he would have gracefully pulled out of this. But seems like he much rather want to turn his country into a new North Korea.
I’m pretty sure Russia will try very hard to attract foreign labor and immigration in the next years to fill some of the gaps that the country has to fill now.
Good luck...
Even if they are not spies, their parents or grandparents are probably still in Russia, so the state has methods to blackmail them into spying.
They'd often go to school and try to recruit students who excel in math and computer science. But they'd never be able to match the salary and conditions of any tech startup.
The primary way hackers and developers end up in their hands is when they go blackhat and get arrested. Then FSB can keep you free as long as they cooperate. Still very different from a frontend developer working for Meta.
I could understand the point of them attacking your family but I haven't heard of any cases like this in Russia.
It has all the power and all the money.
You cant do any business with Russia without connections.
Did they? Or they received a ton of people who are working in US/other European countries companies and at best are spending their money there?
However under harsh military rule labor camps work well to produce high tech. German V2-rockets and Curta calculators prove that. But there is time limit for that. You will run out of people.
You can clearly see in the Netflix-movie that cosmonauts were living in a creepy military camp, while american astronauts drove home to their family after hard day of space flying.
However it's true that soviets failed "consumer IT".
Wasn't also Manhattan Project an example of this?
But, it’s also true that many of the articles seem to be written by interns, and so the site is of lower quality than might be expected from MIT.
The link that statement refers to doesn't mention that polls like that have huge percentage of people who refuse to answer. Given that expressing anti-war opinion is dangerous in Russia, most of non-supporters may simply stay unrecorded, giving incorrect share to the supporters. Supporters do not have such strong reason to refuse to answer.
> “I’m ready to come back to Russia, but under certain conditions,” she says. “I don’t want to live in a country where Putin is the president. I don’t want to live in a country that starts wars.”
Ba-dum-tss.
Among many, many things, why I think that there should be far fewer Russians in this world, I remember one situation, that I still vividly and unpleasantly see from time to time.
It was in the middle of the night during one of many air, rocket, and shelling attacks. There was a sound and a feeling of rocket strikes, then the air alert signal went off. And I had to run with the child in my arms to the basement of the neighbor's apartment building, hoping that we are lucky enough and fast enough to not get hit, and hoping that if there were a direct missile hit, there would be another exit in this basement. So we would not get trapped there under layers of concrete, as has happened to less fortunate people in my hometown.
Firstly, how many IT workers fled the country is an interesting question with no definite answer. We have some figures from "ministry of IT" which Masha linked. She conveniently forgot to add that 80% of IT workers who left actually continued to work for Russia. Admittedly any number here will be a rough estimate at best. Still better than nothing. Another point is that though some experienced IT guys left the country juniors and interns are in insane competition for jobs. Another important point left out by Masha is that the incentive program contains a guarantee that qualified (finished uni with appropriate specialisation and works in IT company) IT guys are exempted from the draft.
Secondly, Yandex. It is presented as if it was that democratic and freedom-driven company and national success but then the war started and it was forced to censor the content blah blah blah. This is a blatant lie. Yandex censored search and news results before. We have good reasons to believe that Yandex cooperates with FSB regarding user content (emails and yandex drive). Moreover, IT companies in Russia are not limited to Yandex and VK. There is Sber. It is a government-controlled bank that now is more than a bank. Sber has its own ecosystem (streaming, location, delivery services, marketplace, AI department, AI assistants etc). You ain't seen nothing yet! There is a cluster of big b2b companies that work on the domestic market and CIS. Thousands of people work there but most russians don't even know that they exist.
Speaking of VK and social networks. Telegram is an interesting thing. It is not a Russian startup and government tried to ban it earlier. As far as I know in USA and Europe it is mostly used by people with more radical views. But in Russia everyone (I mean everyone who try to be modern, since VK is not cool) uses it now. Goverment, opposition, radically pro-Russia guys and ordinary people. It is more than a messenger now and something like social network. Telegram is a gray zone in terms of banned content. Btw I have a strong opinion that Durov reached an agreement with the russian government.
While tech giant in Russia are undeniably influenced/controlled by/depend on the state and hence censor their content and spy on customers, there are no compelling arguments that "Russia killed its tech industry". I'm sad that this kind of sentiment towards russian industries and people (as if all the brights have left the country) is the default in western media. It should be especially pleasant to think that russians are brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy. I mean we are from jungle, and you are enlightened intellectuals living in your beautiful garden.
But content like this lacks intellectual honesty moreso depth. It worsenes the chances to understand each other. I wish I read on that page about the ways how russian IT industry is not actually dead (because it's the truth). How people living in autocracy manage to do cool tech things. I wish there was an analysis of russian government attempts to control the IT industry and media that would take into account worldwide trends in goverment and big tech relations (and no, that's not "whataboutism"). Instead there was another RUSSIA BAD.
I know entrepreneurs who sold companies to Yandex and VK (when it was MRG). It's a miserable outcome. You have only a few potential buyers in Russia, which means prices for startups are cheap. All then went to launch companies somewhere else so they might have a chance of a better exit.
For a Russian-based startup there are two ways to sell their "cool things" globally. Exit the country or be very diligent about hiding your roots. Still, people will find out sooner or later.
Yes, Russia will still have a few big tech companies, which are almost and government oligopoly already. Their employees shouldn't really expect too much competition for their talent (and corresponding salaries).
Even judging by the official numbers, 100k is a lot of professionals in a rapidly slowing down economy in the need of said professionals. Unofficial numbers range up to 1 mil total left with 500.000 of them being from tech sector. Possibly even worse than official numbers that are always a conviniently crafted lie, like it was in 2020 with covid death downscaled 2 times.
> She conveniently forgot to add that 80% of IT workers who left actually continued to work for Russia
But not participating in russian economy directly and in futurre possibly working on local tech sector projects and not russian ones. It is not a 1 year story, we are in a long haul
> some experienced IT guys left the country juniors and interns are in insane competition for jobs
That somehow disproves the point? That the tech sector lost its best heads so now they struggle to replace them with other professionals for high qualification jobs which juniors arent ready for? Besides its not just tech sector, the whole russian economy is shrinking rapidly. Even in non-technical positions there were changes with layoffs, lower pay, half-schedules and unpaid leaves [1]
> IT guys are exempted from the draft
The fact that it is even mentioned is . Yes, thats what people are running from for either reason (to not be killed, not kill or both). And tech sector is the closest to internationally viable opportunity so it had the most people leave
> Yandex censored search and news results before
True, since about 2011 as mentioned in the link but way noticeably since 2016. Yet while it was censoring results, it wasnt a blanked war time censorship on anything opposing the government. You could've searched for meduza and dozhd. Now you cant
> AI department, AI assistants
All scaled down because of the sanctions [2][3] and leaving professionals. They wont dissapear just because, but they also wont grow as much.
> Durov reached an agreement with the russian government
The agreement was that TG would stay in that gray zone indefinitely using alternative financing sources like crypto scams and later ads and subscribtion. Gray zone means nobody can censor it, neither russians, nor nato/otan. And this is preferable to russia than local-only service like vk (because of said radicals in other countries). Yes, some people will still access some anti-gvmt channels, but its a minority. Propaganda already changed the nation into 1/4 lunatics supporting the war and 2/4 "having no opinion"
> there are no compelling arguments that "Russia killed its tech industry"
That it drove away more professionals while disconnecting itself from global economy that helped prosper said tech sector in the first place? Sure, okay, mhm
> It worsenes the chances to understand each other
Guys, you dont understand, full controll over your population with military ideology and silencing any opposition is actually good. Look at all the achievements USSR has made while being same totalitarian regime. Just ignore the quality of life for majority of the time under communism, look, we have a first person in space. It costed us just most other economic sectors like computers, farming equipment, production machinery, car industry, trains industry, local municipalities growth in general and developing independent culture
[1] https://lenta.ru/news/2022/08/04/platformasravni/ [2] https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2022/09/02/9387... [3] https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/23/06/2022/62b473de9...
This article reads like US propaganda.
“Russia imposed increasingly restrictive laws, arresting social media users over posts, demanding access to user data, and introducing content filtering.”
The US performs similar actions. The Twitter files have shown demanding access and content filtering by the government with Twitter and likely other social networks. Recent arrest of left wing US citizens for criticism of the Ukraine war and social media blocking criticism or demonetizing contributors for criticizing the US role in Ukraine war. An attempt to install a Czar of disinformation into the Department of Homeland Security was thankfully stymied mainly due to the character of the individual chosen. Many other examples abound in the US of attempts to control opinions and access to social networks.
They show no such thing if you actually read the content, of course the person hired by Elon (Matt Taibbi), who can't even criticise him for the most simplest and basic things is not going to write an article saying he is wrong.
You have to wonder what is in Taibbi's contract with Musk such that both parties are unwilling to make it public.
Further, Taibbi and Musk are currently feuding over Musk trying to strongarm Taibbi into using Twitter instead of Substack. Taibbi has openly criticized Musk for this and is no longer associated with new dumps from Twitter. Taibbi is a credible journalist and is one of the few willing to expose major corruption within the government and corporate realms. We need more like him.
Indeed, the real number should be higher.
