Many Russians have decided to leave their country, with little hope of return
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskTurkey’s biggest city has been a favourite among Russian tourists for decades. It has now become a temporary haven for Russians escaping Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship. They have few other places to go. AllAt least 14,000 Russians are estimated to have moved to Turkey since the war started, according to Turkish media. Most are young professionals: lawyers, bankers, journalists, programmers and artists.
They are following a path beaten by Russian exiles a century ago. In the 1920s some 200,000 Russians, Ukrainians, Azeris and Georgians fleeing Bolshevik rule reached Istanbul on crowded steamships. They included White Russian aristocrats, the novelist Vladimir Nabokov, and Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas, a black impresario born in Mississippi who had run a music club in Moscow and who went on to introduce Istanbul to jazz.
In the 1920s nearly all the émigrés moved on to Europe. Most of the new ones do not plan to stick around either. Arseny has applied for an American visa, Vova for a German one. But as long as Mr Putin wages war on Ukraine and on anyone who opposes his invasion, Istanbul will remain a way-station for many of Russia’s best and brightest.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "From the third Rome to the second"
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