What are the concrete policies to advocate for? What are the biggest hurdles that Russian emigrants are facing at the moment? AFAIK, it’s only Baltic countries and Czechia which stopped granting visas to Russians. It should be possible to get a visa in other EU countries. Would granting vises on arrival (as opposed to getting it in advance) help? Is transfer of money outside of the country the biggest problem? Is it limited air flights opportunities? (I hear it’s still possible to get to Europe via Serbia.) Is the problem rather with turning the visa into residence permit? Or maybe getting a work permit?
It was already suggested to use US humanitarian parole program to to give refuge to surrendering soldiers. Anything making it easier to get work permits will help, too. When I applied for a Blue Card in Germany last year, it took about a month, and I needed lots of notarized translations of documents, which are expensive. An H1B visa in USA takes half a year to get.
There are flights into some countries like Armenia, Georgia, Serbia. Yes, I think the main problem is people don’t have a lot of money, and sometimes cannot access the money because of new Russian laws and sanctions. And rent became 2x-3x more expensive in Erevan. So people are not sure if they can make it. But I am not one of the people who recently left, I think they understand the situation better.
What are the concrete policies to advocate for? What are the biggest hurdles that Russian emigrants are facing at the moment? AFAIK, it’s only Baltic countries and Czechia which stopped granting visas to Russians. It should be possible to get a visa in other EU countries. Would granting vises on arrival (as opposed to getting it in advance) help? Is transfer of money outside of the country the biggest problem? Is it limited air flights opportunities? (I hear it’s still possible to get to Europe via Serbia.) Is the problem rather with turning the visa into residence permit? Or maybe getting a work permit?
It was already suggested to use US humanitarian parole program to to give refuge to surrendering soldiers. Anything making it easier to get work permits will help, too. When I applied for a Blue Card in Germany last year, it took about a month, and I needed lots of notarized translations of documents, which are expensive. An H1B visa in USA takes half a year to get.
There are flights into some countries like Armenia, Georgia, Serbia. Yes, I think the main problem is people don’t have a lot of money, and sometimes cannot access the money because of new Russian laws and sanctions. And rent became 2x-3x more expensive in Erevan. So people are not sure if they can make it. But I am not one of the people who recently left, I think they understand the situation better.