Every day more and more Russians arrive in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and this has not gone unnoticed, since the sudden influx of Russian citizens, is having a major economic and political impact.By March 7th well over 20,000 Russians had fled to Georgia and by March 21st it had gone up to well over 30,000.
Now, these Russians have plenty of serious reasons for fleeing Russia, since just talking about the war in Russia could land you in jail for up to 15 years, if you got paid by a foreign company, you can’t receive a salary anymore, the military draft could call at any time, for you to go fight in a pointless war, with a high probability of never returning and to top it all off, there’s a complete breakdown of the Russian economy, with surging food prices, shortages and the crashing Ruble.
Russian police arrest a Russian citizen who says a few words in front of the camera.
So it’s quite understandable that those who can, are choosing to leave and at this rate, it won’t be too long before well over 100,000 Russians will call Georgia their new home. Now this exodus, does not come without problems, the first of which, is where are all these people going to live? Because when you have such an extreme influx of people with means, to a relatively cheap country, the economic effects are disastrous for the locals.
In the beginning, Airbnb rates began to skyrocket, which is mainly a problem for tourists, however as restrictions in Russia got worse, more and more people, wanted to stay long term and this meant that rents started to more than double. Places that you could normally rent for $200 to $300, are now going for $500 to $700. It has become an absolute wild west and pricing is not the only problem.
You see when demand is this high, in such a short timeframe, you can’t simply build new houses that fast, to solve the problem, which means that you need to reclaim existing houses and that’s exactly what’s going on. Many students and young professionals that are renting apartments in Tbilisi are being evicted or threatened with eviction if they can’t pay more rent. For the majority of students paying an extra $100 or $200 dollars a month, is simply too much and even young professionals in Tbilisi can’t pay the rents that the new Russians can pay.
Average rental fees for 2022. With the start of the war, dozens of ads for $700 (twice the average) were added, place.ge
You see even though the majority of Russians, only make about $400 to $500 dollars a month, these are not the Russians, that are fleeing the financial sanctions and restrictions put in place, by the Russian government. The Russian that is fleeing is either well-off business owners or young professionals working for foreign companies, often in remote jobs. This means that not only can they work from anywhere and thus continue to have a good salary, but most of them were already living in expensive cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, where they were already paying rents, of $500 to $900 dollars a month.
So for these Russians paying $700 a month, to live in a relatively free country, where they can still do their job, say what they want, and have access to western products and services, is a very small price to pay. However, for the locals, the doubling of rent is a massive burden and that’s not all that’s going on. Many locals are seeing the massive influx of Russians, as a real safety concern and this is not without reason.
You see president Putin used the excuse of protecting Russians abroad, to go into Ukraine and if there’s a huge build-up of Russians in Georgia he could use the same excuse again. These fears combined with other problems have shifted the sentiment in the Georgian economy, from a very open and welcoming country to a call for closing its borders to Russian citizens and restricting visa-free access.
It has led to Georgian banks refusing Russians when trying to open a bank account, something that used to be very easy and straightforward, as well as many businesses, refusing service to Russian customers. Buying real estate in Georgia is also becoming a major problem, since not just Russians, but also people from Belarus, are buying up more and more properties. Some, are doing this to protect their assets from international sanctions, while others are simply looking for a safe place to live.
