Russia beats out other countries one could migrate to - my reasons.

Russia's human capital makes it a no-brainer (for me).

Sep 12, 2024

I tweet about migrating to Russia at @cbausman. DMs are open.

Housekeeping …

In my last post I made an approximate list of what to cover in this series, and am impatient in getting to a lot of it, deciding which is most important. What I’ll probably do is write a few of the more important articles in quick succession, just to get it out there.

I heard from contacts here that the countries which will be on the list eligible for migration has been finalized. No word when it will be published, but it could happen very soon, or not. Sometimes the bureaucratic wheels turn very slowly here, sometimes very quickly. But you can guess which countries will be on the list - US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa (probably), Switzerland. But there might be some surprises too. As soon as it comes out I’ll post on Twitter about it. But that doesn’t mean that anyone from these countries can migrate as applications will be approved on an individual basis.

Keeping up with the comments is not burdensome so far, so fire away … I’ll let you know if it becomes too much.

Now to the subject of this post …

When people ask me what I like best about living in Russia, two things immediately tower over everything else - 1) her Christianity, and 2) the very high level of intellect here, which affects so many things: commerce, culture, academics, political discourse, technology, theology - the list is very long. It greatly affects her Christianity too, in fact, remarkably so. I’ll leave a discussion of Christianity in Russia to future posts because it’s a subjective preference. Believe me, it is an interesting story, and directly related to her success in the past, and her potential in the future, as I explain below. Today, I’ll examine the extraordinary IQ on tap here, and how it enriches life in countless ways.

I’ve discussed the pros and cons of choosing Russia over other countries to migrate to with many people who’ve moved here, most of whom were considering other destinations. Here’s a list, with my subjective rating (5 is highest).

I might have missed a few here, if any occur to you, please suggest them in the comments. I’ll return to many of these in future posts.

What I found interesting in the conversations is that very few people considered, or had much inkling of the subject of this article - the level of culture, learning, IQ, raw brainpower, professional competence, and crucially, their history. So much else which makes a country a smart choice to move to derives from this - economic prospects, health of the environment - food, water, air, etc., personal relationships, military strength, educational opportunities and their quality, cultural amenities, quality of housing and infrastructure, etc.

Once you’ve been in contact with many cultures and peoples you can evaluate them comparatively. There are in fact very few countries, languages and civilizations which really count as heavy hitters in science, literature, theology, arts, culture, etc. I would list them as follows: English speaking world (in which I include India/Pakistan), German world, Russian world, China, ASEAN, the Arab world, Japan, and Iran. These are the civilizational poles with far greater intellectual heft today, not because smaller countries aren’t often very admirable. It often just comes down to accidents of history, geography, race, population, resource wealth, and peculiarities of culture. Within these 8, there are 4 titans: the English speaking world, German world, Russian world, and China. France, Spain, and Italy are still very important, but more for what was than what is today.

I’ve led a very international life, from growing up in the family of a foreign correspondent, to working as a journalist and businessman outside the US, and I’ve seen a great deal of the world and gotten to know various cultures and 4 foreign languages quite well, spending considerable time in Europe, Latin America, India, and Russia in addition to my native US. From what I’ve seen of the world, Russia is in the champions league in terms of learning, culture, and raw brainpower. Where countries rank in these is not just a matter of what has been happening for the last few decades, it is often cumulative in nature - the result of centuries building these towering civilizations and traditions, and here, Russia’s legacy is breathtaking.

One reason for misconceptions about Russia’s true nature and potential is that most people think of her Soviet era as characterizing her present. Their knowledge of pre-Soviet Russia is likely the opposite of the facts, thanks to relentless anti-Russian and anti-Christian propaganda going back centuries, but really gathering steam in the 2nd half of the 19th c, due to the deliberate and cynical lying of the usual ethnic suspects. The internet has ripped the curtain away, and there is much excitement these days in the West about historical revisionism over WW2, WW1, the Civil War, and all of 20th and 21st c. really, and people are discovering what we have been told by our ‘experts; is mostly a pack of lies.

The same is true of 19th c. Russia and up until the revolution, to a very extreme degree. She wasn’t backwards, repressive, poor, or enslaved as we’ve been taught. She was one of the most impressive, wealthy, and successful civilizations ever to have flourished in the history of mankind, poised for a brilliant future. She was an example to the world, and an example of what Russia might again become. The things which make Russia a great place to live today, her recent dramatic rise, and the promise she seems to offer, owe much more to what Russia was before the revolution. Once you understand this truth, Russia becomes an entirely different proposition. Pre-Soviet Russia’s greatness, like America’s, would never have happened if not for the devoutness of her people, and her devastation by the Bolsheviks was due to a tragic lapse in devotion, just as America’s contemporary decline is. For a thousand years, Russia’s fortunes ebbed and flowed in direct relation to her piety. I’ll be writing more about this incredible story in future posts because it is key to understanding Russia today.

The intellectual excellence one continually encounters is one of the true pleasures of living here. One doesn’t need to be rubbing elbows with PhDs to notice it. It shows in ordinary school teachers who know not only their Dostoevsky, but also Dumas, Dante, and Dickens to put their American colleagues to shame. Average Russian schools are far superior to even privileged white ones in America, especially in math and sciences. One sees it in packed concert halls where delighted audiences clearly know their Rachmaninov and Brahms by heart. I can attest that the quantity and quality of classical music available in Moscow far exceeds anything in Western capitals, by a very long shot, while are affordable for most Russians, unlike the West, where ‘high’ culture has become a playground for the wealthy. And not just Moscow and St. Petersburg. Regional capitals have excellent theater, ballet, and classical music which European cities can’t touch, even with their orchestras consisting heavily of Russians, especially in the leading roles, to say nothing of the US. The same is true of the East. Chinese technical perfection can achieve a lot, but it doesn’t have the soul of the northern European and Slav.

One touches it in digital life here, with Russian apps and services as good or better than in the West, excellently designed, innovative, and stable. Consider that there are only three civilizations capable of fielding autonomous IT (search, original programming, innovation) in the whole world: the US, China, and Russia. Russian programmers are renowned in the West, better than the Chinese, and much better than the Indians. The same is true for aerospace and military. Not even Germany, so mighty in science, can pull it off. The Russians do this not by protecting against competitors, but out-competing them. A vivid example is the success of their arms in the Ukraine, where they adapted (not as quickly as some would have liked), fielding innovative technology: guided drones, innovative jamming tech, smart bombs, and missile defense, which is proving superior to NATO despite 10X the financial resources.

There is a very widely-read journalist who does geopolitical analysis named Pepe Escobar who brings this up time and again. The topic on which he really stands out is the burgeoning economic and strategic ties between Russia and her BRICs partners, especially China. He is unusual in our age that for 30 years he has been almost continually on the road, but stays in the countries he writes about for long spells - in Russia, China, Turkey, Central Asia, etc - a month or two at the time, and is able to cultivate sources others can’t, and dig up much local color and insight others miss. An ongoing theme is how competent the Russian diplomats, bureaucrats, and businessmen are, and how deftly they are building a new global economic and security architecture. His recent report from a major economic and geopolitical forum in Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific coast, chaired by Putin and attended by the Vice-President of China and the Prime Minister of Malaysia, illustrates the ambition and scale of what is emerging while the US and Europe commit economic, ethnic, and cultural hari-kari. I highly recommend scrolling through* for it gives a window into the unusual combination of strengths Russia can bring to bear to benefit enormously from its geographic proximity to the Asian economic miracle, and following him on Twitter or Telegram. (* That link is from Sputnik and I’m not sure if it is blocked in the West, if so, try putting the headline into search. His articles are regularly republished on Zerohedge, and you can find most of them there after a day or two of first publication.)

Interestingly, Escobar keeps emphasizing in his articles that Russia is the most impressive of all the rising countries he visits and has the greatest future. He attributes it to a combination of strengths - diplomatic, military, economic, and cultural soft-power. I would add Christianity and God’s providence. He insists that Moscow is the most dynamic and important capital in the world today, more important than China.

Working and interacting with smart, intelligent, disciplined people just improves the quality of day to day life. You and your children have more attractive friends, and your children better potential spouses, and they grow up to be smarter just interacting with other smart people. Your conversations at the pub are more edifying. Your fellowship with other Christians is more rewarding. The knowledge and professionalism of those around you rubs off on you. If spiritual life in a Christian context is your thing, nothing comes close to Russia. Do you really want to live in Paraguay or Thailand when you could live in white, super intelligent, Christian Russia with all its promise?

The whites in Russia are predominantly Slav, and many people of European heritage make the mistake of thinking that if they look like us, they must be very similar. This is true up to a point, but they are also substantially different in psyche, but no less in intellect, and Western whites sometimes have trouble bonding with them. The solution is that there are in fact many people of European heritage in Russia going back centuries, and one eventually learns to identify it, and also better understand and appreciate the Slavs. I’ll write more about this in a later post.

One could go on and on because human capital and intellect truly touches every aspect of life. Take it from someone who has seen much of the world - Russia is in a class of its own, what Germany, England or the US could be if not for the self-destructive crises they are living through.

Experience has taught me that what really makes countries rewarding are not the beautiful nature, climate, architecture or material comforts, rather the people you meet and connect with along the way. Almost any country becomes wonderful if that is on a high order, and dull if it is not.

There is a lot more to write about from the list above. I will be returning to it, and no doubt expanding it.

PS - Some of the images above are from a very good Russian Christian meme channel. They do a good job combining good quotes from Orthodox saints, most of them Russian, often with excellent Russian Christian art, much of it from the 19th c. They convey very well the Christian mentality here, and would be of interest to Christians of all denominations, and others. I recommend following them for those curious about the Russian psyche, globalorthodox on Twitter and Telegram, especially their older posts. They stopped posting on Telegram a few months ago. I know the people running this, and will urge them to resume on Telegram. They are also on Facebook.