Barcelona It’s any day at a very popular vegetarian restaurant on Barcelona’s Rambla de Catalunya. The six tables that line the wall of the place are occupied: there is a trio of hipsters, a family with a baby, a man in a jacket and tie glued to the phone, two designers, a group of blonde girls… A very common scene in the center of modern Barcelona. But there is a curious detail: all the occupants of the six tables, without exception, speak Russian. In fact, you feel more and more Russian on the beach, in the cafes and at the exhibitions in Barcelona.
We interview Sasha Rakhmànov on the day he receives the positive resolution of his request as a refugee in Catalonia as a member of the LGTBI group. He is tall and cute. He smiles a lot. He still doesn’t speak much Spanish and doesn’t know Catalan. He has over 86,000 followers on his Instagram account, where he shares his experience as a self-accepting gay man. Now, the initial theme of his blog may be a little surprising: he was a young believer, preparing to become a priest. “I realized I was gay when I was 11. Immediately, I told myself there was something wrong inside me. [A Rússia] there was a complete lack of homosexual representation. To school, “marica» it was almost the most offensive insult. The only thing worse you could hear was ‘you look like a woman,'” she recalls.
Sasha grew up in the western Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, but he believes this situation was typical even in Moscow. At the time, the church was seen as the answer to the horror of being gay. He thought that the omnipotent God, once pleased with his service, would release him from the curse of homosexuality, he says. But it wasn’t like that: when he was about to be ordained he fell in love with a boy and left everything. Together, in March 2022, they immigrated to Barcelona as refugees from the LGTBI group with a one-way ticket. He can’t go back now. But Sasha says that he doesn’t care: “There are hardly any of my friends left in Russia, they’ve all left.”
In 2022 alone, Russian citizens submitted more than 15,000 asylum applications to the EU, almost four times more than before the war in Ukraine. According to the Russian government, in 2022 the country suffered a migration loss of 96,700 people. Independent research gives other figures, such as Re: Russia, a platform that analyzes data, and which increases this figure to 920,000 people.
Political refugees
“Six days after the start of the war I was already in Istanbul,” says Roma, 35 years old. “I felt like anything could happen. [El govern rus] could close the borders or declare a state of war. Anyway, [l’atac a Ucraïna] for me it was the red line,” he adds. To travel to the EU, even as a tourist, a Russian needs a visa, present the employment contract, flight and accommodation reservation and private health insurance. To escape from immediately, however, the majority of Russians moved to countries exempt from this documentation such as Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Kazakhstan or Serbia.
According to the sources of these countries, in 2022 Armenia received 110,000 Russian citizens, and Georgia, 62,300. About 100,000 received residence permits in Turkey (for comparison, in 2021 this number was 22,300). Kazakhstan opened its borders to 150,000 Russians, and nearly 220,000 entered Serbia. But, for many, these countries were only a kind of purgatory to prepare for “real” immigration to the European Union, the United States or Canada. Roma chose Barcelona and made a student residence. “I participated in political movements for a long time. Once after a cyberattack my name appeared on the lists of people who support Navalni. And [la policia] he came to my house,” she explains. Roma wasn’t there, she lived at another address; it was her mother who spoke to the police. There were three men who spoke to her aggressively.
But why did Rome not apply for political asylum? “Because I’m an idiot. I didn’t realize that my case fell within the definition of a political refugee; let’s say that in my head political refugees are people who arrive with shepherds from Africa,” he admits. He is a Spanish teacher. Before the war he visited Spain many times and worked as a translator at a film festival in Alicante. He will no longer be able to return to Russia. “I have sent so much money to the Ukrainian army! I have written on social networks everything I think…” he says. On March 4, Russia passed a law on public dissemination of “falsehoods” about the military, under which Rome’s actions are punishable by up to three years in prison.
communities
In 2022, the European Union granted more than 94,000 residence permits to citizens from Russia. The largest issuer is Germany, which has historic ties to Russia, but the second was Spain, which granted more than 12,000 permits in 2022. Of these Russians, many have settled in Barcelona. “We have more than 4,500 subscribers on Telegram, with 250 unique event visitors per month,” details Iúlia Sérguina, the founder of Ensalada Russa, a community exclusively for Russian speakers that organizes cultural events, such as going to eat calçots in Valls or do a Catalan wine tasting.
According to the census register, in 2022 there were 7,675 Russian citizens living in Barcelona, but in 2023 there were already 9,275. The most drastic change is in gender: before the war, there were 5,000 Russians and 2,500 Russians. Back then, women, educated and prepared, fled a sexist country. Instead, there are now 5,800 women and 3,500 men. For many, being Russian after the invasion of Ukraine is experienced as a peculiar pain, explains Iulia. “The fact that our emigration is quite forced makes it very important to share this experience. Now a Russian-speaking community is more important than it was five years ago,” he says.
Lana is the founder of another Russophone community in Barcelona, Kvartirnik, a word that in Russian means “a party at home”, and she agrees: “When I came to Barcelona, the Butxa thing happened [una massacre en què almenys 420 civils van ser assassinats i alguns dels seus cossos van quedar abandonats al mig del carrer]. I felt miserable. And at the same time there was no one to share the pain with. who will you call To friends who have stayed in Russia? They have it worse. To the Ukrainian refugees, whose families are under bombing? Don’t even talk about it. But the pain was there and it had to be expressed.” From there Kvartirnik was born. Yes, there are two communities for more or less the same audience. He now has 2,500 followers on Telegram and does things similar to Ensalada Russa, but with a more Catalan approach. The project was started by three Russian girls, Anya, Alina and Lana. Then David joined, a native of Tarragona who speaks Russian.
Of the majority of Russians settled in Barcelona, around 2,000 live in the Sant Martí district. And in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, the Russians are the third largest foreign community, after the French and the Italians. We talk to the “new Barcelonans” about their life in Barcelona. Most still have some problems with Catalan, but some already speak it. Rome complains about the heat, but admires the revolutionary spirit of the city. Absolutely everyone talks about rent. “Maybe the nomads have it easier!” says Iúlia.
Digital nomads
On December 21, 2022, Spain approved the new type of residence, for telecommuting, or for “digital nomads”. To receive this visa the applicant needs to earn at least two minimum wages (SMI), which by 2024 would be 2,646 euros per month. “It is possible that the first digital nomad visa was granted to my friend, who presented the papers on the first day it could be done,” explains Denis Moskalets, 35 years old and owner of Magma Bar, in the Born neighborhood. Denis settled in Barcelona in 2016 with a residence permit for entrepreneurs to develop a banking app in an accelerator program. “At that time, the Russian experience was 10 years ahead of the world experience in terms of how digital banks should be,” he recalls.
He is not an apolitical Russian: in Russia he worked with Aleksei Navalni’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, with other opposition politicians, and was a volunteer observer at the elections. The political situation in the country worried him, but in 2016 he did not come to Barcelona to stay. “I didn’t like the city; before the program I had come once and I saw the Rambles, I thought it was terrible. I thought, ‘OK, come on, the city sucks, but I’ll put up with it for the three months of job”, he explains with a laugh. He now speaks Spanish and Catalan and has an almost 2-year-old daughter. “When the war started, many friends were stuck on the road, in no man’s land. They couldn’t go home. Something had to be done,” he recalls.
Just a week after the start of the invasion, Mastercard and Visa cut their ties with Russia, and trapped Russian citizens were left without the ability to use their cards or bank accounts. So far, Denis has helped more than 500 applicants for the entrepreneur residency and more than 250 “digital nomads”. He says that with the start of the war the number of highly qualified Russian professionals who have applied for residency has tripled. “Oh, the rent!” – says Denis laughing – no, it’s not easier for nomads. I’ll tell you a secret: nothing, absolutely nothing makes renting a flat in Barcelona easier. All they want to see is an indefinite fixed contract. I, with all my income, was rejected last time. I showed them the income statement and they said “Yeah, the earnings aren’t bad, really. But why are you showing us only three years?”
2024-05-04 20:43:17
#Russianspeaking #Barcelona
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