Imagine that your country’s despotic leader suddenly decides to illegally invade another country. In the outrage that follows, your country is severely sanctioned, barring you from obtaining visas to travel and banning you outright from visiting many countries. Your country’s airlines are no longer allowed to fly overseas. Payment systems block the use of your credit cards. Worse, your country’s soldiers are dying like flies on the battlefield and you could be next.
What would you do?
All Russian males between 18 years and 27 years of age are now subject to conscription for at least a year of active duty in the armed services, meaning in the slaughter fields of Eastern Ukraine.
Faced with this prospect, many affluent Russians of conscription age and others who fear they could be part of the next wave have chosen to flee. To become refugees. And many have opted to come to Thailand.
Everywhere you look in Phuket, you see young Russian couples and families with children. In the last three months of 2022 alone, more than 331,000 Russians arrived in Thailand, according to data released by Thailand’s Ministry of Sport and Tourism. Russians now make up the third largest group of visitors to Thailand, after Indians and Malaysians.
Most of the Russians arriving in Thailand have the means to sustain themselves for at least a few months, but some are wealthy enough to buy property.
None have any idea if or when they will be able to return to Russia. Maybe that is why so few are smiling.
Last night, a nearby electric power relay station blew up with an almighty bang! All the lights in the compound went out except for the security lights. A small crowd of residents gathered in the parking lot to find out what was going on. One of them, a Russian, turned to me and said, only half joking, “For a moment, I thought it was a Ukrainian missile!” The Russians in Phuket may live in paradise, but for many of them the war is not very far away.
Because most of the Russians in Thailand are refugees. They are not Putin’s Russians; they are ordinary people, whose lives have been turned upside down by events far beyond their control. They may be relatively well-off refugees, but make no mistake, they are only here due to the war.
By a twist of fate, the first Russians to arrive in Thailand were blessed by circumstance. The Russian rouble surged against the Thai Baht at the start of the war due to rising oil prices, so the early Russian arrivals were able to pick up property for very little money, with the added benefit that buying property is one of the ways to obtain permanent residency in Thailand. This opportunity was short-lived, however, as the Thai Baht has since re-gained the ground it lost against the Russian Rouble.
RUBTHB (5 years)
To their great credit, the Thais have welcomed the Russian refugees. Thailand allows several direct flights every day from Moscow and other Russian cities to Phuket, Bangkok, and Pattaya. Russians can stay in Thailand for up to 45 days without visa.
Phuket has benefitted hugely from the arrival of the Russian refugees. An island in Southern Thailand, Phuket is almost 100% dependent on tourism. Phuket went through a harrowing time during the Covid-19 years, but Phuket’s fortunes have picked up after the influx of Russians. Restaurants are filling up, massage parlours are busy, and property prices and rentals are surging. Thais, always astute in matters commercial, have been quick to adapt; shop fronts now advertise prominently in Russian alongside Thai and English, testifying to the growing economic importance of the newcomers.
No doubt many of the Russians and much of their money will leave Thailand when the war ends. But, for now, the marriage between the Russian refugees and Phuket’s tourism industry is a happy one.
Nor is there much support for the common stereo types about Russians here. They are not loud or violent. They do not drink more than anyone else.
Russians with criminal records are barred from entering Thailand and Major General Phanthana Nutchanart, deputy head of Thailand’s Immigration Bureau, says there is no indication that criminal Russian elements have entered Thailand illegally.
You see the odd alarmist media report about tensions between Ukrainians and Russians, but the reality is that there are very few Ukrainians in Thailand. Most legal issues, says Nutchanart, are minor traffic offences.
My own observations are that the Russians in Phuket are middle-class families with children and young couples. Unless you hear them speak, you would not even have a clue they are Russian, because they look and behave just like, say, German or Danish tourists. They enjoy the sun, take massages, eat seafood, drink fruit juices, smoke weed, and tan on the beaches, almost like human beings.
The only sour comment I heard during two weeks in Phuket’s Kata Beach was uttered by an Indian tailor, who complained that “the Russian are not buying any suits!” No wonder. Business prospects back in Russia are less than ideal and it is far too hot to wear suits in Kata!
Na Zdorovie!
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