The Mittseliai are among the hundreds of thousands of Russians who left the country after the aggression war against Ukraine began in early 2022. And among about 30,000 emigrants from Russia living on the resort island in southern Thailand – Phuket.
Many of them believe it is calmer here than in Bali, cheaper than Dubai, and everyone around is friendlier than in Europe.
“We joke that we meet friends here more often than we did in Moscow,” said 36-year-old Ekaterina in an interview at the family bungalow on a hill overlooking Phuket’s southern coast.
The island, which was popular among Russian tourists even before the war began, is full of signs of Russian influence: Russian saunas thriving despite the tropical climate, Russian food stores selling Russian products.
At beach restaurants, you can order cold borscht, and some Russian pop stars and rappers have already included the island in their international tours. Among other things, the Russian state airline Aeroflot operates flights to Phuket daily.
However, as the Russian community in Phuket grows, so does local dissatisfaction. Here Russians buy real estate, start businesses, and, as critics complain, abuse the country’s visa policy by working illegally. The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to directly answer questions about suspicions of visa fraud on the island.
This resentment has contributed to the aura of temporariness surrounding the Russian community in Phuket. Russians with residence permits in the country, including the Mittseliai, admitted in interviews that they do not consider the island their true home. Meanwhile, their compatriots staying temporarily on the island face government pressure due to increasingly strict tourist visa requirements.
In May, the Thai government halved the visa-free regime period from 60 to 30 days. This is likely to affect the majority of about 15,000 Russians who, according to the Russian consulate in Phuket, live on the island without long-term visas. Some of them are young men who fled Russia trying to avoid military conscription.
39-year-old engineer Evgeny, who asked not to publish his last name fearing reprisals, said he left Russia in 2022 and since then traveled around Europe before settling in Phuket. He worked for about six months at a real estate agency but had to leave the job and temporarily leave the country to be able to re-enter under the visa-free regime.
“I’m doing well,” the man said, referring to his work in real estate. “But I constantly think about how to cross the border.”
Some young Russians living in Phuket attend Orthodox services on Sundays and stay for lunch – rice and mollusk soup. One man participating in them revealed that he is here on a 90-day visa issued by the Thai government to fighter enthusiasts who study the muay thai martial art.
After the visa expires or all the days allowed to travel visa-free in the country are used up, many Russians pay $150 to be taken across the border and returned so they can “reset” their days on the island. This is a significant ongoing expense for young men who barely make ends meet working irregular jobs. Evgeny says he plans to go to Vietnam, where he will figure out how to stay longer in Thailand.
“Either I’ll return to Phuket with a visa, or I’ll pack up and leave,” he said.
Thaneth Tantipiriyakit, head of the provincial tourism association serving businesses in Phuket, acknowledged that they have received complaints from Thais and Phuket residents about the visa-free policy for Russians.
“Every time a foreigner behaves inappropriately, they blame free visas,” he said, adding that Russians have become an obvious target partly because they make up the largest group of tourists on the island.
A similar scenario unfolded in Bali – this Indonesian island was previously especially welcoming to Russians and Ukrainians fleeing the war.
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Some local Phuket residents also blame Russians for rising real estate prices. Because of them, owning a home has become an unaffordable dream for many Thais.
Bang Tao town, the center of the Russian community in Phuket, has been dubbed the “Thai Rublyovka” after the most luxurious district in Moscow. Four years ago, it was just an empty plot of land by the sea. Now there are holiday hotels, shopping centers, fenced villas, and luxury apartment buildings.
According to the Thai government research agency Real Estate Information Center, in the first years of the war against Ukraine, buyers from Russia accounted for more than half of all real estate transactions in Phuket. The agency said that land prices on the island rose by at least 20% that year.
Maksim Shatilov from Saint Petersburg, who owns a real estate agency in Phuket serving Russian families, has seen his business grow and thrive over the past four years.
“When the war started, there were few places left where you could feel free being Russian,” he emphasized.
One evening at the Russian-style dinner club “Come Leo Come” in Bang Tao, owned by a Ukrainian, the wealth of Russian tourists was on full display. Guests arrived in sports cars, and high heels were an unwritten dress code for women.
In the dimly lit dining room with velvet-covered walls, Russian-speaking waiters offered top-shelf tequila and vodka shots and plates piled with sashimi and caviar. Dancers waved champagne bottles with attached sparklers as two saxophonists played at the bar. Meanwhile, no Thai staff were visible; they all worked behind closed doors.
Although 31-year-old Maksim made his fortune in Phuket, he admitted he will not stay here permanently. However, neither he nor his wife Aliona Myronenko can return to Russia, partly because she is a Ukrainian citizen.
“Now the place I would really like to travel to is Moscow,” the man said. “But I don’t feel safe.”
Ekaterina admitted that her family also feels homesick. They left Russia in 2022 because her husband, a software engineer for an American technology company, could not get paid in the country due to the SWIFT payment system being blocked for several Russian banks because of US sanctions.
After settling in Phuket – the filming location for the latest season of the series “The White Lotus” – other friends from Russia joined them, seeking stability for their young families.
At the end of each school year, the Mittseliai consider returning to their homeland instead of extending their visas. Every summer they visit Russia to see their parents, but their daughter dreams of ice skating and playing in the snow. Last year, the Mittseliai took her to a winter carnival at a Bangkok shopping center just so she could enjoy artificial snow.
For now, they have decided to stay because they fear their daughter would have difficulty adjusting to a Russian school.
Ekaterina said she misses the Moscow opera, ballet, and music scene. But she has no desire to go clubbing. Because of this, she and her husband rarely go out from their home to the exclusive clubs in Bang Tao in the southern part of the island.
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“I don’t have such clothes,” the woman continued. “I deliberately left them in Russia.”
This article was published in The New York Times.
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