Da Nang seeing a massive influx of Russian expats

Don't anyone get upset by the word "Russian" in there. I don't have any serious problem with anyone's nationality and I also think that a-holes come from all countries and cultures. This recent influx of Russians is very real though, and there is a good reason why.

The opinion that I have is being confirmed by my few Russian friends and honestly, I wish I had more Russian friends but it just isn't very likely because as world travelers go, Russians tend to have the least amount of language skills and therefore tend to go to places that already have a bunch of Russians and then only hand out with other Russians.

My own neighborhood, if you ware walking down the street and see some non Asians, it is more likely than not a Russian. I do not speak the language but I know what it sounds like.

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Russia and Vietnam have been pals for a very long time and if you know anything about history, it is easy to understand why that would be. Much of it had to do with communism and how Vietnam embraced it. Technically, Vietnam is still a communist country but you really wouldn't know it by being here.

You do still see the old hammer and sickle flags around town though.

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According to my friends who are Russian and have been here for a long time, the reason why there is a rather large influx of Russians at the moment is because of a crackdown of sorts in both Thailand and Indonesia not just against visa "abuse" but also because the Russians were setting up semi-illegal or completely illegal businesses in those countries that were catering to Russian customers an Russian locals. In extreme examples they were not employing the requisite number of locals and many of them were involved in income tax evasion.

This obviously is a fantastic way to seriously piss off your hosts, the governments of both of those countries. So again, according to my Russian friends and the intel they gather from Russian-language Telegram groups, there is a mass exodus of Russians coming from those countries to Vietnam and in particular the Da Nang and Nha Trang areas in the center of the country.

Nha Trang already has a reputation of being almost entirely Russian as far as the expat population is concerned and again, there is nothing wrong with that. It just isn't as friendly as someone who doesn't speak Russian, like me, would probably like it to be. I don't fault them for preferring to hang out with people of their own culture and languages are extremely difficult to learn. I tried my hand at the first chapter of Rosetta Stone Russian and didn't even make it through that. So it isn't a case of them being lazy, there just aren't very many parallels (if any) between most european languages and Russian. There is no correlation between Vietnamese and any language so there will be no common ground there either.

Basically, it is understood that the universal expat language all around the world is English, and I am just fortunate enough to have been born in a country where that was my native language. Lucky me!

These days though there is on problem that is going on that is created by the massive influx of Russians. It could be any massive influx of any expat population but in this instance it is the Russians. There are so many of them that the demand for furnished apartments has already outpaced the supply and therefore the owners of these buildings are charging far more than they are worth. Why? because they know they can get it, and they do.

Since everyone wants to live in the area that I am in because it is extremely westernized, the rental prices here have gone through the roof with one-bedrooms going for as much as $800 a month. This may not sound like a lot if you are living in the west but keep in mind that in 2019, my first 90 sq meter 1-bedroom apartment that I had in this same area was $220. I live in a smaller one than that now and am paying about $500 and my rent is locked in because the landord likes me. But if I were to vacate this apartment and she were to rent it out to other people, she has already told me she would be asking $800. Why? Because demand is outpacing supply.

Another fear that I have with this influx is that many of these people are coming because they were kicked out of other countries for running illegal businesses and I hope they don't come over here thinking that they are going to run the same racket in Vietnam. If so, this could end up reflecting negatively on ALL expats that live here and we could end up seeing some sort of broad changes to immigration policy. One of the main things that makes Vietnam one of the digital nomad capitals of the world is that Vietnam doesn't really mind how long you stay as long as you play by the rules.

If these people start doing illegal stuff, they may have no choice but to punish everyone in a sort of pre-emptive strike sort of fashion.