“We do not have more than enough excellent flats for highly educated folks with significant salaries and higher criteria,” explained Aram Shahbandarian, a former Google staff based in Yerevan who is aiding many Russians go to the metropolis. “Yerevan is cracking.”
Vahan Kerobyan, Armenia’s economic system minister, mentioned in an interview that as a nation with a strategic romance with Russia, it was not marketing itself as hoping to pull companies out of Russia, but that if organizations decided to shift, it would do the job to accommodate them.
“The Armenian tech local community is providing assist to their Russian close friends, and the authorities is very substantially nervous about giving Russian companies a pleasant place that is not as well highly-priced in which they can operate,” he explained. Mr. Kerobyan estimated that 43,000 persons experienced moved from Russia to Armenia, 50 % of whom maintain Russian passports and half Armenian passports.
Miro, a U.S. program business, chartered flights to Yerevan for its Russian staff members and moved them into two motels in the heart of the city, Mr. Kerobyan stated. X-tensive, a software progress corporation in Russia, has also moved its staff members to the Armenian metropolis mainly because its principal client, ServiceTitan, was launched there, he reported.
Miro has explained publicly that it was moving its personnel out of Russia. X-tensive did not reply to a request for comment.
Russia-Ukraine War: Key Developments
Numerous of individuals workers might sooner or later go on to other places for the reason that visa restrictions have to have them to go away their latest home right after a specific quantity of days. Quite a few are doubtful where by they may well go. Other people are planning moves to up-and-coming tech hubs farther away, these kinds of as Dubai and Lisbon.
Artem Taganov, founder and chief executive of a Russian start off-up termed HintEd, reported he knew about 70 founders of Russian providers who, like him, had fled to Armenia. If business people continue to be in Russia, he said, their businesses can provide only the area market place.