‘You could call it running away’: For some Russian emigrants, leaving the country was just the beginning. Now they live their lives on the road.

Most Russians living abroad try to return to a familiar way of life as quickly as possible: they rent an apartment or a house, work or look for stable jobs, and spend most of their time in a single country. But some emigrants live differently. They move constantly from place to place, turning their everyday lives into one long journey. Meduza spoke with three emigrants who left Russia and chose a life on the road.‘I got the chance to take the trips I’d dreamed of’Mikhail Berezhnoy, 29. Zoologist and tour guide. Has visited 17 countries, from Serbia to Ethiopia.My mom is terrified of spiders: in that sense, she got unlucky with her son. She says that when I was about 4, she was digging in the garden at the dacha, and I ran up to her, opened my hands, and spiders scattered across my arms. I said, “Look how beautiful they are!” And my mom was horrified.I don’t have a favorite animal: I love them all. I’m happy every time I encounter an animal.I was born and raised in Orel, and I moved to Moscow at 18 and enrolled in the zoology program at the Timiryazev Academy. After graduating, I took a job as a junior researcher at the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution. I started out studying stress in felines, then began researching the Russian desman — I even made a film about the animal.If you’re a Russian scientist, there’s never enough money, so when the desman expeditions ended, I took a part-time job at a veterinary clinic as a surgeon’s assistant. I was making about 40,000 rubles a month back then — just enough to survive.I came up with some ideas for new expeditions and applied to a really cool Russian project that supports scientific research. Say a scientist has a research topic that requires traveling somewhere to collect data, but they don’t have the money for the trip. They can turn to this organization, and if it likes the idea, it puts together a group of tourists who travel with the scientist. The scientist tells the tourists about their work while collecting the data they need for their research.I was offered a job as an assistant to a bear researcher leading a tour to Lake Baikal. I don’t remember how much I was paid for it.It was great. You’d arrive at the location, lead people through the woods, tell them about animals, show them tracks, listen to birds together. I grew up somewhere none of this interested anyone, and here it was the opposite.But I wanted to travel farther afield.By the start of the [full-scale] war, my life was in turmoil, both personally and at work. I had been in a relationship with a woman for five years, and by 2022 things had gotten worse. We didn’t part on the best terms. She was my colleague. We had studied and worked together. It was hard, and then on top of that came the war.I wasn’t thinking about emigrating — I had enough personal problems already. But everything just fell into place. In September 2022, the organization was organizing a trip to Kazakhstan to help people open local bank cards and, at the same time, run a tour in a national park. They invited me to lead the tour and talk about the local animals and birds.A few hours after landing in Kazakhstan, I read the news: Russia had announced mobilization. We’d come for less than a week.But not everyone went back to Russia.I had no idea how I was going to support myself. I had some savings, but a very modest amount, about 100,000 rubles. The only things I’d brought to Kazakhstan were a backpack with a laptop and a change of clothes. Luckily, I managed to rent a place for a month at a normal price, before rents shot up because of the influx of people fleeing mobilization.I wouldn’t say anything especially difficult was happening to me at that point. I’m quick to pick up and go, and I’d always wanted to travel. There was some frustration, because I didn’t quite know what to do. But I accepted that it was time for an adventure.When many Russians arrived in Kazakhstan, I started helping them handle bureaucratic issues, which became my side job. I’d stand in line to submit paperwork, and in exchange the person would let me stay with them and feed me. That went on for about two months. I enjoyed all of it: it was fun, interesting, even exciting.Since I’d gotten the chance to take the trips I’d dreamed of, I decided not to stay in Kazakhstan but to go see the world, thinking that way I’d find a place where I’d want to settle down. But on the road, I realized there was only one thing I wanted: to keep moving all the time.First, I was offered a tour to lead in Turkey. I made a bit of money, and around the same time a friend from Montenegro wrote to me. He said, “Misha, spring’s coming soon, and in spring snake season starts in Montenegro.” Plus you could enter the country without a visa, and it was relatively cheap there.In Montenegro, I tried to get a job with the local national parks, but I wasn’t hired. So I figured I could earn money giving lectures about animals and running nature tours. I started posting on social media, talking about animals, and people started showing up. It turned out many relocated Russians in Montenegro were looking for a community.One of my first lectures was called “Fantastic Beasts of Montenegro and Where to Find Them”: about venomous animals like spiders, snakes, centipedes, scorpions, and anything else that scares people. Many people were worried: what about the snakes and scorpions, all this Balkan wildlife? I’d explain how to avoid trouble. I gave that lecture many times. People started writing about me in emigrant chat groups, which helped me build an audience.At the time I was renting rooms and getting by however I could, and I only managed to rent my own place — a simple studio — in the fall of 2023, six months after arriving in Montenegro.I walked a lot, found animals and their tracks, made videos, and gradually built up an audience. My Instagram grew well. The people the project I’d worked with saw what I was doing, and together we organized a tour into the mountainous part of the country. A one-day tour or lecture could bring in 100–150 euros, but sometimes only three or four people would show up, and that was it. But there’s a balance in the universe: one week’s earnings might be modest, while the next week, in Serbia, 50 people might show up to watch owls with you, earning you around 500 euros.At the start of 2024, I had 11,000 followers on Instagram. But then I decided to part ways with the person who’d been helping with promotion, because we weren’t getting along. He had the logins and passwords to all my accounts: Instagram, Telegram, and YouTube. In the end, he changed them and took over the accounts, saying he’d give them back for about 11,000 euros, a euro for each Instagram follower. I refused and started new social media accounts.Until the new accounts started bringing in people, I needed something to live on. I got a job teaching at three Russian-language schools at once: at one I taught geography to grades 5 through 8, at the second, zoology, and at the third, something like extracurricular zoology classes. And to make sure I had enough money, I also got a construction job through a contact. Even before leaving Russia, I’d worked at a biological field station, helping build enclosures and shelters for animals, and I’d done renovations in my own apartment and house myself: I’m good with my hands. So I could handle the basics of sanding and plastering.I had a ton of jobs, but still not much money. And again this Russian project came along and said, “Want to go to Socotra?” That’s an island in Yemen. Of course, I didn’t take long to agree.Socotra is a unique place in the equatorial climate zone with its own wonderful ecosystem. The program centered on endemic species, little creatures that live nowhere else. On Socotra, those are various reptiles and invertebrates.I also visited Hadibu, the capital of Socotra. That city surprised me a lot. First, the people of Socotra have no writing system. Second, for many centuries they practiced Christianity. Then Muslims arrived, and Islamization began. But there are still some elderly locals who first cross themselves and then perform namaz, which amounts to a kind of two-factor authentication.I shared all these adventures on my social media, and within six months I won back the entire audience I’d lost (the stolen account withered away). Now I have more followers than before.After Socotra, I went back to Montenegro. The lectures continued, and the money I earned was enough to live on, if modestly. I also wrote a short book, Zmei Chernogorii “Snakes of Montenegro.” It exists in electronic form. It’s been downloaded some number of times, but I wouldn’t say the subject is hugely popular. I spent about two years like that, until the end of 2025. All the while, I kept traveling to different countries: Serbia and Bosnia, Georgia and Armenia, as well as Socotra again. I’d post on social media: want to go on a tour to Ethiopia? People would say, yes, we’re in!I run a few tours a year. I’d rather not say how much money I make, but it’s enough. You can have a quiet month in Vietnam for 700 dollars. You can live super cheaply in Sri Lanka for 300 dollars. But on average, I probably spend about 1,000 dollars a month to live.It’s a completely unusual lifestyle. I don’t think it suits people used to comfort. I don’t have a stable job, but I find this way of living extremely satisfying.When there are no tours, I find other kinds of work, and they vary a lot. This summer I was the science supervisor at a children’s camp in Montenegro. The kids and I would figure out what kinds of animals exist, what invertebrates are, which creatures are fish and which are reptiles. In the evenings we used an ultrasonic detector to listen to bats, and on one of the days we caught snakes (I’d explain which ones were dangerous and which weren’t).Over my years of travel, I’ve had a few encounters with people that stuck in my memory. In Ethiopia, not far from the border with Eritrea, there’s the Danakil Depression. There are many volcanoes there, and because of them a volcanic wasteland has formed, a huge flat plateau of hardened lava. Sometimes you come across nomads there. They put up a little shack out of sticks and hay, and live in it. They say, “We’re the happiest people on earth.” And you think, how can that be? It’s scorching hot here, and there’s no vegetation at all. What is there to eat? You go into their shack, and there’s a gnawed goat’s head. That’s the entire food supply for several adults and 20 children.There was also a case in India, where I’d initially been afraid to go after hearing so many stories about food poisoning there. But a very cheap ticket came up from Vietnam to Ethiopia via India. While there, I went to a national park where, it turned out, tribes lived deep inside. I spent a few days with them. It was a terrifyingly interesting experience. We cooked food on a floor made of a mixture of dirt and cow dung. You lay down banana leaves and cut potatoes and peppers on them. You drink water from a stream. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, but I ate off the floor and drank from the stream, and still didn’t get sick.I don’t want to go back to Russia. I find it more interesting to travel the world — there are still many countries I haven’t seen. But after so many years of traveling, I do think it would be nice to settle down somewhere, at least a little. For one thing, it would let me apply for visas — right now I only go to visa-free countries. And when you don’t have a home, you can’t pick up any souvenirs from your trips. I’d like to have a place where I can keep all that.I’ll go to South America and see — maybe that’s where I’ll end up.‘The cat decided to stay in France. She probably figured life on the road wasn’t for her.’Alyona Koroleva, 38. Journalist, yoga instructor, and ceramicist. Traveled through 14 countries in a camper van, from Poland to Portugal.In Khimki, I lived for three or four years starting in 2013 in a huge 30-story apartment building. The lawn was a meter by a meter (about 3 feet by 3 feet). You’d walk the dog, and a neighbor would grumble that you couldn’t because kids were running around. The soundproofing in the building was terrible. I even had a “tool” slipper that I constantly banged on the radiator.I was in despair, I cried, I hated that apartment, but I couldn’t move out: we owned it, and a ton of my parents’ money had gone into it. I felt like a hostage. Then I got married, and we decided to sell the apartment and buy a house in the countryside. We lived there for two years, from 2017 to 2019, and it was really good.In 2019, the atmosphere in Russia grew much tenser, and my husband and I became unhappy with many things. Police arrested Vanya Golunov: it seemed like things could only get worse from there. We decided to move to Poland, where at the time it was fairly easy to get legal status, thanks to a business incubator. We’re still legalized in Poland that way.We arrived in one car, which fit me, my husband, a cat, a dog, and two suitcases. We rented a place in Krakow, in a cozy five-unit building, perfect. We worked remotely for Russian companies: I wrote for media outlets and taught yoga, and my husband ran various projects as a marketer.We weren’t planning to go back to Russia, so we sold the house. It was hard to buy anything in Poland with that money. Inspired by stories of people who’d sold everything, we got a camper van. It used to be used for delivering furniture, and now it’s a “dacha” you can drive.For several months my husband worked on converting the van into a home: he wired it for electricity, installed a toilet and a shower, set up a little kitchen. And then the [full-scale] war started. It felt like a shock, like the end of the world. Life as we knew it was over. It was especially hard when friends from Ukraine started calling and writing. They’d say, “You probably have no idea what’s happening over there. Tell people, post something on Facebook, write to the media you work for, that we’re being bombed.”Huge numbers of refugees came to Poland, and we immediately started helping them: we collected humanitarian aid and drove people around.In the summer of 2022, our landlord told us he was raising the rent 40%: “because of your Putin.” We thought, “Fine, we have our own little house, we’ll just live in it now.” Around then, stories started coming out about Russians not getting their residence permits renewed. There was this feeling that you could be living somewhere today, and tomorrow some law could pass and you’d get kicked out. We decided to beat them to it and “kick ourselves out” first. We thought we’d look at other European countries, maybe move and start over.We gave up the apartment, got in the van, and left. At the time we had no idea we’d spend three and a half years on the road. First we went to the Netherlands to visit friends, then we headed to Portugal.At first everything felt very strange. There was nowhere to go back to, everything you own is with you, in the van. And your home is now the van, just eight square meters (about 86 square feet). Sometimes it was really scary. You’d stop for the night in an ordinary city parking lot, basically sleeping out on the street, and any sound would make you jump. My husband slept very badly — he was guarding our peace and the dog’s. We lost our cat. She decided to stay in France. She probably figured this life wasn’t for her (I respect her choice).Splitting eight square meters between two adults is a peculiar experience. In the first year we fought a lot. Irritation built up and sometimes boiled over. But we know how to talk things through, so we worked it all out. We learned to make compromises, and to live on the road.All the day-to-day logistics fell on my husband. He was always behind the wheel, picking out spots to stop, and, for instance, looking for special places to empty the toilet or fill up water for the shower. He kept track of all of it in his head, which was exhausting for him. On top of that, he was constantly fixing and finishing things, checking the water level in the tanks, installing sensors, dealing with the wiring. And I just rode along, feeling good.Over time, the van became our cozy little home. We adapted to life on the road and started to enjoy it. I worked online, writing.Say you arrive in France and check the map in the Park4Night app, and other van-lifers like us have already marked free parking spots or specially equipped places where you can get water. Once that’s how we ended up at a tiny winery, where we went for a tasting and bought a case of wine. Another time, thanks to the app, we found a deserted boat dock near Gdańsk with free electricity, water, and two pheasants. There was also a place called Pyzdry, where we tried the best shawarma, and a parking spot in a cedar forest by the Atlantic Ocean.When your home is a van, you end up in places you’d otherwise never reach. It’s a feeling of enormous freedom and inspiration. We drove back and forth across Europe a couple of times and saw these countries from a perspective that, if not quite like a local’s, was definitely not a tourist’s. But it’s a particular kind of lifestyle. Say you have three days’ worth of water and electricity left. In summer you charge up from a solar panel, but in winter you need to find somewhere with an outlet. So you stop just driving from point to point and start genuinely exploring the space around you.Many things get decided on the spot. Once I was invited to teach yoga classes on a yacht in Croatia. I went out to sea for a week, came back, and we thought: Slovenia was right nearby. I had friends there I knew from Instagram, and now they’re close friends of mine. We might not have specifically gone to Slovenia on our own. Or to Austria. But since it was close, why not stop by?The year 2022 was very frightening, but also one full of love. When the war started, for some reason I thought the world was about to collapse and I’d be left alone. But that year brought many reunions, with people who’d left Russia after the war started, and with those who’d left before. There was a powerful reunion with old friends, from college and even from school. With the world falling apart, it was good to be together.But overall, for us, life in the van turned out to be more about places than people. At first we had illusions that, like Canadian, American, or Australian travelers, we’d make a million new acquaintances. But that’s not how it worked out for us. Maybe we’re just kind of unsociable. For the most part, we were on our own on the road.By the third year, the euphoria had worn off. Beyond the physical discomfort, exhaustion had built up. It turned out that the feeling of being cut off from any community or place is tiring. You’re sort of everywhere, but you’re nowhere.On top of that, the van started breaking down regularly. When that happened, we’d have to rent a hotel room or an apartment. It doesn’t sound terrible, but hauling all your belongings back and forth isn’t very pleasant. Other problems came up too. For instance, when we were driving from Slovenia to Austria, the van stalled 100 meters (330 feet) short of the border. It was a Sunday, we don’t speak Slovenian — where were we going to find a mechanic? We called a friend, and she helped us call a tow truck. The mechanics let us sleep in the van right in the shop’s yard for a couple of days. That saved us money and energy.By November 2025 we were completely worn out and missing comfort. Over those three and a half years, my husband and I became different people. A lot changed in our relationship. We came to understand a lot about ourselves.If you’re always on the move, you could probably call it running away. I was terrified because of the war, constantly weighed down by a sense of guilt and responsibility. I just wanted to disappear. It was as if the space around us was squeezing us out. No one was waiting for us anywhere, and we didn’t want to impose. We narrowed our lives down to a single point, both outwardly and inwardly.But the longer we drove, the stronger the feeling grew that we wanted to expand somehow. It was as if we’d grown over that time. And then one day I realized I could no longer settle for a one-minute cold shower in the van. I wanted a bathtub. I wanted nice dishes, not camping cups. And potted plants. And a TV.We went back to Krakow and wrote to our old landlord, just in case. “You won’t believe it,” he said, “the woman who’s been living in the [other] apartment for eight years is moving out.” So it all came full circle. We’d arrived back where we’d fled from.If before I wanted to get rid of as many things as possible, now I’m an “anti-minimalist.” I have a ton of flowers, dishes, furniture. I keep accumulating new things, repotting plants, brewing kombucha, fermenting cabbage.On the road we met people, but we didn’t build relationships with them, because tomorrow there’d be a new city, a new country. Life on the road was an incredible experience, and I don’t regret any of it. It helped me find myself and understand how important it is to have your own place, solid ground under your feet. Before that, I didn’t know myself.‘I woke up to a rustling sound, and there’s a homeless guy going through my bag’Max, 28. Cook and musician. Hitchhiked through four countries, from Poland to Spain’s Canary Islands.I was born and raised in Pyatigorsk. I trained as a cook, worked part-time in restaurants, and spent my free time on music. Ever since my teens I’d wanted to move to Europe, and in 2020 I thought, why not? I enrolled in a university European studies program and moved to Poland on a student visa. Neither the country nor the degree was really the point; I just wanted to go somewhere in Europe that wasn’t too expensive. I’d thought about going back to Russia after finishing my studies, but then the war started, and that was that: you couldn’t go back because of the risk of mobilization.My parents helped me financially with the move and my studies. In my new location, I needed to support myself, so I got a job as a cook at a restaurant that blended Italian and Polish cuisine. You could order both ravioli and pierogi.I kept studying and working, but in my third year I decided to drop out, took an academic leave, and started looking for a job in my field, as a migration expert. My options were government agencies and private companies that work with them. I looked through job listings, read about the duties and requirements, and with every new listing I became more convinced that it was just too boring a job.For example, [among the listings] there was a company providing legal support to Polish businesses that wanted to trade food products across the European Union. There were also various departments of the European Commission looking for people who understood European law. It was boring in itself, and for the first few years you’d basically just be helping print documents around the office.On top of that, for several years some kind of need had been building up in me: I didn’t understand what it was. But it clearly wasn’t for bureaucratic work. I thought about it a lot and realized I badly needed a big adventure. In 2025, while still working as a cook, I started saving money for a trip and planning a route. I decided to hitchhike from Poland to Spain. Preparing for it took about a year.I sold some things, like my laptop, and donated extra clothes to charity. All I took with me was a backpack and camping gear: a few changes of clothes, a tent, and a gas burner. A month before the trip, I quit my job.I set out from Krakow. I stood on the road at the edge of the city and started trying to flag down a ride with a cardboard sign in my hands. A car stopped pretty quickly. We drove for a few hours, then I got dropped off at a truck stop.I figured I’d definitely find someone among the truckers to give me a ride. But truckers are the worst option for hitchhiking: many of them are banned from picking up passengers because of safety rules at their trucking companies.Night was falling, so I pitched my tent in the woods near the truck stop and went to sleep. I wasn’t scared: I used to go on hiking trips a lot back in Pyatigorsk. Waking up in the morning, I packed up the tent and went out to the road to flag down a car. A German picked me up and drove me to some city in Germany on the border with Poland.During the first week of hitchhiking I was under a lot of stress. I wanted to give it all up and go back to Poland. Flagging down rides isn’t very easy: people are probably worried about safety. The ones who most often agree to give you a ride are either people who’ve hitchhiked themselves before, or just regular travelers in their own vehicles.By the end of the first week I’d made it to Girona in Spain and suddenly got very sick with a high fever. At first I had to lie in the tent running a fever, but then I happened to meet some people on the street, and they offered to let me stay at their place until I recovered.I met a lot of good people along the way, in general. One time I got stuck in a traffic jam. It was midday, blazing sun, everyone sitting in stuffy cars. And suddenly a man walks between the cars handing out bottles of water for free.Hitchhiking is basically a series of similar trips, differing only in length. Whether in Germany, France, or Spain, you wait for a ride, catch one, and go. If you don’t catch one, you set up camp. You put up the gas burner, cook food, sleep in the tent. In the end, you can always find a bus or [a car through the service] BlaBlaCar.But there are romantic moments too. Once (I don’t remember where) I stopped at the edge of a forest with many plum trees. I picked some plums and made myself a really tasty compote on my camping burner.The only things that really change from country to country are the culture and the food. Sometimes I noticed other local quirks too. For instance, in France, at stops known as aire de repos, or “rest areas,” any passing traveler can stop, grab a bite, wash up for free, and even quickly wash their clothes in the shower if needed.Besides the essentials, I brought a guitar on my trip. I played a lot on the street, and a couple of times I even earned about 20 euros. You could actually build a career out of it. In Barcelona I met a “Russian Elvis Presley.” He does a really good Elvis impression on the streets of the city and makes enough from it to support himself.I want to earn money from music, but on some other level, not just street performing. I want to perform on a stage, to share emotions with listeners. But if it doesn’t work out, that’s fine too. For me, the main thing is the process of making music itself. And my benchmark is Aphex Twin.In Barcelona I spent the night at the train station. But at midnight a security guard chased me off. Barcelona isn’t the most appealing place to sleep on the street. But there was nothing to be done, so I started looking for a spot to lay out my sleeping bag. I had to walk a ways, because all the spots [near the station] were already taken by people who lived on the street permanently. I found a little alley by a business center, laid down, and fell asleep.A couple of hours later I woke up to a rustling sound. There’s a homeless guy going through my bag. I asked him what he was doing. Without looking up at me, still digging through the bag, he said he was looking for water. I pulled out a bottle of water and gave it to him, and he drank. Then he spotted the guitar and asked me to play something for him. I said I would, but in the morning. He just said, “Okay,” and left.My trip ended in the Canary Islands. It took me about a month to get there. I decided to go there almost by accident: back in Poland, I’d come across a TikTok video about a guy living in a pallet shack on Tenerife. I didn’t want to live quite that hardcore, but the Canary Islands were calling to me.As it turned out, though, I ended up on a different island, Fuerteventura. I needed somewhere to live, and I found a church that runs a shelter for the homeless. I went there and offered to help out with anything. That’s how I became a volunteer at the shelter, and because of it I had a place to live and food. Supplies would come in for the shelter’s residents, and I’d unload, sort, and hand them out.While helping at the shelter, I wanted to find paid work, and on Facebook I came across a German guy who runs a farm on the island. I applied, along with an Italian. As housing, the German gave each of us a camper van, like the one from Scooby-Doo (except ours aren’t painted and don’t drive). On the farm there’s something like a greenhouse, where we have a kitchen and a bathroom. Various fruits and olives grow on the grounds, and I help take care of the trees and the property in general.I posted videos about my trip on my YouTube channel, in TikTok, and Instagram. I like where I am now and what I’m doing. It’s definitely very different from a steady routine, where you have a job, a schedule, and a paycheck. This kind of adventurous lifestyle is a bit like a drug.Yes, it’s a life of total uncertainty, but… I don’t remember whether someone taught me this or I came to it on my own, but as a kid I used to pray to God every day: say thank you for this, thank you for that. Then I stopped for a long time, and this year I went back to the habit of expressing gratitude for everything I have. I wake up and say thank you for getting to spend the night in this tent, for having this mat. Because many homeless people sleep on concrete.This ritual gives me energy. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in God — you can always say thank you for what you have today. And then tomorrow’s uncertainty doesn’t feel so frightening.At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.Recorded by Anatoly Sychev