David is five months old. He went for a walk with his mother, but not in Moscow, where he was to be born and raised, but 14,000 kilometers away – in Buenos Aires. Until February 24, 2022, David’s parents, Polina and Denis, never seriously considered emigration. Polina made the decision to leave the day the Russian army invaded Ukraine. She was then four months pregnant.
Polina and Denis decided to go to Austria and ask for political asylum. They bought their tickets. In May, a week before the flight, Polina went out to protest. The pregnant woman was detained and taken to the police station.
One of the OVD-Info lawyers came to defend me. I told him we were planning to leave for Europe in a week. He asked: “Why Europe? You will not be accepted there.” What can we do? We cannot stay in Russia. He told us, “Go to Argentina.”
Author: Polina, Russian citizen settled in Argentina
On May 24, Denis and Polina, seven months pregnant, flew to Buenos Aires. With the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Argentina became a major emigration destination for Russians. They can stay here without a visa for 90 days. By law, foreign parents of an Argentine child automatically receive a permanent residence permit and can immediately apply for an Argentine passport. According to the Migration Service of Argentina, in 2022, 10.5 thousand pregnant Russian women entered Argentina. From November 2022 to February 2023 alone, almost six thousand women came, most of them pregnant.
For Argentine doctors, providing medical care to foreign women who do not speak Spanish is a professional challenge. Often they have to communicate with women in Russia using only Google Translate. Public health facilities in Argentina accept everyone, including foreigners, absolutely free.
“The hardest thing is when they come at the last minute with tests from Russia. And the translation of these tests has very different laboratory data,” says Mercedes Sosa, a midwife at Rivadavia, one of the largest public hospitals in Buenos Aires. She says that before they used to have a few patients from Russia a year. In 2022, however, it had 74 patients from Russia.
Not all Russian women who fly to Argentina to give birth intend to stay in the country. Some of them want an Argentine passport to travel more easily around the world or for future immigration to the EU or the US and Canada.
In the past three months, 5,819 women entered the country and are currently in labor or preparing to give birth. We have nothing against people of any nationality coming to live in Argentina. Let them come, raise children, invest money in Argentina. But the problem is that these people come and go. They are not going back to Argentina. And leave with a passport. The Argentine passport is the 19th most secure in the world. With it you can enter 171 countries without a visa and get a ten-year visa for the United States.
Author: Florence Carignano, head of the Migration Service of Argentina
The head of the Migration Service of Argentina stated that most women in Russia leave the country shortly after giving birth. Half of them give birth in public clinics, at the expense of Argentine taxpayers. And this happens in the context of a very difficult economic situation in the country. About 40% of Argentines live below the poverty line. In the last five years, the national currency, the Argentine peso, has depreciated almost 20 times against the dollar.
However, there are also situations where Russian citizens choose to invest in open businesses in Argentina. Vitalii, together with his wife and child flew to Buenos Aires in April 2022. They requested a residence permit for humanitarian reasons: disagreement with the war in Ukraine and with the policies of the Russian authorities in general. In Argentina, Vitali does what he does best – fix cars. In Russia he had to sell his workshop.
“I sold the business and two cars in a week. And I left by plane. It’s called emergency emigration, if I’m not mistaken. Because it was scary. There were planes flying over our house every day,” says Vitalii.
A completely new phenomenon for Buenos Aires are all kinds of meetings between Russians. They organize meetings to exchange useful information, experience and contacts. The conversation in the bar revolves around news from Russia, Ukraine and impressions from the first months spent in Argentina.
There is a huge influx of Russians into Argentina. It seems to me that now there are even more. When I arrived I didn’t see any Slavonic face and I didn’t hear Russian at the immigration office, but when I came to extend my stay last time I saw only one Venezuelan. The rest were Russian citizens.
Author: Evdokia, Russian citizen settled in Argentina
A separate trend in the current strong migration flow from Russia to Argentina is that of the LGBTQ+ community. Hundreds of gays, lesbians and transsexuals are seeking asylum here. Many of them seek the help of human rights defenders within the LGBT Federation of Argentina.
Many of them say, “Look, I haven’t been beaten up on the street, but I’m afraid something will happen to me.” And people who have children are very afraid of the fact that these children will be taken away from them. It gives me goosebumps. How is it possible for the state to take away your children just because you are gay or lesbian?
Author: Maribe Sgarilla, human rights activist
On February 24, 2023, several demonstrations in support of Ukraine took place in Buenos Aires. Among the demonstrators were many Russians and ethnic Ukrainians who have lived in the country for a long time. The last major wave of emigration from Ukraine to Argentina occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Several thousand families moved then. New arrivals from Russia are treated differently by them. “Get out of Argentina” posters could be seen at the march.
Other Ukrainians, on the contrary, are trying to help Russians fleeing the war. Anna Gladunina is from Kharkiv and came to Buenos Aires 21 years ago. She graduated from school and university here and is a Russian language teacher and translator.
For now I’m trying to detach. The Russian language is irrelevant to everything that is going on. There are too many people who speak Russian. I work with Russians. On the one hand, I want to help people who don’t agree with what’s going on. To help them at least by moving to another country. But when some things happen in Kharkiv or all over Ukraine, when there are bombings, when bombs hit kindergartens, schools, on such days I don’t want to work.
Author: Anna, Ukrainian citizen settled in Argentina
It is still difficult to calculate exactly how many Russians arrived in Argentina after February 24, 2022. They continue to arrive every day, not only directly from Russia, but also via transit from Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Turkey. According to the Argentine Migration Service, exactly one year after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, approximately three thousand Russians applied for permanent or temporary residence permits in the country. At the end of March, it became known about the mass refusals of the Migration Service to extend the stay of Russian tourists in the country. They are summoned to leave Argentina within 15 days. Many of them hope to appeal the decision.
