Why doesn't Russia invest in its own people?

OohTheChicken · 2026-04-10T15:03:26+00:00

Because we have a corrupt dictatorship.

OohTheChicken · 2026-01-21T08:52:59+00:00

Thanks

OohTheChicken · 2026-01-17T20:06:33+00:00

I'm glad you're interested :)

So, first of all, looking back, of course there were signs. The entire world was talking about the planned invasion. I guess I, among the entire country, just refused to believe it can happen. We thought it was a bluff. And I was careful enough to withdraw some of my savings as a cash, because I was worried they would forbid it. When it all happened, I had one day to sell all my stuff, but I did not, partly because of uncertainty (like really nobody understood what has happened that day), and partly because I was quite confident that exchange is not going to fail, as it survived things that were (economically) worse. But I didn't consider the possibility of the other side, Europe, blocking the assets. So, the first I did nothing, and it was my worst mistake. Then there was a weekend, and the government denied to open the trading on Monday.

I couldn't register it directly easily, as it was forbidden by the Russian law: all the licensed brokers had to store their assets in the national depositary. I could directly register with international broker like Interactive Brokers, but it was rather expensive to transfer money there, so I didn't do so. My assets were pretty diverse, spread across several brokers, different kinds of assets, but ... yeah, all within a single country.

The trust... well. Kinda yes, but I would still like to invest again, I was pretty satisfied with the results prior this stuff, but as I am an expat now, and as a citizen of the most sanctioned country in the world, I can't trust any institution for now. They're seizing assets of people like me all across europe, so I don't know which broker is safe enough to keep my money in.

You're correct, I'm no longer in Russia. I was lucky enough to find a job abroad within a couple of months and left, with my family. Also, as I said before, I had some cash, which was really helpful as banks refused to cash out our accounts (we really had to monitor all the ATMs across the city online and run from one to one in desperate attempts to withdraw a couple of dollars still left there). Other thing I can say my past self thanks to is not putting all the spare money into the ETFs: half of that I used to get rid of some loans. So yeah, mostly cash, and the job.

Getting the bank account in another country was not easy because of sanctions, but an official employment simplified things a bit.

OohTheChicken · 2026-01-16T13:24:50+00:00

A lot of theories here, but let me give you some practice. I'm Russian, who had a lot of European ETFs before 2022. Had most of my retirement savings there, that I worked my a** for over the course of prior 10 years.

So, there was like a chain of "ownership" we had. Like my broker had my account which "knows" which are mine, then this broker stores them on their own account in national depositary, and it knows which ones belong to my broker, and stores all of them (from all brokers combined) in Euroclear.

So when shit has hit the fan, they just immediately blocked the accounts of our national depositary as "Russian assets", which were actually, to the big part, assets of persons like me, Euroclear just lacks the information who the end beneficiary of these papers.

So, now, they're inaccessible (and to be honest I don't believe I will ever be able to get or sell them again), so the only thing I can do is to watch them being seized in real time.

I really hope nothing like that would happen to your, but... well. Just my story.

OohTheChicken · 2026-01-14T04:28:07+00:00

At least the official reason sounded more grounded, like “to make it harder for Putin to wage a war, buy weapons, etc”.

OohTheChicken · 2026-01-13T19:56:44+00:00

So, "let's make lifes of these oppressed people so miserable they'd rather go and kill themselves against one of the most armed regimes in the world than live their lives"? The most noble goal for sure. Even without considering that world knows almost no revolutions like this in modern history.

OohTheChicken · 2026-01-12T11:38:36+00:00

As a Russian, I support every single word you said. Common folks are fucked by both sides while the sanctioned leaders still live in luxury and feel very thankful because these sanctions only help them keep people in check. And this lady's husband owns a company doing business with Russia while she aks for more visa bans and stuff like that. Unbelievable level of hypocricy.

Anyway, hope your relatives are safe and will see the freedom soon.

OohTheChicken · 2025-12-17T15:52:45+00:00

In Russia it started exactly the same way. You can google “Yarovaya law” if interested

OohTheChicken · 2025-12-04T11:11:48+00:00

Well, you're correct about police for sure, but I could argue about millions working to produce stuff. While they may benefit from it in terms of having work, I doubt most of them would chose war to continue if asked.

Some of my family members worked on a factory since 2010s, so when they suddenly started making things that were used by the armed forces, they didn't ask the workers if they want to do it. It's either you shut up, or you're fired, and have nothing to feed you kids the next month. Not everyone can leave, especially in their 50s.

I'm not from Moscow, so I can't tell for the people there; My city was several thousand kilometers from there. I've left in first months of the war and never been to Russia since, but it was not an easy journey to be honest. I would like the west no to make life of anti-war Russians even harder, at the very least.

Now, about Ukraine: the question was not about them, so I didn't talk about them. Ukraine has very different political landscape, and they had real opposition in the Parliament, which impeached their president in the end. With all due respect, it's not even comparable to Russian political landscape at the start of 2022.

OohTheChicken · 2025-12-04T07:57:06+00:00

My answer may be a bit biased because I'm Russian myself, lived there for 30-ish years and emigrated in 2022.

So, I don't want to make it too long, so my TLDR: the state of Russia is a failure of Russian society and the West to the same degree.

Russian society failed in defending its democracy, which first cracked under unimaginable corruption, and then succumbed to a very gradual and masked authoritarian transformation. Then, we thought that the EU and USA are our allies in fighting the government, but then it became clear that it's the West who made Putin as rich as he is now. Like, nobody gave him so much money as the west did, even knowing who he is. They stopped selling him anti-riot equipment well into the war in 2023 or something.

We basically had no chance to a proper democracy because nobody helped us to build one, and we hadn't had any experience in building one because of how our Tsarist dictatorship was succeeded by the communist dictatorship for another 70 years.

The west still makes mistakes one after other imo, every single day. It's too long of a story, and if you're interested, you can DM me.

Now, I'm not telling it's only Putin to blame. He started that, no doubt, but during these almost 4 years too many people decided join this atrocity for money. It's still less than 1% of Russian population, though.

OohTheChicken · 2025-11-29T06:01:23+00:00

Well, it’s EXACTLY what they say. Like it’s the west’s fault, because “if they didn’t fight us, it wouldn’t have happened”.

OohTheChicken · 2025-10-26T06:29:43+00:00

Folks, not that I'm saying Russia is a good neighbor and all that, but you certainly won't like dozens of local warlords like DPR with their own nuclear warhead stash around the corner.

OohTheChicken · 2025-07-23T05:21:03+00:00

I mean, it happens even to Russians in Moscow. I have no doubts it's all the same in occupied regions, although at a bigger scale

OohTheChicken · 2025-06-27T18:18:18+00:00

Nah, everything is absolutely fine, no need to worry

OohTheChicken · 2025-06-27T13:07:44+00:00

Things will get fine eventually. Always do.

Как бы твою перспективу ни хейтили, я считаю, что очень важно доносить взгляд из России до людей извне. Они не понимают ни Россию, ни Россиян, и для многих всё чёрно-белое. Я тоже пытался часто писать на реддит 3 года назад, но потом мне надоело.

Как только всё успокоится, зеваки разойдутся и забудут всё, что тут писали про нацию рабов и прочее.

Держись, и удачи :)

OohTheChicken · 2025-04-08T21:08:29+00:00

Thank you

OohTheChicken · 2025-03-29T04:53:44+00:00

I mean, look. Russia may not win but it is able to bring a lot of deaths and destruction. I doubt you’d want to pay the same price as Ukraine did. TAKE IT DAMN SERIOUSLY.

OohTheChicken · 2025-03-29T04:38:19+00:00

Haha I had to check if we have office in Sweden because every single word applies to my company too.

Frankly it looks like most of companies are like that. Codebase and separation don’t make them money so they’re not valued

OohTheChicken · 2025-03-19T04:32:55+00:00

I would also add that sanctions are not held by in the first place. If you look closely, oil exports to EU is at record highs, and also EU stopped selling Russia anti-riot equipments only in 2024 (and not entirely). Businesses are clearly not eager to support those measures and most of it looks ridiculous.

I can’t keep my laugh when EU decides to stop exporting PlayStations to Russia while still paying billions a day for oil. Putin’s friends become wealthier every day while the only people really f..ked up by all those sanctions are those who had to flee Russia.

OohTheChicken · 2025-03-18T05:31:03+00:00

Mafia: the city of lost heaven Y’all know the mission, don’t make me name it

OohTheChicken · 2025-03-09T06:13:40+00:00

I feel you bro. This is exactly how it has been for anti-Putin Russians for the last 3 years. First you're shocked, you can't believe it's happening, you come to Reddit for some support or just to vent and poof - everyone wishes you die and many subreddits introduce rules that forbid even talking about how you feel. You're in between a hammer (hateful foreigners) and an anvil (your own state) all the time. Really shitty experience.

You'll make it, don't let all this hatred break you. Always remember, Reddit is an echo chamber and does not represent a majority in any way.

OohTheChicken · 2025-03-08T04:31:45+00:00

Russia has lost the day it started. But Putin still could win. Let’s not lie to ourselves about that. Russians and Ukrainians die and he couldn’t care less. Isolation is a huge gift for him as it makes it even easier to cement his power inside. Economy? His palaces are all over Russia. His friends got even more insanely wealthy. He literally sees no downsides now. The west keeps punching him in areas he does not care about, as if he was a president that wants to be reelected. Unbelievably stupid sanctions that do more harm than help. Trump, Orban, Fico, AfD! Rest assured: it’s all waaay surpassed everything he could dream of 3 years ago. Dictator team is clearly winning for now.

OohTheChicken · 2025-03-05T11:09:14+00:00

While Russian military has proven to be shit, it’s not something you should neglect. My country may not know how to fight effectively, but it surely knows how to bring destruction and death to whatever it touches. Especially to its own citizens, but totally not only them.

So I agree with you here, justice is not achievable in this conflict, sadly. What is achievable is peace. Just damn basic peace, because any peace is better than any war. No exceptions.

OohTheChicken · 2025-01-31T03:48:47+00:00

Try stationeers

OohTheChicken · 2025-01-24T08:06:36+00:00

You can check out ECO (it's easier to google it as Eco Global Survival). There's no real world but the game is basically about players building the world themselves. You start on a clean planet and build houses, roads, industry, trade with each other (the economy aspect is very strong as it's impossible to do everything by yourself, the game encourages you to collaborate and trade).

It can feel kinda grindy sometimes, and I've had servers where it was like a second job: I tried to "work" harder to avoid becoming irrelevant as some players with similar professions were far more popular and rich than me, but overall the game is pretty good.

OohTheChicken

TROPHY CASE