Professor got the police at the door

While at work at the University of Moscow, Ilya V. Schurov, 37, received an unusual phone call from her father. The police had knocked on the door and asked for him.

Two days earlier, the Russian professor of mathematics had taken part in protests against the war in Ukraine. He had also written several Facebook posts in which he criticized what was happening in the neighboring country, and where he discussed demonstrations that were to take place.

And although it was far from the first time the mathematician demonstrated against the authorities, something was different this time.

By this time, the Russian government had begun drafting a law that would soon make it forbidden to comment critically on the war.

– I understood why they came after me, but I did not know what they wanted to do, Schurov tells Dagbladet by phone.

– I feared that they would arrest me until the new law was approved, so that they could later accuse me of breaking the law and punish me with several years in prison.

– Almost no tickets left

He realized he had to act fast, turned off his cell phone and hid with a friend.

March 3, the eighth day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, began a feverish search for airline tickets out of the country.

– It was another night where many try to get away. There were almost no tickets left, he says.

The next day, the 37-year-old and his wife sat on the only plane they could fit on. They still do not know when they will see neither the family nor the fatherland again, but Schurov is still clear on one thing:

– I no longer feel safe in Russia, and have no plans to return, unless there is a regime change.

Tapped for knowledge

When Dagbladet talks to Schurov, he has moved on from Tajikistan, which was the first stop on the run from Russia.

He is now in a European country, which he does not want in print for security reasons.

The 37-year-old is one of many young, highly educated people who have fled Putin’s regime over the past two weeks.

Several researchers have predicted that Russia is facing a massive brain drain situation, where highly educated people are flowing out of the country.

The consequence is that sharp heads disappear, while those who remain are those who have no choice. It is the latter group that must drive the country forward.

– When you lose the sharp heads, the countries they travel get to an advantage with technological development and innovation. Their home country gets the opposite problem, with less ingenuity and poorer knowledge in the public sector, says Professor Lothar Fritsch at the Department of Informatics at OsloMet.

Increasing control

On March 4, the day after Schurov left the country, his fears came true. Then it became clear that Russia approved a bill which can give up to several years in prison to those who spread “false news” about the war.

The country also has plans to tighten the grip on the internet furtherand thus take a step closer to digital isolation, as Dagbladet recently mentioned.

In the last couple of weeks alone, Professor Fritsch has noticed that there has been great movement in the digital bohemian world in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

He believes one of the reasons why many in this industry are fleeing the country is that the increasing internet control will get in the way of the way they work. For example, programming jobs for Western companies.

– They have started moving to countries that are either Russian-speaking or allow Russian passports, such as Kazakhstan and Armenia, he says.

– A step back

The professor of mathematics from Moscow is sorry that he had to leave his home country, but emphasizes that he still keeps in touch with his students.

– If I had stayed, I would have been imprisoned, and then I could not have helped anyone, he says.

Schurov says that he has many colleagues who have also fled the country, or who plan to do so.

The 37-year-old believes there is a growing trend among those with higher education, who can easily get jobs elsewhere in the world.

– Russia is on its way to being isolated. The economy is weaker than in a long time, and Russian wages are not competitive. They have taken a step back to the past, he says and continues:

– I also can not imagine that a good professor would consider coming to Russia now.

He believes that what is happening in Ukraine now, in time, will be an equal disaster for Russia.

– I think of those who in a few years will be educated. I do not know if there will be any universities or professors left in a few years, he says and adds:

– The young people are not to blame for this, but they will still bear the consequences. All I can say is that I’m very worried.

Lawless

Schurov does not describe himself as an activist or one who is politically active. He says he is a citizen who is concerned with very basic, human values ​​and democratic principles.

In 2014, he and his current wife met when they both worked as election observers in Ukraine. Three years later they married.

– I think that if you had asked any Russian if it was possible for us to start a war with Ukraine, they would have said that it is impossible. No one believed it. It was a shock, says the 37-year-old.

Before the invasion began, he was not afraid to demonstrate or speak out. In 2011, one year after he was hired by the prestigious University Higher School of Economics, he participated for the first time in protests against electoral fraud.