Useful information regarding emigrating to Russia, as sent by a reader:

 

 

Today, Vladimir Putin signed a decree that has future immigrants jumping for joy: http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/0001202408190001
I am very, very positively surprised by that; I wasn't expecting such at all, anymore.

Roughly summarized, it takes away the two of the three biggest stumbling blocks:
- No quota needed (the existing quotas were reduced this year, in my Yaroslavl Oblast (with pop. 1.2M) there are 50 quota slots for all of 2024. (And an immigrant family with 6 kids would take 8 of those already!)
- No language test needed for the temporary residence permit. That is finally sensible, as one cannot at will rush learning Russian and it will take 2 years minimum if you don't make it your one and only task every whole day, and now you have 3 years (=the duration of the temporary residence permit) in which you have to learn Russian well, as the language test for the permanent residency application remains. (Plus a temporary residence permit cannot be extended.)

There now only remains the third big stumbling block:
- One needs to register at a permanent living place, which means a rented (or bought) apartment or house, so not a hotel. That sounds easy, until one realizes that most Russian landlords don't want to rent to foreigners but not because they dislike them, but because they don't want the additional paperwork which includes the landlord needing to go in person to an office for doing the registration (of the foreigner). And that needs to be re-done every time something on the visa/residency of that foreigner has changed - big fun, really.