A Land of Jobs in Booming Construction and Manufacturing

So you are tired of constant layoffs, uncertainty, and the dead-end jobs on offer in a late stage empire? You see the writing on the wall and know that your chances of reaching retirement, let alone enjoying it, are somewhere between winning the lottery and nil? You're worried that you won't be able to provide for your family and, if you're entering middle age, ever own a home to raise your children in? Fear not…there is Russia, which has opened its doors as a new Ark preserving European civilization for the 21st century.

Photo credit above: A Russian construction worker on a job site in winter

Uploaded to Adobe by ads861 AdobeStock photo ID: 240503590

How Will You Make a Living After Moving to Russia? a previous article we published here at the ESW Patreon on January 6, 2025 , discussed some of the opportunities and salary differences between major destinations for Western immigration to Russia. Those destinations include the Russian capital where the authorities have sponsored a non-profit, Startin.Moscow, which lists career opportunities in English and other European languages. About 450 kilometers (278 miles) east of Moscow which is absorbing the most Western immigrants is Nizhny Novgorod, Russia's sixth-largest city. In Nizhny, the municipal administration and regional governor's office are actively promoting Western immigration through the non-profit Oka Agency. For Western immigrants coming to this country with money and ambitions to set up a business that will create multiple construction or skilled trades jobs for Russians, ESW's Russian migration attorney Timur Beslangurov has excellent contacts in the Nizhny Novgorod Governor's office.

See also the following articles:

Meet Timur Beslangurov, the Leading Legal Expert for Westerners Migrating to Russia

Russia's New Shared Values Visa Application is Here in JPG Format

Basic Cost Calculator for Foreigners Retiring in Russia

Buying a Small Business in Russia: Novosibirsk Restaurant Case Study

The Welcome-to-Russia.com website also lists resources by region, including Vladimir Oblast (home to the Golden Ring city of Vladimir as well as the master planned community of Dobrograd) located between Moscow and Nizhny Oblasts, as well as Ivanovo Oblast to the northeast of Moscow, as well as Omsk Oblast in southern Siberia, near the border with Kazahkstan. We will further enrich this topic now.

First, let's begin with the fact that Russia's Special Military Operation (SMO) has created incredible opportunities for professionals in construction, be they white-collar architects and civil or building engineers, or blue-collar builders, brick masons, electricians, plumbers, roofers and other skilled tradesmen. In the Donbass, whole towns and cities have been destroyed due to heavy attritional fighting involving both sides artillery and Russian aerial bombs. These areas will need either major restoration or reconstruction from the ground up.

In much of the Donbass, the distant and spiteful Kiev rulers neglected maintenance of Soviet-inherited infrastructure for decades, so the roadways, water/sewer lines will also need to be built from scratch. Even towns and villages that have fallen to advancing Russian forces with little to no damage are badly in need of major repairs and new construction projects, as each successive Ukrainian klepto-administration left the 1970s or 80s vintage Soviet apartment blocs and streets to rot.

Amongst the bigger construction projects already in the works not directly related to housing are:

1. An amputee center in the Donetsk People's Republic to aid and rehabilitate the war wounded. This will also be a manufacturing facility for state-of-the-art prosthetics. Many of the soldiers being treated will be Donbass natives who have born the brunt of the heavy fighting for the region.

2. A new college for 1000+ students in Melitopol, located near where the Molochna Lyman estuary meets the Black Sea in Zaporizhia Oblast.

3. A factory for the construction of tractors and construction equipment in the DPR (referred to as the DNR in Russian).

4. Youth centers in almost all towns and villages must be rebuilt, since gymnasiums were a favorite place for Ukrainian Army (VSU) units to store ammunition.

5. Schools in almost all towns and villages must be rebuilt, as the VSU also liked to use schools to bivouac troops and store ammo.

6. Over 300 churches need to be restored after being destroyed by Kiev's forces, many of whom have been indoctrinated to hate the 'enemy' Moscow Patriarchate, which remains under persecution the historic and canonical Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

7. A new stadium in Donetsk to replace the one destroyed during the late 2014 fighting, months after the Russian Spring uprising across the southeastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian government relocated the Shahktar (Miner) Donetsk FC soccer club to Kiev and Lviv, hundreds of miles to the west.

8. Rebuilding the Donetsk Sergey Prokofiev International Airport, reduced to rubble during the 2014-15 fighting a decade ago between pro-Russian Donbass militia and Kiev's so-called 'Cyborgs'.

This is just a very short list of the projects that can allow any industrious Westerner to make a decades-long career for himself, a future for his family, and a difference in the lives of millions currently suffering from a war-torn landscape. If you're wondering about the quality of reconstruction and the reactions of local residents who used to have Ukrainian passports, take a look at J6 refugee journalist Charles Bausman's Substack posts about Mariupol.

Demolitions experts, sappers and others are needed by the tens of thousands to clear the millions of mines that the VSU dropped everywhere, many of them sophisticated motion-sensing 'pop up' NATO models with a high number of plastic components, designed to evade mine detectors. Electrical engineers, experts in water treatment/purification and ecologists will be needed to fix the damaged and war torn areas. And of course, there will also be a need for Orthodox priests to serve the spiritual needs of these rebuilding communities, a calling many American and Canadian Orthodox priests in training eager to raise their families in Russia ought to consider.

Now for some numbers from Avito Rabota (work). What we the report has shown is just how much pay has increased in certain professions in various regions. Some prime examples are: Ship’s captain in Sochi, average salary is 250,000₽, a 27% increase from 2023. That's a very good salary even considering the more expensive housing in this resort city and Black Sea port. Sochi is a subtropical destination, with hot humid summers and winters that never see snow, unless one drives into the surrounding mountains.

In Nizhnikominsk, an expert automobile painter can earn up to 200,000₽, while in Kirovsk, an electrician’s work earns 220,000₽ or $2200, which would allow for a very middle-class life style, especially when one considers that the Russian income tax is a flat 13% and major medical is covered by state-issued medical insurance, see my recent article on medical expenses and health insurance in Russia.

Even less-skilled carpentry jobs such as kitchen cabinets mounters will earn a salary between 150,000-250,000₽ in Siberia’s largest city of Novosibirsk. A nanny’s job, which often includes room and board for women in Vladivostok can easily fetch 150,000₽ a month. Since many Russians do not want to move to Siberia or the Far East, these positions offer excellent opportunities for foreigners open to making a fresh start in the Asian vastness of Russia. A recent study showed that only 10% of Russians were ready to relocate to Siberia and 8% to Vladivostok or other Pacific Coast cities of the Russian Far East, where fluency in Korean or Mandarin Chinese would be an advantage. Expertise in crypto mining equipment set up would also be an advantage in hydropower-rich Siberia.

According to recently released data, the Russian provinces with the fastest growth in salaries were as follows:

Voronezhskaya Oblast (about 400km south of Moscow, in Russia's Black Earth farm belt): 27%

Lipetskaya Oblast (about 400km southeast of Moscow in Russia's Black Earth farm belt): 27%

Bryanskaya Oblast (on the eastern Belarus border): 25%

Tulaskaya Oblast (directly south of Moscow, about 200km, home to many small arms manufacturing concerns): 25%

Vologdaskaya Oblast (a heavily forested oblast northeast of Moscow, with strong paper, furniture and artisanal woodworking industries): 23%

Leningradskaya Oblast (home of St. Petersburg but not including the former capital of Imperial Russia in the averages): 23%

Tverskaya Oblast (directly northwest of Moscow, with very low housing costs considering the high speed rail line or two hour electrishka commute to Moscow, some 150km): 23%

What else can be said? Are average incomes rising this fast in your home nations? No? Are living standards increasing? No? Than what are you waiting for? You have skills, we have jobs and an enormous Christian conservative nation. Lazy snowflakes need not apply!