
Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn - warpech
https://www.bloombergquint.com/businessweek/belarus-protests-tech-workers-flee-as-country-takes-authoritarian-turn
======
jakozaur
Emigrating from Belarus to Poland is easy. Even if one of your grandparents
has Polish origins you can get easily equivalent of USA green card. Polish
governament is working on new law to make it even easier and available more
broadly. Given Poland borders before World War II were covering huge part of
today Belarus a lot of people can take of the advantage.

Regular work permit for IT proffesional is also rubber stamp. Nothing compared
to cruel H1B.

I guess same as after Ukraine revolution, a lot of Belarusians will end up in
Poland.

~~~
dominotw
>Even if one of your grandparents has Polish origins you can get easily
equivalent of USA green card.

>Nothing compared to cruel H1B.

H1B doesn't need your grandparents to be from USA.

~~~
jdminhbg
You're quoting two different things. The first is a green card equivalent, the
second is a work permit.

~~~
dominotw
you are right. i misread the comment.

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ozim
“There’s no borders at all for IT engineers. They can find a job anywhere.”

Uhm yeah, but they also have parents, siblings, girlfriends. Probably they
might have some properties bought already. So as it may seem really
advantageous to be in IT, one might not be able to move to another country
just like that...

~~~
nomadrat
And it's naive to say that there's no borders. You have to be qualified for
the visa requirements. You also have to renew this visa every year or so. You
have to start all over. Of course everything is possible with some effort and
money, but i'm tired of seeing this term "no borders for it engineers".

~~~
akira2501
Yea, whoever wrote that never heard of a "language barrier." IT is not some
universal language.

~~~
sam_lowry_
Language is not that much of a problem.

They all speak Russian. Lithuania has a sizable minority of Russian speakers,
and has historical ties to Belarus. Latvia is predominantly Russian-speaking.
Ukraine as well.

Knowing Belarusian, they can pick up Polish rather quickly.

As a last resort, Russia is still freer than Belarus politically and better
off economically. Smolensk is half an hour drive from the Belarusian border.

~~~
markvdb
> Latvia is predominantly Russian-speaking.

This seems to imply the majority of residents of Latvia speak Russian
natively. That might have been correct had the USSR existed a bit longer, but
history took a different turn.

"Most Latvian businesses, especially in the Riga area, will happily serve you
in Russian." That would be a more neutral and correct statement appropriate
for this context.

Also relevant would be how Latvian government is publicly angling for
Belarussian businesses willing to relocate to Latvia [1].

Regarding native tongues in Latvia... Currently, over 30% of Latvian residents
speak Russian, Belarussian or Ukrainian natively, versus 62.3% Latvian. In
Riga, the number of Russian, Belorussian or Ukrainian native speakers rises to
over 43% [0] versus 47.1% Latvian.

[0]
[http://data.csb.gov.lv/pxweb/en/iedz/iedz__iedzrakst/IRG080....](http://data.csb.gov.lv/pxweb/en/iedz/iedz__iedzrakst/IRG080.px/)

[1] [https://eng.lsm.lv/article/economy/business/belarusian-
busin...](https://eng.lsm.lv/article/economy/business/belarusian-businesses-
offered-fast-track-relocation-to-latvia.a372143/)

~~~
sam_lowry_
Having being in Latvia a few times and knowing the historical context... I
distrust Latvian language statistics.

Still, even those statistics admit that Riga is mostly Russian-speaking [1].
This is where the IT crowd would land, anyway.

[1] [https://www.csb.gov.lv/en/statistics/statistics-by-
theme/pop...](https://www.csb.gov.lv/en/statistics/statistics-by-
theme/population/census/search-in-theme/1442-home-latvian-spoken-62-latvian-
population)

~~~
usego
As the resident of Riga have to add that it depends on age. Young native
Latvian people tend to avoid learning russian (but actually they have to while
living in Riga). Also there is a constant goverment level pressure to ignore
russian as a vital part of latvian life so you will always feel that you are
not welcome in many places like the oficial institutions. But actually you
could live for years there not speaking any latvian word :) Also it is worth
to mention that english is starting to be more and more important (even more
important than latvian) in daily life for IT people as foreign people in teams
are much more usual now even than 5 years ago.

------
evv555
>Despite the authoritarian rule of Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s tech
companies have prospered.

The common argument I hear is they prospered because of authoritarian rule.
Belarus never had to deal with oligarchs created by a power vacuum like in
Ukraine or other EE countries. As a result a large portion of outsourcing
labor for other EE countries is technically done through Belarussian
companies(EPAM).

~~~
sam_lowry_
If you go to Belarus, you would rather hear that IT prospered because
Lukashenka could not figure out how to extract money from it easily.

There were a few attempts at hostile takeovers of IT companies by state
actors, but the state could seize only used equipment. Staff moved on, clients
fled.

So, at some point, the state just decided to let IT free at the effective tax
rate of 9% (against 52% for the rest of the country).

~~~
SomeoneFromCA
Living in Central Asia, I'd say, although Lukashenko was/is a corrupt leader,
amount of corruption in educational system was relatively low compared to
those in -stans of the former USSR, or even Russia. This a necessary
prerequisite for high tech companies to appear and grow.

~~~
evv555
I think it's a qualitative difference. Belarus has corruption but it's
consolidated to the top even if there's more of it. Compare with Ukraine where
IT business will be killed off before it gets off the ground because every
small time bureaucrat wants their pound of flesh. As a result a significant
portion of Ukrainian talent goes through companies that are/were Belarussian
even though Ukraine has the center of gravity in terms of talent
concentration.

------
robinduckett
I used to contract for a firm which made heavy use of Belarusian software dev
teams, hopefully all is cool with the guys I used to work with :S

~~~
ashtonkem
Same.

It also seems like Belarus is killing the goose that laid the golden egg here,
not that that’s surprising behavior from an authoritarian regime fighting for
its life.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> It also seems like Belarus is killing the goose that laid the golden egg
> here

If some kind of deeper integration with Russia is on the horizon, as many have
expected for years, then this might hardly matter. The overall Russian economy
is so based on the export of natural resources, that the ruling stratum is
hardly worried about other industries like the IT sector. All those Russians
except for the ~10 million needed to run and support the oil and gas sector,
have sometimes been described as "superfluous population" by commentators.
Obviously this situation sucks for the ordinary citizen, but what can you do?

~~~
ashtonkem
The Russian economy is both super small (last time I looked it was smaller
than Italy), and not terribly diversified. I’d be a bit worried about it I
lived there.

~~~
brnt
The trick the various Russian governments pull is to make sure the general
populous is too busy surviving to be able to worry about let alone mount an
offensive against the regime.

------
Pick-A-Hill2019
For those that hit a paywall/ no-script block, here are some alternative links
to what I presume to be pretty much the same article

[https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-belarus-election-tech-
idUK...](https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-belarus-election-tech-
idUKKBN25M1MO)

[https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/europe/belarus-
it-w...](https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/europe/belarus-it-workers-
move-abroad-as-lukashenkos-forces-crackdown-on-mas.html)

[https://icotalknews.com/business/tech-workers-flee-
belarus-a...](https://icotalknews.com/business/tech-workers-flee-belarus-as-
it-haven-takes-authoritarian-turn/)

P.P.S This was one of things I used to use the now defunct 'Web' button for
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23762479](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23762479)

~~~
ShorsHammer
most news articles can be traced beck to Reuters verbatim, it's strange how
few people go to the actual source and seek out a rose-tinted alternative

------
vikramkr
It was already authorization- its the "last dictatorship in europe" \- what
did they think it was before?

~~~
dragonwriter
> its the "last dictatorship in europe"

Well, I mean, if you ignore the country that takes up 39% (maybe a little more
_de facto_ after recent unilateral border alterations) of Europe, sure.

~~~
fabatka
In the quote I think Europe is meant in the cultural sense, and I guess you
are talking about Europe in the geographical sense.

~~~
dragonwriter
Belarus is no more (or less) culturally in Europe than Russia or any of the
other cultures descending from historical Rus.

------
rbanffy
There's a Spanish proverb, “Cria cuervos y te sacarán los ojos”, “Raise crows
and they will poke your eyes out.”

How many entrepreneurs and companies fell for the "law and order" discourse
every authoritarian uses to gain power?

------
ibobev
It is a very smart turn of the Polish side to support the political crysis is
Belarus. When the country is turned into chaos it will be beneficial for the
Polish economy when many Belarussian workers go to Poland.

"IT haven takes authoritarian turn". Really? Isn't the so called IT haven
exists under the exactly same government? What changed?

What changed is the situation of foreign instigated chaos intended to weaken a
key Russian ally with the additional benefit that when many Belarussian
workers leave the country they will serv someone's else economy. The
competition of Belarussian IT industry will also be eliminated.

------
Nginx487
Fleeing from Belarus to Russia, from one lifetime president and authoritarian
regime to another is a strange choice.

------
person_of_color
One of my favourite cameras, the Agat 18k, is Belarussian. These guys are
smart!

------
WarOnPrivacy
I have a theory that when news orgs nurture soft authoritarians (Bush/Patriot
Act, Obama/espionage charges for whistleblowers) their weakened journalistic
instincts leave a vacuum that's easy for harder line authoritarians to fill.

That's what I believed happened in the US. I wonder if a similar process
happened in Belarus.

~~~
jwilber
Curious why the onus is on journalists and not complacent political parties or
branches/members of government.

Sure, newsrooms can sway public opinion, but they’re also basically the only
reason we know about those problems to begin with. Blaming them seems akin to
treating a symptom, not the cause.

Not trying to disagree. I do think journalists today are partially responsible
for our current situation - especially White House correspondents, whom are
wholly ineffective at challenging any statements from the president or calling
out outright lies.

~~~
spamizbad
Also thinking journalists are at the root of society's ills is probably a sign
you're buying into authoritarian propaganda.

~~~
WarOnPrivacy
Authoritarian propaganda alleges that journalists are fabricating news.

I'm not alleging fraud but neglect and passive collusion. That is, journalists
are allowing certain US Gov misdeeds to go largely unreported while amplifying
US Gov voices w/o ever vetting if official claims are true.

~~~
spamizbad
A lot of misdeeds are documented but nobody is really outraged by them.
There's certainly lots of bad stuff happening that doesn't have a legion of
takery behind it to drive a certain narrative but... the reporting is there.

------
mrslave
There is at least a degree of cowardice in those who leave their home country
when things get difficult.

~~~
postingawayonhn
I think everyone has the right to make the best possible life for themselves.
Life is short and if I was in that situation I'd rather not waste it living
under a dictator.

------
samunism
This is a harbinger for the western world too. Can any of us in the tech
industry claim that silicon valley "authoritarianism" is not an issue?

Working in tech now is fraught with peril, especially if one says anything
outside of the overton window. I wouldn't be surprised if this starts
happening in America as well in a few years.

~~~
pas
The issue is that currently public discourse happens on semi-public spaces.
(Eg. Facebook, reddit, YouTube.) All slightly different mediums, different
rules, different communities (and meta-communities, and other aggregates and
hierarchies and moderation/reporting systems).

And the owners of these places want to extract profit from these places, they
on one hand like the money, but they reasonably must police their places.
Virtually millions of people can shout at the same time at the same place.
Bullying, doxxing, harassment, SWATing, spam, scam, porn, gore, really fucked
up ideologies, racism/xenophobia, and whatnot are cropping up.

And it's clear that people are not really interested in going back to the
typewriter and mailing letters to various publications.

This large scale "politicing" is likely truly unprecedented. Bored and angry
people can comment, like, upvote, downvote whatever anyone
wrote/posted/created/asked.

> Working in tech now is fraught with peril, especially if one says anything
> outside of the overton window.

That's "fake news" \- because the base rate is low, even if there are clear
examples of it. (Eg Google firing Damore who pointed out that Google's
diversity group/effort is very inefficient because it's unscientific, so
inadvertently exposed it as a simple PR effort.)

------
YarickR2
They felt fine with Lukashenko for the last four years, they'll be fine with
Lukashenko for the next four years. Actually, I don't think Daddy will hold up
for the whole term, Russia will play smart and integrate Belarus , one way or
another. Not as part of Russia, but I'd expect closer ties in finances and
planning; and, possibly, heavy industry

