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Comment by atemerev | Hacker News Reader

Am Russian, a software engineering consultant, currently living in Switzerland, do not plan to come back to Russia if I can help it, conditions there are rapidly deteriorating (more socially than economically), especially since 2014. Currently doing some work to reverse the damage that Russian government did to social media and information sharing in general.

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Do you have family who remain? If so, how do they view your life abroad?

I do. They are more or less apolitical and supportive; but I am very lucky that this is the case. I know many families who has been irreversibly split and their members do not talk to each other due to political conflicts.

Do many other Russians live abroad in Switzerland?

There are some. Not many, mostly CERN physicists, international organizations employees, software engineers in finance (that was my case), or just rich people who were attracted by flat tax packages.

What kinds of social deterioration have you observed?

What work, exactly?

A real time network analysis and "tainting" engine, allowing to map bot and sockpuppet account networks and trace the originators of disinformation, currently at the prototype stage (Twitter-only, only simple tracing and tainting propagator algorithms work).

How does it look from your perspective at Russian prospects post-Putin? He's not that old but he has to retire at some point right?

The consensus inside Russia is that Putin now already doesn't hold much of the real power (he used to be a final arbiter between the warring factions), and is kept around as the symbolic figure of authority. From what I see, somebody from the same faction (state security apparatus) will replace Putin, and everything will be more or less the same. Or not -- it is Russia, we are famous for being unpredictable.

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