The people are friendly and welcoming, and the scenery is amazing. As a tourist, I don't much mind paying a few bribes to policemen (who barely get paid a wage), and I can stand to keep my mouth shut about their president when I'm there (even though he's obviously a bastard). But it's painful to think what it must be like to live there and have nowhere else to go.

"and have nowhere else to go"

Seriously?

"Migrant laborers are Tajikistan’s top export. In 2019, the remittances they sent from Russia exceeded $2.6 billion – about triple the value of all other Tajik exports that year combined, and equivalent to approximately 28 percent of Tajikistan’s GDP." [0]

"According to figures provided by the Interior Ministry of the Russian Federation, more than 3 million Tajik citizens were officially registered in Russia last year. In 2021, 2,439,198 Tajik nationals reportedly stated “work” as their reason for entering Russia; that is about one-quarter of Tajikistan’s entire population." [1]

[0] https://eurasianet.org/tajik-labor-migration-to-russia-hits-...

[1] https://asiaplustj.info/en/news/tajikistan/society/20220214/...

And the people who are left are the ones who cannot leave.

This is a pretty common pattern: there's a portion of the population that is mobile and can freely move around, and the rest of the population is stuck in place for one reason or another. When Venezuela went through its instability a couple years ago, about 20-30% of the population left [0]. Syria had 30-40% leave [1]. Ukraine had about 15% leave the country, but more were displaced from the warzone as internal refugees.

So when you say that "about one-quarter of Tajikistan's entire population" went to Russia for work, that suggests that economic conditions are at the same general class as 2018 Venezuela or 2012 Syria, where everybody who easily can move has moved. The people that are left really do have nowhere else to go.

[0]: https://www.iom.int/venezuelan-refugee-and-migrant-crisis [1]: https://www.unrefugees.org/news/syria-refugee-crisis-explain...

Ones who stayed likely to have relatives who moved to work in Russia and are sending money back.

This does not make day-to-day life any less bleak, though. Now they still face the same issues, but on top of it they depend on others’ charity for their income. Surely there are cultural differences and family ties make the pill easier to swallow, but still.

I can assure you that money make day-to-day life less bleak.

>they depend on others’ charity

It's called family.

From the post:

> In 2014, Tajikistan was the most-remittance based economy on earth, amounting to almost half of its GDP. The countryside is dotted with half-finished concrete homes which I was told were the long-term retirement plans of Tajiks working abroad; they build their structures for a few months each year over many years or decades using trickles of funds earned from abroad. When the structures are finished, they prepare them to be their permanent homes once they retire from migrant work.

They aren't settling out of the country permanently and I doubt the quality of life as a migrant worker in Russia is spectacular.

They are.

"174,000 Tajiks became citizens of Russia in 2022, up from 104,000 the year before." [0]

That's 1.5% of Tajikistan's population in a single year. We are not building walls, you know.

[0] https://eurasianet.org/number-of-tajiks-seeking-to-get-russi...

Your link suggests this is largely to remove red tape while working in Russia. It does not answer how many are settling long-term. There is of course also this little complication:

> Anecdotal evidence suggests that recent recipients of that status have been prioritized for military mobilization as the Kremlin forges ahead with its offensives against Ukraine.

The link suggests the opposite.

"While Tajik expatriates have some scant freedom of movement and residency privileges in Russia as compared to peers from most of the world outside the former Soviet Union, they have limited access to accommodation and credit, making settling long-term a complicated proposition.

Migrant laborers also face recurrent costs like payment for their work permits.

Holding Russian citizenship makes many problems go away."

"Anecdotal evidence"

Exactly.

Alright, not anecdotal now -- 10 thousand has been mobilized.[0]

[0] https://ria.ru/20240627/bastrykin-1955779159.html

Some of the most beautiful mountain scenery I've ever seen and very hospitable people. A very nice place to visit. Not a very good place to live though unless you're so rich that you don't have to rely on the local infrastructure and services for survival and quality of life.

I find life to also be bad if you are the only rich person isolated in a bubble when 99% of the people are in extreme poverty. You just can't feel good, unless you don't care.

Also, sharp gradients inherently incentivize attempts to equalise. It is an unstable situation.

Also makes you a target, living life constantly watching your back and being careful about any stranger you meet.

There’s a reason most rich people stick to developed countries.

You'r definitely not be the only rich person there. There's thousands of rich corrupt people in their own bubble.

Being in Venezuela in the first years of Chavez was bizarre.

National university professor's family (so, upper middle class) living behind 3m concrete walls topped with broken glass and shuttling between there and similarly armored swim clubs.

It made me reflect on the difference between token security and actual security.

Being a walking dollar sign in a poor country is seriously dangerous!

Money matters, but so does muscle.

> Some of the most beautiful mountain scenery I've ever seen

based on the pics in the article, it seems pretty similar to Himalayan regions of Pakistan, India, Nepal. What was so special?

I think most people find the Himalayas pretty special

The vast majority of the world is amazing if you come with western money as a tourist, Cuba, Turkey, Kirghizistan, &c. you'll have a great time, most locals are great people but living there as an average citizen isn't that amazing in term of quality of life, access to necessities, infrastructure, ...

Nothing beats being rich in a poor country

Being filthy rich in a rich country, perhaps? :)

No because in a rich country you need to adhere to laws and regulations while in a poor country you can just pay bribes and do what you want

That still holds true in rich countries...

really just a function of how much money, and how you define "rich".

poor countries just shift that number lower. but if I had $100MM I'd rather be sorta-rich in Los Angeles than mega-rich in Bolivia

It really doesn't. Rich countries have base rules that all must follow. Justin Timberlake was just arrested for drunk driving. He might get off because he can afford the best lawyers, but he was arrested. That is a thing that happened. It would not have happened in somewhere like Tajikistan where a roadside bribe would nullify the entire situation. For the equivalent of a few hundred bucks they would have given him a ride home and nobody would be the wiser.

Just make sure to be a cop and then you'll be fine.

I had a sheriff's officer I knew tell me he'd been stopped five times for drunk driving and each time he'd just pulled out his badge and they'd waved him along.

I have a friend from Nigeria and he said you can avoid arrest with a $2 bribe. That shocked me.

In rich countries the things you want to do are already legal, or are in the rich country next door

but worse case for violent criminal things, there isn't a functional difference between a campaign donation to the district attorney in a wealthy nation or a couple bucks to a police officer in your face in a poor country

That really depends on what you want. A poor place may simply not have a “utility” that you might want to fully entertain due to inherently low standards. They may literally not know any better and nobody went there to fix that.