Watch the video accompanying this article over on YouTube. When we came here we thought we were going to have to search for a long time before finding that one place in Russia where you can have total peace and quiet... ha... think again. Drive 20 minutes outside of every city and there is nothing but peace and quiet! So, that gives us a new challenge: how will we select places we want to actually visit? Since there is always a limiting budget and in our case also a time deadline. In this post I will share the tools and sources we used to get information about where in Russia we want to start our homestead.

Click here to visit the site. This is essentially the Russian Google Maps. On here you can explore all the different regions of Russia, using both satellite and the panorama function. This gives you a good idea of the kind of land, the kind of buildings, how densely populated an area is, etc. There is also a street view mode like in Google Maps that can be used to walk through cities and see what the actual streets look like.

Satellite view will give you something like this:

And panorama view will give you little airballoons that you can switch between to see a more in-depth views:

Of course there are many different things to research depending on what your interest is. But things that were relevant for us was for instance the average salary per region (oblast) or the amount of pesticides sprayed per region. Keep in mind that when searching for information, it is often helpful to search in Russian, since many sources are only published in Russian. This can be hard at the beginning, but simply use a translator to create your search prompts and then download a translator extension on your browser. That way you can translate any page from Russian to another language. Here are the sources we found:

The top 10 pesticide using areas in Russia (RU)

The average salary per area in Russia (RU)

General information about salary in Russia (ENG)

Cost of living in Russia (ENG)

This one has been the most meaningful to us, as the climate is a very important factor to take into account when keeping cows and other animals. At first we thought, the more northern the colder. And that rule is somewhat true, but not entirely. Take for instance the Ural Mountains, a big part is relatively to the south, but there are still harsh cold winters. That is why we use the site Time And Date. There you can search for any city and it will give you the climate info of the closest weather station. Beneath is the climate data of a village near Yaroslavl, to give an example. And another great site is Weatherspark, there you can easily compare the climate of different areas. If you click here, you can see the comparison we made between different areas in Russia and Amsterdam. It helps to compare it to the weather of an area you are already familiar with.

Real estate sites help you to answer two questions: 'which house can I get for how much money?' and 'how many options are available?'. Do keep in mind that in many Russian villages many houses or plots are for sale that will never be listed on such a site. Many of them are sold simply by word of mouth, or people might own several 100's of hectares and think about selling a part when an interesting offer comes along. But to buy apartments or houses in the cities, real estate sites are the way to go:

Avito.ru - Sort of like a marketplace that also sells many homes

Циан (Cian) - Only focused on real estate

Этажи (Etagi) - A national real estate office that publishes their listings

It can be hard to accomplish, but once you meet someone that lives in the area of your interest, it can be a very valuable source of new insights! The best way to meet people is to visit and simply sit in a café and talk to anyone who is interested in hearing your story and what you are looking for. But, we cannot always easily travel to each region we are interested in, so how to meet people online? In comes social media. There are many groups of people that are interested in emigrating to Russia or are already living in Russia. I will give you the groups I joined:

Expats in Russia Facebook Group - with about 40.000 members this is a huge group of people that are very active and quickly respond to any questions you might have.

Russia Expat Info Telegram Chat - a big Telegram chat divided into different categories for different topics. They also share a lot of relevant legal information for foreigners and new legislation.

After all online research is done, visiting the area is by far the most valuable experience. And by far the most fun part! To feel the atmosphere, what the people are like and what the streets look like. There are also people that help you organize trips to Russia, someone that we have good experience with is Rusmania, he can make tailor-made tours and help with booking, etc.

I hope this helped you in exploring Russia yourself or understanding what our process like. Thank you for being here and if my insights were useful, consider giving me a one-time donation by donating me a glass of milk or by becoming a member! Thank you and пока пока 👋