For Russian elite, Dubai becomes a wartime harbor
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES>> On an artificial island on the edge of the Persian Gulf, Dima Tutkov feels safe.
There are none of the anti-russian attitudes that he hears in Europe. He has noticed no potholes or homelessness, unlike what he saw in Los Angeles. And even as his ad agency turns big profits back in Russia, he does not have to worry about being drafted to fight in Ukraine.
“Dubai is much more free— in every way,” he said, sporting an intricately torn designer T-shirt at a cafe he just opened in the city, where his children are now in a British school. “We are independent of Russia,” he said. “This is very important.”
A year into a historic onslaught of economic sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s rich are still rich. And in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates’ biggest city, they have found their wartime harbor.
Among the city’s waterfront walkways, palatial shopping malls and suburban cul-de-sacs, Russian is becoming a lingua franca. Oligarchs mingle in exclusive resorts. Restaurateurs from Moscow and St. Petersburg race to open there. Entrepreneurs such as Tutkov are running their Russian businesses from Dubai and are opening up new ones.
Dubai’s new Russian diaspora spans a spectrum that includes multibillionaires who have been punished with sanctions and middle- class tech workers who fled President Vladimir Putin’s draft. But to some extent, they share the same reasons for being in the Emirates: It has maintained direct flights to Russia, staked out neutral ground on the war in Ukraine, and, they say, displays none of the hostility toward Russians that they perceive in Europe.
“Why do business somewhere that they’re not friendly to you?” said Tamara Bigaeva, who recently opened a two-story outpost of a Russian beauty clinic that is welcoming longtime clients. “In Europe, they clearly don’t want to see us.”
Indeed, a major draw of Dubai is that it is apolitical, according to interviews with Russians who have settled there. Unlike inwestern Europe, there are no Ukrainian flags displayed in public and no rallies of solidarity. The war itself feels far away. Anyone in Dubai harboring anti-russian sentiments would most likely keep themto themselves, anyway; protests in the Emirates’ authoritarian monarchy are effectively illegal, and freedom of assembly is severely limited.
The presence of wealthy Russians in Dubai at a time when they largely have been been cut off from the West shows how Putin has been able to maintain the social contract that is key to his domestic support: In exchange for loyalty, those close to power can amass enormous riches.
In fact, one political scientist, Ekaterina Schulmann, said Putin has been signaling to businessmen that he is prepared to remove still more obstacles to enrichment. A recent law, for example, frees lawmakers from having to make public their income and property.
“Yes, we’ve cut you off from the Firstworld, but things won’t get any worse for you,” Schulmann said, describing how she sees Putin’s revised contract with the elite. “First of all, there are many other countries that are friendly to us. Second, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to get even richer, and we will no longer prosecute you for corruption.”
Publicly, Putin has been calling on jet-setting Russian elites to refocus their lives and their investments inside Russia. But the rich who have relocated to Dubai have other ideas.
“For all of us, this is an island of safety for a certain period of time,” said Anatoly Kamenskikh, a Russian real estate salesman who brags that his team sold $300 million of property in Dubai last year — the vast majority to Russian citizens.
“Everyone is trying to park their assets somewhere.”
Kamenskikh’s real estate developer, Sobha Realty, celebrated Dubai’s Russian- driven real estate boom by setting up a miniature St. Basil’s Cathedral and artificial snow outside the sales office. A section of the artificial island called the Palm Jumeirah is lined with Russian restaurants and nightclubs, one of which was packed on a recent Wednesday night as guests ordered $1,200 bottles of Dom Perignon Champagne that dancing servers delivered with lighted sparklers.