Many of the newcomers to Montenegro are experts in information technology, and there are also many mechanical and electronic engineers and not a small number of doctors. Only from February 1 to June 9 last year, according to official data, Russians founded 1,100 companies, mostly from the IT sector. Monitor spoke with the owners and directors of a few more IT companies that re-registered in Montenegro
Even before the Russian aggression against Ukraine, Montenegro was an attractive place for Russian capital and investments. According to the official data of the Central Bank of Montenegro, Russia has been the first country in terms of direct foreign investments for more than 15 years, especially after Montenegro became an internationally independent country, thanks in large part to the great support of the Kremlin to the previous government. Apart from Russian oligarchs and heads of security services, a large number of ordinary Russian citizens have bought real estate and founded companies. After the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine last February, Montenegro recorded thousands of new arrivals from Russia. Only in September, when the mass partial mobilization of 300 thousand reservists began on the order of President Vladimir Putin, 11 thousand entries from Russia were recorded. Investments from Russia, despite the war in the first quarter of last year, increased by a third compared to the previous year in 2021, and were again first, with 41.6 million direct investments. Of that, 20 million went to buy real estate, with roughly the same amount of money paid for apartments, houses and land from the accounts of Russian citizens in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. The influx of money was accompanied by a significant jump in real estate prices in the capital and on the coast. So far, Russians have become the owners of almost 19 thousand properties in the country. Along with Serbia, Montenegro remains the only destination in Europe where Russian citizens can travel without a visa.
The non-governmental Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEK) announced that as many as 70,000 computer experts left Russia in the first weeks of the war. Many of the newcomers to Montenegro are experts in information technology or the so-called IT, and there are also many mechanical and electronic engineers and not a small number of doctors. Only from February 1 to June 9 last year, according to official data, Russians founded 1,100 companies, mostly from the IT sector. It deals with jobs that are software in nature and that can mostly be done from home in any geographical location around the world. Of those companies, as many as 229 deal with computer programming, 81 companies deal with data processing and providing service services for various applications, and 63 companies deal with IT consulting.
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