“Four, three, two, one.” Visitors count down, telephones are held up on the left and right and films are made. In the Russian pavilion of the World Exhibition in Dubai, everyone marvels at an enormous brain that slides open and closed, a technical masterpiece. The music is not inferior to that of an action film.
‘Very spectacular’, nods Daria (34) from Belarus. “And yet I don’t feel anything about it.” She has been walking around the busy Expo2020 with her husband and daughter for days, where 192 countries present themselves to the world. Daria (“no last name, my government is reading along”) took pictures everywhere except here at the Russian pavilion. “I want to show that I don’t support this.” Other visitors have less trouble with it and pose in the gift shop in polo shirts and caps with the imprint Team Putin. The booklet accompanying the exhibition, published before the invasion, reads like an ominous warning: ‘Russian creativity knows no bounds.’
The attraction that Dubai currently exerts on everyone with a Russian passport is almost limitless. Since the invasion of Ukraine, many Russians have been trying to place their millions of assets in the tax haven that is part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Roman Abramovich
It mainly concerns magnates and oligarchs whose wealth in the West was in danger of being frozen. In recent weeks, the social media account FlightRadar24 showed how several Russian private planes flew to Dubai. A striking example is multibillionaire Roman Abramovich, former owner of Chelsea football club and close confidant of President Putin. He was spotted near the very expensive, palm-shaped peninsula (Palm Jumeirah), possibly because he wants to buy a villa there.
The Russian presence is not new, by the way: according to The New York Times At the start of the war, 76 villas were already in the name of Putin loyalists, including the owner of a state oil company and a number of prominent members of parliament.
The fact that the red carpet is now being rolled out is exemplary of the shifting relations in the Middle East. Where the government led by the 61-year-old Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan used to lean on Washington (and fought on the American side in Afghanistan, for example), people now no longer bet on one horse. Neutrality is the new motto.
In the UN Security Council, where they have a temporary seat, the Emirates refused to condemn Putin’s invasion; they abstained. With the same ease, Bin Zayed recently received Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, reviled in the West as a war criminal, celebrated as an ally in Russia. It was Assad’s first state visit to an Arab country since the start of the Syrian civil war. In a recent article, Emirati political scientist Abdulkhaleq Abdulla writes that the Emirates and the US are experiencing the worst crisis in their bilateral relations in 50 years.
It is estimated that about 40 thousand Russians live in Dubai out of a population of 3.3 million. In the metro, the hotel lobbies, under the umbrellas on the luxurious beaches, you can hear Russian in addition to Japanese, Punjabi and Bengali. It is not always about businessmen; some are on vacation, others have fled the approaching war. What they have in common is that none of them want their last name in the newspaper. Too dangerous. Afraid of reprisals if their identities are revealed.
‘I feel freer here than in Western Europe’
So is the Belarusian Daria and her family. After the war broke out, she said: I don’t feel safe here in Minsk. A day later they were on the plane, one way Persian Gulf. They chose Dubai because they could get a free 90-day tourist visa. Her husband Aleksej (36) works remotely for a marketing company and is delighted with his new hometown. ‘I feel freer here than in Western Europe. Buying a house also seems to be easy, without too much paperwork.’
And indeed: few places in the world are so emphatic open for business† Everything in Dubai is for sale. Anyone who invests 20 thousand euros (or starts a company with that starting capital) is already entitled to a residence permit. If you buy a house worth 1.2 million or more, it becomes a ‘golden visa’ for five years.
At the real estate agency Espace Real Estate, located in one of the skyscrapers by the water, the telephone rings incessantly. ‘It has been going fast since Abramovich’s lightning visit,’ says British real estate agent Danny Abraham (36). He knows a colleague who sold his own home to a Russian family for 1.4 million euros, 10 percent above the asking price. ‘They wanted to move in right away, without renovations or other hassles.’
Pay via a detour
And the origin of the money? Abraham nods, something has been found. Since March last year, the Emirates have had checks carried out when purchasing real estate. “A lot of money was always laundered here, but now Dubai is trying to clean up.” On his phone, he shows a two-page form on which customers have to fill in where their money comes from. His accountant then checks whether the buyer is on international terror or sanction lists. This does not concern the recent European or American sanctions, but only those at the level of the International Monetary Fund and the UN. Whether it will stay that way remains to be seen: the Financial Action Task Force, an independent watchdog, placed the Emirates on the ‘grey list’ last month because the government was not doing enough against money laundering.
With regular wire transfers no longer working due to the lockdown of the international Swift payment system, wealthy Russians often use a detour. They pay with cryptocurrencies, cash, gold, or through a series of brokerages. Brokers report an explosive increase in demand. Lucas (‘no last name’), a 29-year-old Frenchman working in the art sector, says that his rental home was recently taken over unannounced by the real estate agency Datsja, founded by a Russian. He does not know whether he can continue to live there.
If you ask ordinary Emirati citizens about the influx, there will immediately be confusion of tongues. In the tightly run state there is really only one opinion available, and that is that of the government. After some insistence, an Arab businessman wants to state on condition of anonymity that the war is a European problem. ‘We’re out there. That is a matter between Putin and NATO.’
Attempts to take a look at the ‘Palm’ (asking price for a house: 5 to 6 million euros) are unsuccessful. In front of each street is a barrier with a booth and a friendly guard from Kenya or Uganda. Heads are shaken. “This is private property.”
‘My husband now says: stay there, but I don’t know’
Further in town, 55-year-old Olga can be found every day in the same spot on the same beach. When she flew to Dubai in January, she thought she was just going on vacation. Now she doesn’t dare to go back. ‘The prices in Moscow! Priceless. My husband now says stay there, but I don’t know. What do you think, what should I do?’
She lights a cigarette, an Orthodox cross dangling from her neck. “In 2019, a year before my mother died, she said: Olga honey, war is coming, I can feel it. Now she’s right. Look, my hands are shaking. I pray every morning that the fighting stops. Only God can save us.’
Travelers like Olga do not have the luxury of a multi-million dollar bill. They are mostly confused and insecure. The same goes for Sergei and Aleks, twenty-somethings too afraid to give their real first names. In Moscow they worked for a law firm. After the war broke out, it was rumored that Putin would declare martial law. All the young men would be called to the front.
Sergei and Aleks did not want to fight and took the first plane to Dubai, where they continue their work for the time being. ‘At least here they put their petrodollars in good infrastructure! Russia can learn something from that.’
Or take Djamila (not her real name), born in Siberia but in the Emirates for ten years. She converted to Islam and took a Muslim name after marrying an Indian. Completely veiled, she tells her story in a large shopping center. Her daughters – fluent in Hindi, English and Russian – are ambassadors for globalization.
The war feels close. Djamila’s 68-year-old mother came over for a holiday and with her the propaganda of the Russian state TV. “It’s not right that our men are shooting at soldiers, that’s what the Ukrainian fascists are doing in Mariupol,” she says. “The fascists won’t allow humanitarian corridors.”
Djamila listens with a pained face. Softly: ‘My mother is from a different generation, I don’t want to argue with her. But sometimes I don’t know either. I read different media, how do I determine what is true and what is not?’ She is relieved that the Emirates are not participating in the sanctions. “Before you know it, there is no longer a direct Moscow-Dubai connection and my mother can no longer visit us.” At the next table, her daughters begin to whimper. It’s time to go home.