Travel narrows the mind

Some people will be happy to hear that there’ll be less of a bun fight for the best sun loungers on the beach, now that Russians have all but given up travelling. But that’s not a good thing.

Russians are giving up going abroad. 70% of respondents to the Levada Center’s most recent poll say they’re ready to forego foreign travel. Almost half of respondents (45%) said that visiting far-flung countries has become too dangerous, while 25% believe that Russians should have made the decision to stay at home a long time ago.

The opposite opinion is held by a mere 10% of respondents, with 7% convinced that there’s no reason not to travel, and a further 3% deeming that “in the current panic you can get a good deal on a holiday”). 11% of respondents also believe that this isn’t a “security issue” but rather to do with the fact that “foreign holidays have become too expensive.”

We should remind ourselves, however, that a great number of Russians have never actually been abroad. According to the same survey, 65% of the population haven’t travelled out of the country over the course of the last five years.

Yet the problem isn’t to do with what percentage of respondents can realistically evaluate the dangers of foreign travel. It’s to do with the fact that in recent months and years the Russian media, and state-controlled TV in particular, has relentlessly been forging images of “our enemies” (the United States, of course, being Enemy No. 1) for the public to consume – alongside the image of a wretched, browbeaten Europe, riddled with refugees and brimming with bandits.

This issue has become particularly acute in Russia since the start of military operations in Syria. For people getting their global news fix from Russian TV, it has become only too apparent that you can’t walk down a European street without encountering savage hordes of Syrian beggars.

The latest episode in this “Eurogeddon” series focuses on the New Year’s Eve sex assaults by Arab migrants across Germany and beyond.  One story in particular – that of a 13-year-old Russian-speaking girl from Berlin who was allegedly abducted and raped by five young men – has been taken very much to heart by Russian citizens.

The effect of TV propaganda is now such that not only are Russians afraid of going abroad, they also have a predominantly hostile attitude to the leading world powers. According to another Levada Centre poll, conducted in the autumn of 2015, 75% of respondents believe that the US, Germany, Japan and Britain are enemies that “seek to solve their problems at Russia’s expense, and to inflict damage upon Russia’s interests whenever the opportunity presents itself.”

As a counterweight to these negative attitudes, certain positive trends have been observed – the number of people keen to work abroad has increased, for example. But is that a positive, given that this means leaving one’s beloved homeland?

If Russians are not travelling abroad to see for themselves how much better their lives could be, then we have to find a way to counteract the myths planted in popular consciousness by Kremlin propaganda. How we do that is another matter …