With a rich history and diverse culture, Russia is a dynamic country with a wide variety of talented citizens and freelancers. It is the largest country in the world, with a landmass of over 6.6 million sq mi, and this means that the population is spread across 11 time zones. The country’s largest cities are Moscow (it’s capital) and St Petersburg, which are home to the country’s top universities and 11.9 and 4.9 million people respectively.

Culturally, Russia is famous for its incredible architecture (with Red Square an iconic symbol to people around the world), sport, literature (with greats like Tolstoy, Pushkin, and Dostoyevsky hailing from the country), classical music (Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky), and ballet.

Economically, Russia is experiencing turbulent times, which has fuelled demand for freelancing and remote work opportunities as Russians look to supplement income or make up for job losses at home. This means that there is a dynamic and eager workforce, made up of skilled programmers, translators, scientists, and mathematicians, ready to complete projects for clients across the world.

Top Skills

Russia has an established university system that provides quality education to millions of students, and has the largest percentage of college or higher-education level citizens in the world, at 54% of the population. Top universities, such as Lomonosov Moscow State University and Saint-Petersburg State University, educate students in a wide variety of subjects, and the majority of high performing graduates come from natural science or mathematics backgrounds.

Due to weaknesses in the Russian economy, and rising unemployment, many high-skilled citizens are turning to freelancing in order to supplement, or provide all of, their income. This, coupled with the large number of highly-educated and high-skilled workers, means that there is a large number of potential freelancers able to take on remote work projects in a variety of areas.

30% of Russians speak English to some degree, with 3% of the population (or 3.4 million) being fluent in the language. Because of this, translation work makes up a large portion of Russian freelancing jobs, as many high-skilled bilingual Russians look to utilise their knowledge of English for financial gain.

Income Range

• Average salary ranges between 32-42,000rub/m
  • Approx $488-640/m
• For programmers, salary range is 80-150,000rub/m
  • Approx $2,488-4,591/m

Currency

• Ruble
• Exchange rate - approx $1=65.56rub

Currency Transfer

• PayPal
• Transferwise

Due to the weakness of the Russian economy, the dollar to ruble exchange rate is increasingly worsening, and this is causing many Russians to seek payment solely in USD, rather than using exchange or conversion services.

Direct-to-bank transfers are often difficult, as the country lacks a highly developed banking infrastructure. Because of this, online payment services, like PayPal and Transferwise are preferred for payments.