https://sputniknews.in/20260211/how-i-shook-hands-with-russian-soft-power-in-asia-10469735.html
How I Shook Hands with Russian Soft Power in Asia
How I Shook Hands with Russian Soft Power in Asia
Sputnik India
I have paid, recently, my annual visit to the headquarters of the association of Russians in Pattaya, Thailand. 11.02.2026, Sputnik India
2026-02-11T16:39+0530
2026-02-11T16:39+0530
2026-02-11T16:39+0530
sputnik opinion
narendra modi
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india
nato
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And then I moved to Kuala Lumpur, and saw (from a respectful distance) Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in Malaysia for his two-day official visit and for celebrating the Thaipusam festival together with the local Indian diaspora, that greeted him happily. Two diasporas: there just had to be a flash of comparisons in such cases.In Pattaya, I was talking about books and politics, then shaking hands, and finally me and my audience shifted to the table with tea and other nice things. And we began to talk about what is a diaspora in our turbulent age.First came the figures. I have asked them all a seemingly obvious question: how many Russian compatriots were there, in the city of Pattaya? But I’ve got no obvious answers to that. Instead, a kind of an argument on that matter immediately started.The figures I got from different people were as such: from 20 to 80 thousand Russians being in the city at any given moment. While the big island of Phuket hosts several times more of my compatriots, again at any given moment. And then there is Bangkok and plenty of nice islands and beaches in the Gulf of Siam, with sizeable Russian communities there.So how is that possible that even the association leaders do not know the real numbers of Russians in Thailand? And that’s when you may start the Internet search for general figures, which say that between 10 and 30 million “ethnic Russians” are living abroad: again, a threefold difference in estimates!Ha-ha, it’s very easy to explain, my Pattaya hosts told me. There is a serious need in complete revaluation of the whole idea of diasporas, by far not only the Russian ones, in our modern world.Why evaluation of numbers is so complicated: here we have, I was told in Pattaya, a lot of people who came in for a short stay, maybe in the 1990-s, and instantly loved the country. Then they came again, next year. Then they discovered that buying an apartment there saves money and nerves better than staying in hotels. But in any case these ones are the folks with Russian passports residing there most of the year and, maybe, doing some business. The Embassy in Bangkok may know about them and put them officially on the list of “compatriots”, or they may stay unrecorded. And if they got local or other citizenship, that’s another list altogether.Then, relatives and friends visit them all the time for a short or long stay. And, finally, these localized Russians earn their money on incoming Russian tourists mostly, and these tourists fall under yet another category in official and unofficial statistics. All of these people, staying, coming and going, form a kind of a Russian community there, with plenty of inner ties.Russian tourism in Thailand is quite a story, too. 2 million people are officially listed as Russian tourists, entering Thailand in 2025. That’s a record number, although it only repeats the records of 2013 and other years. That makes Russian tourists #4 in that country, close on the heels of neighbors from Malaysia, and then come Indians and Chinese.What’s interesting, the Russian tourists have just replaced, on that list, all kind of Westerners, who used to dominate the local tourist scene once. If, today in Pattaya, you see a Western-looking family anywhere, the safe bet is that these are Russians, local or semi-local, or here for a short vacation.And that’s a wonderful story. The thing is, we were not supposed to take a rest anywhere in the outside world. When Russia came under the Western attack in 2021-2022, the big idea was that all the Russians were supposed to be aggressors, isolated in the world. But the reverse happened.I remember well my short holiday in Tunisia in 2022, with Europeans staring in disbelief at all these crowds of Russians roaming the local beaches, as if it was a normal thing to do. That’s how a lot of Europeans got their first-hand viewing of their global boycott and shaming campaign going to dogs.That, also, was how the West has discovered the so-called global majority, that was neutral or rather on the side of Russia in its battle with NATO on the fields of the miserable Ukraine. The simple fact of Russian tourists being still very welcome in Asia, Africa and Latin America and going there visa-free, added to the reality of Russian business being welcome there, if the price and conditions were right.And then, recently, the Westerners, mostly the European ones, have discovered their numbers going down in international resorts, like the ones in Thailand. The reason is simple: by refusing Russian oil and gas, Europeans have got themselves a severe crisis, with costs of production going up, companies going bankrupt and people getting less money for vacations abroad, Thailand included.To note, ever since 1990-s there was a lot of ambiguity in Russia about compatriots living abroad. Leaving your country for another land still seemed to be if not outright betrayal, than something like an insult to the concept of investing your effort in the progress of your own motherland. Such people, the overstays of the Communist era, are still around in Russian politics and general debate.They capitalize on a predictable problem of diaspora’s political and other views. These views are, inevitably, slightly different from what we see at home. Information environment definitely plays its role here. It depends on the choice of a country to move to. At first, an average Russian was watching in dismay a tendency of opposition-minded people migrating exclusively to the West, with London becoming a traditional settlement of any Russian who does not agree with his/hers government and generally dislikes motherland. The standard leftist propaganda point is about rotten elites, who keep their money in the West, send children to Western schools and universities and, hence, are not Russian elites at all, just a bunch of globalized nobodies.And all this time the nation in general tended to overlook the fact that Russian diaspora comprised tens or hundreds of thousands of those living in the East and South, in all these very friendly nations of the global majority. Thailand is just one example, Indonesia is another, and – yes, there are plenty of Russians residing in India or China, too. Only now the Russian public is realizing that our improving relations with that majority is somehow tied up with our diasporas living there.So, the very Indian idea of diaspora being a powerful reserve of the nation’s influence in the world is not exactly alien to the Russian political class by now. The only thing, that class and the elites in general simply do not have experience in using that reservoir of goodwill and soft power. Learning that from India seems to be an obvious idea.Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com
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narendra modi, thailand, russia, india, nato
narendra modi, thailand, russia, india, nato
How I Shook Hands with Russian Soft Power in Asia
I have paid, recently, my annual visit to the headquarters of the association of Russians in Pattaya, Thailand.
And then I moved to Kuala Lumpur, and saw (from a respectful distance) Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in Malaysia for his two-day official
visit and for celebrating the Thaipusam festival together with the local Indian diaspora, that greeted him happily. Two diasporas: there just had to be a flash of comparisons in such cases.
In Pattaya, I was talking about books and politics, then shaking hands, and finally me and my audience shifted to the table with tea and other nice things. And we began to talk about what is a diaspora in our turbulent age.
First came the figures. I have asked them all a seemingly obvious question: how many Russian compatriots were there, in the city of Pattaya? But I’ve got no obvious answers to that. Instead, a kind of an argument on that matter immediately started.
The figures I got from different people were as such: from 20 to 80 thousand Russians being in the city at any given moment. While the big island of Phuket hosts several times more of my compatriots, again at any given moment. And then there is Bangkok and plenty of nice islands and beaches in the Gulf of Siam, with sizeable Russian communities there.
So how is that possible that even the association leaders do not know the real numbers of Russians in Thailand? And that’s when you may start the Internet search for general figures, which say that between 10 and 30 million “ethnic Russians” are living abroad: again, a threefold difference in estimates!
Ha-ha, it’s very easy to explain, my Pattaya hosts told me. There is a serious need in complete revaluation of the whole idea of diasporas, by far not only the Russian ones, in our modern world.
Why evaluation of numbers is so complicated: here we have, I was told in Pattaya, a lot of people who came in for a short stay, maybe in the 1990-s, and instantly loved the country. Then they came again, next year. Then they discovered that buying an apartment there saves money and nerves better than staying in hotels. But in any case these ones are the folks with Russian passports residing there most of the year and, maybe, doing some business. The Embassy in Bangkok may know about them and put them officially on the list of “compatriots”, or they may stay unrecorded. And if they got local or other citizenship, that’s another list altogether.
Then, relatives and friends visit them all the time for a short or long stay. And, finally, these localized Russians earn their money on incoming Russian tourists mostly, and these tourists fall under yet another category in official and unofficial statistics. All of these people, staying, coming and going, form a kind of a Russian community there, with plenty of inner ties.
Russian tourism in Thailand is quite a story, too. 2 million people are officially listed as Russian tourists, entering Thailand in 2025. That’s a record number, although it only repeats the records of 2013 and other years. That makes Russian tourists #4 in that country, close on the heels of neighbors from Malaysia, and then come Indians and Chinese.
What’s interesting, the Russian tourists have just replaced, on that list, all kind of Westerners, who used to dominate the local tourist scene once. If, today in Pattaya, you see a Western-looking family anywhere, the safe bet is that these are Russians, local or semi-local, or here for a short vacation.
And that’s a wonderful story. The thing is, we were not supposed to take a rest anywhere in the outside world. When Russia came under the Western attack in 2021-2022, the big idea was that all the Russians were supposed to be aggressors, isolated in the world. But the reverse happened.
I remember well my short holiday in Tunisia in 2022, with Europeans staring in disbelief at all these crowds of Russians roaming the local beaches, as if it was a normal thing to do. That’s how a lot of Europeans got their first-hand viewing of their global boycott and shaming campaign going to dogs.
That, also, was how the West has discovered the so-called global majority, that was neutral or rather on the side of Russia in its battle with NATO on the fields of the miserable Ukraine. The simple fact of Russian tourists being still very welcome in Asia, Africa and Latin America and going there visa-free, added to the reality of Russian business being welcome there, if the price and conditions were right.
And then, recently, the Westerners, mostly the European ones, have discovered their numbers going down in international resorts, like the ones in Thailand. The reason is simple: by refusing Russian oil and gas, Europeans have got themselves a severe crisis, with costs of production going up, companies going bankrupt and people getting less money for vacations abroad, Thailand included.
To note, ever since 1990-s there was a lot of ambiguity in Russia about compatriots living abroad. Leaving your country for another land still seemed to be if not outright betrayal, than something like an insult to the concept of investing your effort in the progress of your own motherland. Such people, the overstays of the Communist era, are still around in Russian politics and general debate.
They capitalize on a predictable problem of diaspora’s political and other views. These views are, inevitably, slightly different from what we see at home. Information environment definitely plays its role here. It depends on the choice of a country to move to. At first, an average Russian was watching in dismay a tendency of opposition-minded people migrating exclusively to the West, with London becoming a traditional settlement of any Russian who does not agree with his/hers government and generally dislikes motherland. The standard leftist propaganda point is about rotten elites, who keep their money in the West, send children to Western schools and universities and, hence, are not Russian elites at all, just a bunch of globalized nobodies.
And all this time the nation in general tended to overlook the fact that Russian diaspora comprised tens or hundreds of thousands of those living in the East and South, in all these very friendly nations of the global majority. Thailand is just one example, Indonesia is another, and – yes, there are plenty of Russians residing in India or China, too. Only now the Russian public is realizing that our improving relations with that majority is somehow tied up with our diasporas living there.
So, the very Indian idea of diaspora being a powerful reserve of the nation’s influence in the world is not exactly alien to the Russian political class by now. The only thing, that class and the elites in general simply do not have experience in using that reservoir of goodwill and soft power. Learning that from India seems to be an obvious idea.
Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com
