So what goes on and what will happen if (and when) Moscow does improve infrastructure for both categories of visitors? We can only guess, but in any case it looks like our two great nations are getting naturally closer to each other.
Let’s see what are the problems with students. We are talking about an essay by Ms. Elena Karpinskaya, Director of Programs of the Russian International Affairs Council, which means a serious lady in a serious position. Ms. Karpinskaya warns us: all the leading nations in the world are fighting each other for the global education markets, and Russia so far takes in only about two per cent of the Indian students abroad, that’s 30 thousand of 1.8 million folks, mostly in medical universities. And that share is not enough.
Is it just about money and the theoretical future goodwill? Oh, no. The lady also says that there is a serious lack of junior medical personnel in Russia, and Indian graduates are a perfect solution of the problem. They could become interns immediately after graduation, and Russia would love it. In fact, the same logic applies to technical diploma holders.
So, Mother Russia will have to shape up, says Karpinskaya. It’s true, the Brits and Canadians are losing ground in the global education markets, but both nations plan to transfer some of their education to India itself, while France is starting to fill in the void, left by Mother England. To win that competition, the Russian universities might want to improve the student’s lodgings and pay attention to English spoken in the general area where the youngsters study and play, not to mention the quality of English in the educational process itself.
Finally, there is that idea of targeted preparing of cadres for the Russo-Indian projects, in that case rather technical than the medical ones. Such things are being done all over the world, there is plenty of experience to borrow.
Now, let’s have a look at the oncoming changes in tourism. Here we have a publication in the Izvestia daily, discussing the future visa-free regime between our nations. We are told that Moscow has submitted to New Delhi the project of an agreement on a mutual visa-free stay of 21 days.
A visa-free status is something special for the Russian nation, as in a test of decency, if not international normalcy. Probably every Russian knows how our diplomats have been banging everything thinkable against the European visa wall as early as in the 1990-s. Europe, instead, has kept its borders shut for Russians, and then has started a proxy war, using Ukrainians as stooges. And, almost immediately after that, a veritable flood of new visa-free agreements began to engulf us. The Global Majority showed its friendly face.
Now a Russian can get into 114 countries of the world without a care about procedures, just producing a passport. New such agreements are in the pipeline. But two of the biggest friends of Russia, that’s India and China, were a problem in that regard. China gave ground last year, while India, to repeat, is still considering the visa-free idea. In any case, India as a tourist destination lags far behind the most popular countries, all of these having one big advantage of a long line of beaches available all year round. Vietnam and Malaysia seem to be the most obvious Russian choice of beach-going after the loss of warm seas of Arabia, devastated by the war.
But the beach-going Russian habits are of secondary importance. What’s truly interesting here is a simple fact of increase of people-to-people communications between India and Russia and the need to get ready for more.
There are two ways of projecting the future of nation’s interaction. One way is to devise a clever stratagem and convince the people in power to accept it. I’ve witnessed a lot of such divinations in the 1990-s, when everything seemed to be possible. Normally these were the ideas of theoretical complementarity of nation’s interests in the future world, and statements about the urgent need for the state leaders and intellectuals to do something to bring the two peoples together. Conferences, book fairs, familiarization trips by influencers were the obvious solutions. Some of these grand designs worked out well, others failed.
While the alternative approach to the same problem seems to be slightly lackluster. It’s when clever people notice what is already happening and say something like: hey, fellows, see what’s going on by itself? All we need to do now is to catch the wind.
And that’s exactly what happens between India and Russia in both the mentioned spheres, that is, the student flow and the tourist flow. In fact, it is the general trend in both cases that caused two Russian resources to publish their pieces.
In the year 2024 there were only about 20 thousand of Indian students in the Russian universities, to repeat – mostly in medical sphere. But the year 2025 gave us the figure of 30 thousand. The Ministry of Education is prophesying an annual raise of these figures by 20-30 per cent, with a new stress on engineering and other technical matters.
20-30 per cent is a lot. One may expect a bit of bickering between educational facilities inside Russia on the subject of who is the most Indian-friendly of them all.
The tourists, now: over 85 thousand Russians went to India last year, but what’s more interesting, the year 2025 has seen 57.6 thousand of Indian entries into Russia, and that is 43 per cent raise compared to 2024.
Now, if and when anything, especially business, goes up 4.3 per cent, it’s wise to raise your eyebrows. While 43 per cent is a revolution. That revolution calls not only for a visa-free entry, but also for other infrastructure improvements, starting from airports and flights and banking, ending with street trade in certain areas. All these things are not expenses, they are investments into future profits.
What we see here is a part of a general trend of the Global South to do business and communicate, while carefully out-skirting the West that seems to be mired in all kind of crisis. That will be a long and complicated process to get into that New Age, but a lot of people will have fun, being part of it.
Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com