And it's no better at home: how to cope with the culture shock of a comeback
Every year, according to Rosstat data, about 1 million people return to their place of residence after a temporary stay in another territory. These are not only those who left for another country and then returned, but also those who have become disillusioned with life in a major Russian city and decided to move to their own region. Experts emphasize that returning to one's native place from another country or another city can be psychologically no less difficult than moving abroad. How to painlessly survive the return and how to treat your migration experience - in the material of "Izvestia".
What is the scale of re-emigration?
Rosstat annually publishes statistics on the return to the place of residence after a temporary stay in another territory. The number of re-emigrants is approximately stable all the time, although it decreased in the years after the pandemic: in 2017-2020, the number of returnees was from 1.06 million to 1.12 million people, and in 2021-2023 - from 911 million to 927 million people. The latest available data for 2023: more than 920 million people have returned home.
Like the International Association for Migration (IOM), Rosstat takes into account those who returned to the country after a long stay abroad and the number of those who moved within the same state.
It is common to talk about "culture shock," when a person who has arrived in another country cannot immediately get used to a different way of life. Psychologist Olga Bagrii emphasizes that adaptation after returning home can also become a problem.
Why return migration occurs
Anna Makarchuk, Director of the Federal Scientific and Methodological Center for Psychology and Pedagogy of Tolerance , identifies several reasons why people decide to return home after a migration experience.
The first reason is reaching the so-called bottom of the migration curve according to the concept of anthropologist Kalervo Oberg. He identified a U-shaped curve that describes four stages in the process of adaptation of migrants to a new cultural and social environment. The first stage is the honeymoon period, when the migrant likes everything and is filled with positive expectations. At the second stage, he/she faces the first objective difficulties, there is growing disappointment and stress. The third stage is the bottom of the curve, the stage of culture shock, when the migrant loses faith in the possibility of positive prospects in the new place. This is when many migrants decide to return home. Those who have passed the bottom come to the fourth stage: they integrate into society.
This theory, by the way, has an addition, which was made by the American psychologist Harry Triandis, who observed the process of readaptation of migrants at home. The path they take at home is exactly the same, and the adaptation curve in Triandis's model has become W-shaped.
The second reason, Anna Makarchuk continues, is an ineffective migration strategy. It is a question of how a person relates to the culture of the place he or she has arrived in: separates, preserving his or her cultural identity and avoiding contacts with the local one; assimilates, accepting the norms and values of the new place, but losing the previous identity; marginalizes, rejecting the native culture, but not accepting the new one either; or integrates, trying to preserve his or her cultural features, but assimilating new values as well. The most effective strategies are assimilation and integration, but the remaining two often lead to the decision to return to the homeland.
The third reason is the desire to maintain ties with the homeland, the need to communicate with loved ones.
The fourth reason is the difference in the possibility of using income: in the home country, savings received in the place of migration may have a higher purchasing power.
An important role is also played by incentive programs for the return of compatriots, which are implemented in their native countries: in addition to Russia, these are Israel, Germany, Greece, Kazakhstan, etc.
What people experience after re-emigration
Christina Lari, head of the Conceptual Branding Bureau, had the experience of re-emigration in the 1990s. She is a native of Penza, and her mother is from Moldavia, where she traveled throughout her Soviet childhood and then "proudly told her Penza friends about what nice people live in a warm country". It was to Kishinev that she went after school.
- A literate Russian language was in great demand on radio and television," says the interviewee of Izvestia. - But at one moment everything collapsed: the coordinating council began to prohibit broadcasting in the mass media in Russian, I was required to speak in the state language, Romanian, my friends were scattered on different sides of the barricades, and there were no prospects for my growing son. There was nothing left for me but to think about changing my place of residence.
Then Christina Lari decided to return with her son to Penza: childhood memories warmed her soul. But ideas about home broke at the moment when she "saw the trees that once seemed huge," and her favorite forest and riverbank - rolled in asphalt. Christina resolved her disappointment with emigration and re-emigration in a cardinal way: she decided to settle in a third place, in the Krasnodar region, and it was there that she built a new life.
Anna Makarchuk notes that often a person idealizes his native home, remembering it as it was at the time of departure. However, people, habits and even ways of life change. Olga Bagrii adds that old ties are weakened or lost, and the circle of communication and interests of a person become different.
Vasily Korchagin, founder of BBT-shop, has more recent experience and memories. He lived in Antalya (Turkey) for one year, and then returned to Ekaterinburg, and at a bad time of year.
- It was October outside, the streets started to get muddy, rainy and cold, which I hadn't felt for a year, and the grayness and monotony of the houses and streets caught my eye," says the Izvestia interlocutor. - Psychologically it was not easy to reorganize, as if the colors and joy had disappeared from life. I felt that people around me were more serious and closed.
According to him, the difference in the environment is very noticeable: in the resort Antalya there are many tourists and many people who serve them, and the atmosphere is lighter; in Ekaterinburg everyone from the very morning "goes to work, in a hurry, gets into traffic jams and wants to go on vacation.
-In the first days after my return it felt like the end of a movie or TV series, and the whole past year happened not with me, but with a character similar to me,- Vasily Korchagin admits.
Adaptation took a month and a half. Routine, calls and in general the old life dragged on, after which the "old thoughts and reactions that had not been there for a year" returned.
-Everything became "the same old way", but with new experience, memories, attitude to life and understanding that people in the world are generally the same, but can live, think and treat each new day differently, - says Vasily Korchagin.
Sergey Zinin, a candidate of psychological sciences, an employee of the N.A. Dobrolyubov Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University, explains that upon return, an emigrant "can no longer reset the settings to factory defaults" and simply "return everything to the way it was".
- Faced with the crisis of return, a person gradually gets used to the new life and at some point becomes part of it. The resulting problem of return is not as long in terms of time and complexity of the emotions experienced as the problem of moving, which arises when emigrating ," he believes. - After all, the former emigrant knows the old country from childhood and at least does not have difficulties with the language.
How to adapt to home after returning
Anna Makarchuk emphasizes: first of all, it is important to recognize that you are no longer the same person who once left, and the place to which you return, too, has changed. The earlier a person accepts this idea, the easier it will be to adapt.
-Often after living in a different culture we become annoyed by little things that used to seem natural," she said. - It's a different attitude to personal boundaries, to the requirement to look different, it's the volume and timbre of speech, eye contact, smile or lack thereof, etc. This phenomenon is called reverse culture shock. It can be expressed as a feeling of alienation or even mild aggression towards the familiar environment.
However, irritation is only a temporary reaction, not a reason for panic, the expert emphasizes. The most important thing here is to give yourself time to adjust. Olga Bagrii notes that it is important to realize that friends and relatives are also adapting to your return, because their lives have also changed over the past time.
-When returning home, it is useful to treat yourself as a person who is learning to be "in his place" all over again," continues Anna Makarchuk. - The habits you picked up abroad may be puzzling to others. Instead of opposing yourself to others, you should try to see it as an opportunity for dialog. You don't have to erase your old self, it's part of your identity now too.
It's also important to find a foothold in the old place so that you don't feel let down. Finding a community where one is understood can help. This can be old friends or new friends with similar experiences. One of the main strategies for successful readaptation is social support.
Olga Bagrii also recommends integrating the experience into one's life - in hobbies, work or socializing with people.
How to treat your experience of emigration
The Director of the Tolerance Center emphasizes that return should not be seen as a stop: it is a new beginning, not the end of the journey.
- Think of a goal, project or idea that will give meaning to your return. Think about what new skills or values you have acquired during your journey, make them part of your new idea, its "unique selling proposition, " says Anna Makarchuk.
It is important to realize that the migration experience itself was not a mistake or a "defeat", it is an "investment in personal growth". This period gave a person a unique set of skills: the ability to adapt, to look at the world from different perspectives, to cope with uncertainty, to find solutions in an unfamiliar environment. This is not a baggage of mistakes, but of competencies.
- Remorse often comes from an internal attitude that going back is a step backwards. But it isn't. On the contrary, returning can be a conscious step forward, based on the experience and knowledge you have gained," emphasized Anna Makarchuk. - You tested the hypothesis of living in a different environment. If it did not live up to expectations, it does not make your journey any less valuable. Sometimes, to truly understand what we want, we need to try and realize what didn't fit.
