Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well, as someone that has lived in South East Asia for over 20 years I can tell you without any personal bias that it is a mixed bag.
Russians are just people, just like you and me, but they tend to not speak English very well and this is understandable. I took the first lesson of Russian on Duolingo about a year ago and bowed out after the first lesson. It is completely understandable that someone would experience difficulty in learning English as a Russian speaker because the languages have exactly NOTHING in common.
Because of this, it can appear as though the Russians do not want to be around anyone or are being difficult or even rude but the fact of the matter is, they simply don't know what you are saying. In my building where I live several of my neighbors are Russian and we barely ever say anything to one another. I tried a couple of times but the response was something along the lines of "sorry, English not good."
There's not much I can do from that point forward I suppose.
I do have a few Russian friends who had tried to explain this to me about how Russians are for the most part, quite friendly, but they tend to flock towards places that are filled with other Russians just like you would probably feel more comfortable hanging out with people that speak the same language as you.
srcThe reason for this shift from Thailand to Vietnam for the Russians is often for the same reason why I live in Vietnam and not Thailand as well. Vietnam visas are easy and while Immigration here is stoic and very serious and I think are not allowed to smile or even look at you for very long, they don't harass you for having a bunch of stamps in your passport. In Thailand, they seem to get a great deal of joy out of looking for reasons to deny you entry or to at the minimum, harass you for having a Thai stamp or two. When I was approaching my 15th year of living in Thailand I would get an absolute grilling every time I was speaking to an Immigration official in Thailand. The fact that I owned multiple businesses there legally and at one point employed almost 20 Thai people didn't seem to matter a great deal to them. It didn't matter to them that I was conversationally fluent in Thai either. To them, I was somehow breaking a rule by being there "too long."
I have been living in Vietnam for close to 6 years now and I have never, not once, been asked by anyone in Vietnam checking my passport why I have so many Vietnam stamps in my passport.
I know for a fact that the Russians have been going through the same thing in regards to Thailand because I witnessed it.
Now, there are a few bad apples in the bunch as far as Russians are concerned because there are some of them that gravitate towards not obeying the law as far as businesses are concerned. When I was living in Thailand it seemed like it was every week that I would hear about a Russian owned business that didn't have any of the permits necessary to open a business and they didn't employ any locals either.
As someone with a great deal of experience in being an expatriate that owned and operated a business in SE Asia, I know that the primary concern of the government in these countries is to protect their own citizens first. If they simply opened up the borders and allowed foreigners to buy up everything and open up businesses willy-nilly (that means however they feel like doing it for anyone that doesn't speak British) then whatever country it is that allowed that would soon find themselves overrun and with a population that can't find employment while at the same time being priced out of property in their own country.
You can kind of see that happening in my own neighborhood where the residents are 90% foreigners. Virtually zero Vietnamese people live in the area where I live and it is lovingly referred to as "crackertown."
srcAccording to the couple of Russian friends that I have here the major reason why Russians are choosing Vietnam over Thailand now isn't just because of Thai Immigration being mean to them, it is also because recently Vietnam started pushing for more direct flights to and from Russia.
As someone that absolutely loathes air travel and especially when it involves changing planes in some transit airport, I can definitely relate to why this would increase the number of people coming here.
Reports vary depending on who is interpreting the stats but it is something crazy like a 300-400% increase in Russian tourists or expats in the past 2 years. I've been here for the past nearly 6 years and I can tell just from walking around that there are a LOT of Russians here now. I would say that when I encounter strangers on the street and overhear their conversations, more often than not they are speaking Russian.
Vietnam has a long history with Russia for a couple of reasons, so they are probably always going to treat their people pretty good. The Russian tourists have a reputation for spending a lot of money in a short amount of time and this is any country's favorite kind of tourists.
The Russians that live here though, are not like that. I'm also not like that so there is no judgement here. When you live somewhere you tend to not spend a ton of money on tourist things... you know?
This hasn't been without its issues though. There are several illegal Russian businesses that have been removed just in the past few months and I don't get why they think they can get away with it. One thing I know about Vietnam is that you definitely are being watched and just because you don't see the police car down the street doesn't mean nobody knows you are there. This country is notorious for having a vast network of plain clothes snitches so when I heard the other week that 3 Russian owned restaurants were raided and shut down, I wasn't all that surprised.
I've come to quite like Russian food so I hope there are enough of them that are opening these kinds of places legally. Have you ever had Russian Borscht? Oh man that is so delicious.
srcIt's meat, it's beetroot, it's sour cream and a little bit of spice. What's not to like about that? Oh and it also heats up in the microwave the next day or even two days later and is still amazing!
If you live over this way you will often hear people say "there are too many Russians here now" and to those folks I say shut up and get off your high horse. Depending on the perspective of the person talking, there is too many of all kind of people everywhere. What we really need more of is cute dogs with great temperaments.
In the meantime, I hope the Russians continue to come here. Just chill out with the illegal business operations ok? It reflects badly on all of us when stuff like that starts happening and if there is one thing I definitely don't want, it is to have problems with visas again.