Tourists walk at the Ben Gurion International Airport after entering Israel by plane, as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions ease, in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel, May 27, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Along with a growing Aliyah from Ukraine due to the ongoing war, Russian olim are also beginning to stream into Israel — fearing political developments in Russia, the economic impact of Western sanctions, and the increasing domestic repression imposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I think all of Tel Aviv is filled with people from Moscow,” Maria Gaidar, daughter of a former Russian prime minister, told Israeli news site N12.

“People are coming here in large numbers,” she said. “I see here all the people from my phonebook. I just went out in the street in Tel Aviv, and I met by chance three people from Moscow.”

“A lot of people arrive here from Russia because they’re afraid that soon we’ll return to an era that is reminiscent of the Soviet Union,” she explained.

Many of the new olim are young and educated, like Ivan Grantowski, who told N12, “It’s difficult for me with the Russian president and his government. Everything that’s happening now began in 2014” with Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Grantowski demonstrated against the annexation, and fears that he may now be a target.

“They could send me back to prison for many years,” he said, “just because I want to speak my opinion about the government. There are people who have the police come to their house just because they wrote on Facebook that they are dissatisfied with the situation.”

He added that Russians are particularly attracted to Tel Aviv, because “it’s central, it’s a cultural city, with cinema and music.”

“Oksana,” who is still in Russia, spoke under a false name for fear of persecution, and said, “A lot of people are saying it smells like the days of Stalin. We’re afraid they’ll close the border because every day they are restricting us more and more.”

During the Soviet era, Jews were forbidden to make Aliyah, prompting a worldwide movement on their behalf hat eventually led to a million Russians moving to Israel after the fall of the USSR.

However, Oksana said, some Russian Jews have anxieties about Aliyah, because “we don’t know the language. We don’t know what [field] to work in and we don’t know what we’ll live on.”

“When we see famous people escaping [Russia], it’s a sign that we also need to do something,” she added. “But how long do we need to wait and what will happen if they close down everything? On the one hand, we don’t want to [leave] because it’s our motherland, but on the other hand, it’s impossible to know where this situation is going.”