[IWantOut] 22M Russia -> Japan, South Korea, Australia
I’m 22, currently working remotely as a backend engineer from Russia.
Financially my situation is actually decent for my age and location. I have stable remote income, career growth, I study English consistently, work on my health, and overall my life from the outside probably looks “fine”.
But mentally I increasingly feel like I don’t really see a long-term future for myself here.
Part of it is economic uncertainty, part of it is political pressure, and part of it is simply the feeling that life here becomes harder to plan every year. I also live relatively close to the whole Russia/Ukraine situation, which probably affects my thinking more than I admit to myself.
Because of that I’ve been seriously considering relocation for over a year now.
The countries I think about most are:
- Japan
- South Korea
- Australia
Not just for work, but potentially through education first:
- language school
- bachelor’s degree
- integration into local life
- maybe permanent residency later if everything works out
The problem is that actually making the jump feels terrifying.
Right now I have:
- stable income
- remote work
- familiar environment
- friends
- understanding of how life works
And relocating feels like voluntarily destroying stability to start from zero as a foreigner somewhere else.
What confuses me most is the financial side of student immigration.
A lot of student visas restrict work hours, and remote work legality often seems unclear or gray depending on the country. Tuition and living costs are also obviously high.
Officially, many student visas have restrictions, but at the same time I constantly see people online saying they freelance remotely, keep foreign clients, or continue working for companies back home while studying abroad.
So it’s hard to understand where the line actually is between:
“technically not allowed”
and
“this is how people realistically survive financially”.
I’m not looking for ways to break laws. I’m genuinely trying to understand how people handle this in practice.
Another thing I’m trying to understand is how people legally structure existing remote income while studying abroad.
For example, if someone already has long-term foreign clients or remote work before relocation:
- do people usually register some kind of local self-employment/business entity?
- switch to contractor status?
- fully stop working?
- or is this simply unrealistic during language school / university?
A lot of immigration advice online feels very theoretical, while real life obviously looks more complicated.
I guess my main questions are:
- How did you know it was finally time to leave?
- Did relocation actually improve your mental state long term?
- How do people realistically support themselves financially during studies abroad?
- And if you moved through education in Japan/Korea/Australia, would you do it again?
Would really appreciate honest experiences, especially from people who moved alone.