Russia’s statistics service Rosstat data shows 186,382 moved abroad in 2013 and 122,751 in 2012, compared to 36,774 in 2011 and 33,578 in 2010.

But experts say the real number is much higher.

“The official statistics on migration are very low,” said Mikhail Gorshkov, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Sociology (ISRAS), a state-funded body.

“It’s a wake up call for our politicians when someone wants to leave their home country: What is missing for him?”

Echoing the post-Soviet brain drain, sociologists say Russia is bleeding exactly the kind of people it needs to plug a skilled labor shortage and diversify the economy away from reliance on energy exports.