‘Everyone is looking for options’: Russian women fly to Argentina to give birth

Standing in line at the maternity ward of the Sanatorio Finochietto hospital in bustling Buenos Aires, Polina Cherepovitskaya suddenly overheard the familiar sound of the Russian language.

“It was crazy, there were at least eight pregnant Russian women waiting in front of me,” Cherepovitskaya, a jewellery designer previously based in Moscow, said in a phone interview.

Cherepovitskaya, who gave birth earlier this month, is one of the estimated hundreds of Russian women who travelled this year to the Argentinian capital to give birth.

Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the South American country has experienced a boom in Russian birth tourism – the practice of travelling to another country for the purpose of giving birth and obtaining citizenship for the child.

While the concept of birth tourism isn’t new, Moscow’s isolation from the west as a result of the war has made Argentina, where Russians face no visa requirements, the go-to destination for families looking to give their children the privileges of second citizenship. Vladimir Putin’s call-up of hundreds of thousands of military reservists may have added to the trend.

Georgy Polin, head of the consular department of the Russian Embassy in Argentina, estimated that between 2,000 and 2,500 Russians moved to Argentina this year, many of whom, he said, were Russian women planning to give birth in the country. “Next year, that number can grow to 10,000,” Polin said.

“I found out I was pregnant shortly after the war in Ukraine started,” Cherepovitskaya recalled. “As we saw that borders started to quickly close around us, we knew we had to find a place that we could easily travel to. An Argentinian passport will open up many doors for my child.”

Cherepovitskaya and her husband, who both left Russia shortly after the war in Ukraine started, now plan to stay in Buenos Aires and apply for Argentinian citizenship for themselves, a process that is simplified because they are now the parents of an Argentinian daughter.

“Buenos Aires is in demand right now; it is the only destination we currently work with,” said Eva Pekurova, who runs an agency that arranges travel documents, accommodation and hospital stays for pregnant Russians giving birth abroad.

Russians don’t need a visa to visit Argentina, and Pekurova said extending the standard 90-day stay issued by the country as well as applying for a residency permit was also fairly straightforward.

One of the core advantages of an Argentinian passport, Pekurova said, was that its citizens could make short-term trips to 171 countries without a visa, including the EU, the UK and Japan, while obtaining a long-term US visa was “not very difficult”.

Even prior to the war, Russians could go visa-free to only about 80 countries. And after Putin sent his troops into Ukraine, multiple European countries made it practically impossible for Russians to visit, while month-long waiting lines for visas have formed at understaffed western consulates in Moscow.

Like many other firms in the industry, Pekurov’s company previously offered similar tours to Miami, Florida – once a hotspot for birth tourism.

But her business model faltered when Covid-19 hit, and the US closed its border to Russians. The war in Ukraine has further complicated Russian travel to the US. “Before the pandemic, Miami was the place to go,” said Pekurova. “But now it is Argentina.”

Pekurova herself gave birth earlier this year in Buenos Aires, and her “positive” experience further strengthened her desire to offer trips to the country.

“Everyone is looking for options out with the current situation in Russia. By granting my child an Argentinian passport, I am giving him freedom.”

Besides the privileges of an Argentinian passport, she said Russian clients chose Buenos Aires for its high quality of healthcare, both private and public.

Foreign parents of an Argentina-born baby also have a relatively easy pathway to Argentinian citizenship, which can be arranged in less than two years.

Russian women moving to Argentina to give birth now pay anywhere from £1,000 to £8,000 to brokers like Pekurova, who offer services that range from arranging translators and helping with the reams of paperwork to organising photoshoots with the newborn baby.

Figures on how many Russian women travel to Argentina specifically to give birth, however, are hard to come by.

Kirill Makoveev, the founder of the Baby.RuArgentina agency, said his firm alone had helped more than 100 Russian women and their partners in the past year.

Makoveev moved to Argentina in 2014, working first as a travel guide, but he said he quickly saw the potential the country had as a birth tourism destination, founding his agency in 2018.

“We are currently booked up until May 2023. There is a waiting list too,” said Makoveev, adding that more than a “dozen pregnant Russians” landed in the capital every day.

“Since the start of the war, demand has…