Michael Batson

Vietnam is a country of just over 100 million people. It’s dynamic with a capital “D”. The economy is growing rapidly: driven by manufacturing, of mobile phones and electronics in particular, it expanded by 8 percent in 2025 and expects to hit 10 percent growth in 2026. Its main trading partners are the USA, China, the European Union, and the other ASEAN countries, in that order. I’ve always thought of the country, famously shaped like the letter “S”, as one long beach – from the border with China to Hà Tiên. Two million tourists arrive each month. Many come from South Korea, China, Japan, and the USA. The largest group arriving from Europe however, are Russians. Some of them never leave. Their favourite destinations in Vietnam are the mid-central coastal cities of Da Nang and Nha Trang. Others go further south to the sleepy seaside beach resort of Mũi Né, about five hours by road north from Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). There are so many Russians in Vietnam that the country has been dubbed by some as “the Russian seaside resort of Vietnam”.

There are 700 direct flights now from Russia to Vietnam annually. Russians get special visa-free access. In 2025, about 200,000 Russians visited Vietnam. They come for the beaches, the sun, water sports, and the seafood. They usually travel in couples or family groups in package tours all pre-booked back home. Some stay a few days or a couple of weeks. Others have chosen to live in Vietnam. Like Thailand, a number of Russians come to Asia to escape the war Russia is fighting in Ukraine. Not wanting to be drafted, they make a living online, and in small businesses which sometimes are just stalls on a pavement. They save costs where they can, often running unlicensed enterprises, sharing apartments and sometimes subletting rooms. Like any place where there are large numbers of visitors from one country, they have an impact on the locals, and a presence about the place.

Vietnam and Russia have history together. Both countries know about struggle, loss, and sacrifice. They’ve both lost millions killed by invaders. Doggedness and determination characterise their history and epitomise the people. During the long and bloody fight for unification and independence, the former Soviet Union, provided aid and technical support to Vietnam. As Christopher Goscha described in his wonderful ‘Modern History of Vietnam’, ‘the timeless Vietnamese culture of resisting foreign invaders’. With Russia now isolated internationally, its citizens unwelcome in many tourist destinations, its currency unwanted its usage restricted, and Russian goods embargoed, Vietnam has reached out and offered Russians a destination. Doubtless Vietnam probably sees some economic benefit there too.

I’ve recently been to the three destinations in Vietnam popular with Russians. Their presence in Da Nang is less visible, it being much larger than the other two popular spots for sun and sea. Spread out and with half-a-million inhabitants, Da Nang absorbs tourists more readily. With Nha Trang about half the size and Mũi Né a village by comparison, the presence of large numbers of Russians in those places is far more obvious. Menus are in Russian, signs in windows are in Russian, even entire shopfronts are printed in Russian. So is some of the graffiti.

I generally don’t like places where there are overwhelmingly numbers from a single country, any country. For that reason, I’d prefer not to visit Bali, dominated by so many Australians and many of them don’t even realise it’s in a separate country. Marbella is full of Brits, and parts of Mexico smothered by those from north of the border. Personally, I can’t imagine anything worse than spending your holiday half-a-world away from home in a very small town with a bunch of people from the same place you are, where ever you’re from.

Mũi Né is a small coastal resort about five hours by road from Vietnam’s most populous city. It’s been popular with overseas tourists for years, and more latterly as a weekend-escape for wealthy Saigonese. I first went there in 2006, when it had laid back feel with mainly bungalows, some beach-themed shops, and a few restaurants. They were then building the first high-rise hotel along the town’s main and only street. The road from HCMC back then was two-lanes, one in each direction. There were few tourists and those that were there were invariably English-speaking, mainly backpackers. Now the road from HCMC is a four-lane dual carriageway. Where there are bridges, you see next to those bridges, more bridges under construction. There are roadside services with large open-air restaurants and a dozen buses parked up full of passengers. Some of the larger bus companies are even building their own purpose-built facilities.

These days English-speaking backpackers in Mũi Né are few and far between their places taken largely by Russians on package deals. Russians have a certain look about them. Like other eastern Europeans, Finns, and some Scandinavians (a Finn corrected me once saying his country wasn’t Scandinavian but Nordic) they look a bit different to me at least. I can almost tell they’re not English speaking from 50 yards, though there’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes this is due to their style of dress. It’s also the colour of their skin, often a pasty white from long winters. But it’s also their often-broad facial features. They’re often in family groups or couples. It’s rare to see any on their own. And once within earshot, it’s the language. An East Slavic language known for its complex grammar, Russian kind of rolls, having an almost lazy sound to it. I like the sound of it. I always think it sounds like their having a good relaxing time. I can only assume that if drunk, the Russian language wouldn’t sound a whole lot different.

The prime spots for accommodation in Mũi Né are on the beach side of the main drag. These are a row of resort-style bungalow complexes, variations on a theme. They block access to the beach from the road, so unless you can find a public footpath, I tend to walk through these to the beach. Most have pools. Waiters are everywhere. If you look foreign you don’t get stopped. Russians in various conditions of sunburn lie about on deck chairs. They sit under the sun all day until they go beetroot red. The next day there they are again. I can only assume that with sunburn that bad sleep must be difficult. Whatever the they do to their skin on a short burst in the tropics, I can’t imagine a suntan lasts long back in wintry Russia.

Mũi Né’s resident population is small, just 25,000, and the town is officially a ward of Phan Thiet, capital of Bình Thuận Province. Phan Thiet is a short drive just down the road. Mũi Né itself is a fishing village. You can smell it before you get to it. The resort area is strung out along the beach, before you get to the town itself. As you get closer to the town the road deteriorates: it’s smooth for the tourists and crap for the locals, though they are upgrading it. The road towards the town is lined with seafood restaurants. Russians don’t go into Mũi Né town itself. I hardly saw any foreigners there. The beach is long. The area has a micro-climate. It’s dry, almost arid. Not a rice growing area at all. Offshore it has coral reefs. On the land side there are large sand dunes. A persistent onshore breeze makes Mũi Né perfect for water sports.

Since my first visit new developments have sprung up. Gone are the cheaper single level guesthouses on the beach side of the road, their place taken by resort style complexes catering to package tours from Eastern Europe. On the hillside overlooking the main road are rows of large identical houses. They occupy most of the space between the first ridge and the main north-south road. Bland doesn’t really capture these. Most seem unoccupied, it being a weekday. One or two had cars parked outside. There are no services, no shops, no amenities. It’s where Saigon’s elite come to play at the weekend and it looks like a Vietnamese version of Pleasantville.

Another change is Vietnam’s commitment to renewable energy. On the hills behind the town are now dozens of giant wind turbines. In fact, up and down the coast are wind turbines, huge things maybe 60-70m high with blades, probably 20-25m long slowly turning in the ever-present wind. Vietnam Electricity the state-owned, sole operator of Vietnam's national power grid, is balancing a heavy coal reliance (c40-45%) with rapid renewable energy expansion (now over 30% solar, wind, and hydro) to meet increasing demand, while aiming for net-zero emissions by 2050.

Mũi Né’s onshore breeze is an attraction for water sports. especially kite surfing. All day long there are kite surfers going and up down the beach just offshore. Plenty of locals make a living giving lessons. There’s not much surf. For those less enthusiastic there’s just lying about on the beach or at the swimming pools on deck chairs with waiters wandering about. It’s a long way from Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Novosibirsk, and brutal Siberian winters.

Russians can be seen wandering up and down the only street in Mũi Né. Some of the town’s shops are closed victims of Covid, which Vietnamese business owners told me the country’s tourist sector is yet to recover from. Since the pandemic I was told, the English-speaking tourists haven’t come back in nearly the same numbers. Since my last visit to Vietnam a few years back, I’ve noticed two other changes: the increased usage of English and the almost total disappearance of the US dollar as the go-to currency. Prices might be quoted in dollars, but now you pay in dong.

I asked the young woman in the convenience shop on Mũi Né's main drag during a quiet lunchtime how she gets on with the Russians as they speak neither English nor Vietnamese. Being her main customers she laughed, pulled out her smart phone, waved it about and said she gets by with Google translator or whatever it is. But then you shouldn’t generalise. The Russian woman who sat down next to me at dinner one night seemed to speak English pretty well. The restaurant had probably the worst presented food I’d seen but it tasted pretty good. With food you can’t judge by appearance it seems. On the menu, which also came in Russian, was the usual fare the Russians come for but also turtle, ostrich, cobra, and crocodile. I’m sure one of those is probably prohibited for consumption. 

From Mũi Né I got a dreaded sleeper bus to Nha Trang, another place I’d first visited 20 years ago and hadn’t been back to since. I was interested to see what had changed, if anything, and who the visitors were. No surprises that the Russians had moved in there too but some of them more permanently..

Nha Trang is a city with a population 10 times the size of Mũi Né. Down in the tourist area off the main beachfront boulevard (Tran Phu), which runs for several kilometers, are restaurants favoured by Russians. There’s even one bar called “Mockba”. Family groups come in for an evening meal after a day of sunburn. Restaurants employ Russian-speaking Vietnamese staff. The Coral restaurant has different branches much favoured by Russians, and some other visitors too. There’s Coral 4 and the Coral Anh both on Trang Kuang Khai. The food, mainly seafood, is very reasonably priced and tasty. Though I noticed Russians don’t always change from a day at the beach. Some are sat there in their beach gear, towels, sand, sunglasses, and all. But it’s not all lying about getting sunburnt all day. They like a bit of exercise too. The beachside area is favoured by Russians some of whom do military-like calisthenics including some very impressive chin-ups. While some are rather overweight, others look like they’ve just got out of the gym with some pretty impressive physiques on display. A lot of the men come in very large sizes and one can’t help but think of the common image of Russia as a bear.

On Hung Vuong I’d taken to going to the Same Same restaurant for breakfast. One morning I was talking to the owner who lamented that since Covid the English-speaking tourists hadn’t returned in anywhere the same numbers as before the pandemic. She said that Russians are about 90 percent of the tourists at the time I was visiting, but that it changes month-to-month. Next month she said more Europeans will come, “maybe”. By Europeans I think she meant Europeans other than Russians. She said the Russians come for the seafood, which she doesn’t have much of on her menu. On the impacts of Covid I noticed there are a few quite large hotels around Nha Trang that are closed. The owner of the Same Same said things haven’t recovered at all from the pandemic and that it’s tough in Nha Trang for everyone.

 While she was talking, I noticed two young Russian boys across the street set up a stall on the pavement. They were selling, I think, sim cards. Later that same day I came across other Russians selling what seemed to be lottery tickets on the street. So while some have “businesses” they could hardly be called lucrative.

I changed money one day at a travel agent, T&T Travel on Hung Vuong Street, the same street as the Sama Same restaurant. The woman travel agent was very helpful after I’d tried and failed to change money at the bank further down the same street. After being shunted from teller to teller, a imperious senior banker bluntly refused my dollars saying they weren’t in good enough condition for exchange, or something like that. T&T Travel changed them without fuss, gave me lots of information about bus and train tickets which was very helpful. A couple of days later I went back to the same agency to enquire about air tickets and spoke to woman's husband. In the end, as they both had been so pleasant, I bought plane tickets from him old school over the counter. One of the things you never get buying online is all the free add-on advice about all kinds of things relevant to your journey. Like where to get the public bus to the city from HCMC airport, which saved me a few dollars on a taxi ride.

If you look at Google maps you will see Nha Trang airport is bang in the middle of the city, except that it’s not anymore. It moved about 15 years ago and now operates out of the former military airport at Cam Ranh Bay about 45 minutes south of Nha Trang. Cam Ranh Bay was developed as a deep-sea port for military purposes by the French, taken over by the Americans, then the Soviets, and then the Vietnamese. It’s apparently recognized as one of the most beautiful and best natural harbours in the world and comes with natural attributes: deep water, and shelter for ships.

The husband for T&T Travel turned out to be my taxi driver the next morning for my 8am flight, and he arrived early outside my hotel. He got me tickets on Vietjet which started operating as a low-cost carrier in 2011, are based in Ha Noi, and offer competition to the country’s main airline Vietnam Airlines, which previously had a complete monopoly in the country. Vietjet was the first privately owned airline to be established in Vietnam.

The ticket T&T Travel sold me was half the price of that for Vietnam Airlines. He also threw in an extra baggage allowance, and on the way south to the airport filled me in on life in Nha Trang. He and his wife live outside the city as it’s now too expensive to live in the city, and are one of the few English-speaking agencies left in Nha Trang. Most tourists now are Russian he said followed by Koreans. Tourists from western Europe and English-speaking countries like Australia and New Zealand haven’t returned in anywhere near the same numbers since before Covid.

He confirmed the background that because of historical links between Vietnam and Russia (or the former Soviet Union) which aided Vietnam’s fight for independence, Vietnam has offered Russians a place to travel as they’re banned from many other countries now since the war in Ukraine. There are direct flights from Russia to avoid transiting anywhere else, and Russians can enter and stay visa-free. Presumably, the Vietnamese get foreign currency out of this too, but it’s questionable why they’d want to be tied to the ruble as opposed the Dollar or the Euro?

Then he got on to more pertinent matters. There’s some resentment by local Vietnamese of the Russians. The operate businesses but without any form of licence. They don’t pay taxes. They drink too much and ride their motorbikes too fast. If they get into trouble with the law, the police don’t do anything, apparently. If they commit a serious offence like robbing a bank, the Vietnamese hand them over to the Russians who simply send them back home. Later, on another trip further north to Da Nang, I noticed a large Russian embassy in the city, taking up a quarter of a city block. Five stories high, it looked rather imposing and was constructed, by the looks of it, to withstand bombardment. Given the numbers of Russians in Vietnam, there’s all those consular matters to take care of, and doubtless too, keep an eye on dissenters, the Kremlin having a long and global reach.

He said those Russians escaping the draft live mainly in Cam Ranh Bay and travel up to town once a week on the public bus for shopping. He also said Cam Ranh Bay is popular with Koreans who stay the night before they travel back to Korea to save the drive from the city to the airport on the day they fly out. Cam Ranh Bay itself seemed to have a series of large hotels built in a row on a ridge overlooking the ocean. Characterless blobs I’d call them. I didn’t see where the Russians live but I didn’t pass any houses or apartments on the road to the airport. I wonder what happens when Russians staying long-term, bump into Russians on holiday. Some would be supporters of Putin and others wouldn’t. I don’t know how that particular relationship plays out, especiallywhen both sets are in another country.

He also told me things are tough in Vietnam now, echoing the words of the owner of the Same Same. Young people who get educational opportunities overseas often don’t return home as good jobs are hard to find. People would like another party in power for a change, so things could get done differently, but those in power don’t want to give it up or share. That’s a familiar story all over Southeast Asia and Cambodia is no exception. They seemed really nice people and I promised to write him a good review (which I did). He was keen for people to know not every travel agent or business in Nha Trang speaks Russian.

Russians have a big presence in other parts of Southeast Asia too, most notably in Thailand where Phuket and Pattaya are favourites. Cambodia was once briefly on their radar too, but Covid must’ve killed off that destination. The signs in Russian at Sihanoukville are largely gone, replaced by Chinese, as investment from that country has turned once sleepy “Snooky” into a major gambling hub and destination for Chinese tourists which has seen it dubbed “Macau II”. Cam Ranh Bay seems a sleepy seaside town as is Mũi Né. Da Nang is Vietnam’s largest city by metropolitan area and Nha Trang has a vibe but still retains remnants of that low-key, laid-back city I first visited 20 years ago. All part of the seaside resorts Russians love to visit, stay and play.