ИСТИНА

The work examines the kind of migration of highly skilled specialists known as “brain drain”, which has existed for more than three centuries. The study is based on the definition proposed back in 1996 by Vladimir Iontsev, who offered to interpret “brain drain” as “non-return migration of highly skilled specialists, including potential specialists (students, post-graduates, trainees), who are purposefully targeted by countries willing to attract them”. Features of this phenomenon are considered in detail, different points of view from both Russian and foreign authors on the concept “brain drain” are presented. Moreover, there have recently appeared a lot of new equivalents of this notion, such as “brain exchange”, “brain circulation”, “brain gain” and others. In my opinion, the purpose of these new terms is to present this as a mutually beneficial process. This, however, does not correspond with how “brain drain” actually works since the phenomenon itself is highly negative for countries that lose their high intellectual potential. One of the features that exacerbate the consequences of “brain drain” is the current demographic situation, which can be described as demographic crisis. It is first and foremost connected with qualitative rather than quantitative negative changes in the population of Russia. It is the former that have a particularly strong influence on such phenomenon as “brain drain”.