Yandex Eyes Moving HQ to Israel

Since March Russian tech giant Yandex has been seeking ways to evade sanctions but at the same time keep its core activity in Russia. Yandex management reportedly considered splitting the company into to independent divisions of which one will focus on Russia, while the other will run Yandex’s international business.

According to Israeli media, one of Yandex co-founders Arkady Volozh, wrote letters to Israeli prime-minister and three other ministers in order to obtain exceptional employment conditions for Yandex non-Israeli workers.

In a letter entitled «Yandex - Expanding Operations in Israel» cited by Israeli media Calcalist, Volozh writes:

I made a decision to move the global Yandex headquarters to Tel Aviv and bring many hundreds of developers, engineers and technologists to Israel.

Aside from the prime-minister, the letter was sent Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and Minister of Innovation, Information and Technology Orit Farkash-Hacohen. In the letter Volozh goes on explaining, how he plans to move employees to Israel:

In order for the company's employees to be able to make a decision to move to live in Israel, even if for a number of years, they must be granted several conditions for which we seek assistance from you: grant work visas to non - Jewish or returning employees and issue certificates of transfer to Russian citizens

At the end of the letter, Voloz invites the ministers to visit the company’s offices in Israel and asks to «approve our requests as presented above».

In conversation with Durov’s Code, Yandex representative denied such plans.

“There are no plans to move Yandex headquarters from Moscow or relocate teams from Russia. [...] We continue to hire people for some positions, including in Israel. Some of the vacancies allow employees to relocate. We also want to help employees who work remotely to receive their salary in a way that is convenient for them”

According to the repsentative, the Israeli department will continue expanding Israeli focused activities of the company, such as taxi service Yango and other.