Staff Reporter
A Russian company, Alabuga Start, is actively engaging with government officials and stakeholders to recruit at least 170 young Zimbabwean women aged 18 to 22 for its international career development programme.
The initiative, which targets women from Africa, Latin America, and India, offers intensive training, professional certification, and employment opportunities in Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ), located in Tatarstan, Central Russia.
Alabuga Start provides participants with technical training, Russian language courses, and work placements in fields such as engineering and technology.
Successful candidates receive a monthly salary from $860 and up to $1,780, free housing, and medical insurance.
Ekaterina Lommas, a leading specialist at Alabuga SEZ, confirmed to this publication that the programme has already attracted hundreds of participants worldwide, including Zimbabweans.
“The programme was created in 2022, and up to this point we have more than 300 participants that joined the programme, some from Zimbabwe,” Lommas said.
“We work in the special economic zone which is usually a territory with favourable conditions for enterprises of a specific domain. There are production industrial type SEZ, like ours, recreational ones (where you have lower taxes for touristic companies to start business and boost the economy of this field) and some others.
“Ours is for industries: we provide full cycle infrastructure, water, gas, electricity, heat, all social infrastructure, buildings and HR as well. At some point we realised that we needed more people and created several programs: Alabuga Polytech, 100 leaders and Alabuga Start.
“For the first two you need the perfect command of Russian to enroll, but for the last one you don’t, and this is the program we are promoting right now,” she said.
Since its launch, the programme has trained more than 300 individuals from 44 countries working in 4 carrer tracks. Alabuga Start as of this year has 6 carrer tracks and recruits from 77 countries from Africa, South East Asia and Latin America.
Upon completion, participants return home with internationally recognized certifications in their fields and Russian language proficiency.
The initiative is part of Russia’s broader effort to strengthen ties with Africa, as highlighted in the 2024 Sochi Ministerial Conference, which emphasized “a fair and stable world order based on sovereign equality and non-interference.”
Alabuga Start aligns with Moscow’s foreign policy goals of fostering skills exchange and economic collaboration.
Lommas described the programme as a transparent, mutually beneficial partnership that supports African development while offering young professionals global career exposure.
“The program now has six tracks where you can apply for a job: catering, service and hospitality, production operator, drivers, finishing works and installation works.
“It is a job relocation program, ladies get work visas and work permits in Russia. We provide flight tickets to Russia, health insurance, we meet them in the airport and take them to corporate housing which is also provided, but for a low price of $44 a month, the salaries start from $860 and can get up to $1780 depending on the career track a lady chooses.,” she said.
Zimbabwean applicants are encouraged to apply through official channels, with further details available on Alabuga Start’s recruitment platforms,” she said.
