[moonchrome]

This is true, nobody I know emigrated during COVID, was mostly 5-6 years ago in that late 20s period before you settle down.

With regards to Serbia at least, while I'm not from there it's a neighbouring country, Belgrade isn't that bad and working for westerners should be the same as working from Russia, minus a few hours of TZ depending on where you are from. English should be decent as well with the younger crowd, especially in IT, some older folk know Russian. And 10000$ would get you settled for months, people there don't make that in a year on average. Don't know much about the visa/bank account issues - maybe you could open a business and setup a bank account through that.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is also super cheap and a wild west regarding laws - people buy anything there - diplomas, citizenship. Also have working banking system. But standard of living is considerably worse.