@Bobko, that's a pity, I thought that as someone living in New York you'd find that video interesting, considering that this guy is a New Yorker :)
that Russia was not included.
That's because you wrote that you suspect
Ukrainians "view Poland as a gateway to Europe" and that guy came from Ukraine and decided to stay in Poland and not move to the West, even though he knows the West. In that video he's giving his reasons why he decided to stay with his girlfriend in Poland (and now they have a baby too).
Moscow
Moscow is just one city :)) What about other cities? And towns and villages? The whole huge country of Russia? Everyone can't live in just one city, you wrote yourself that Moscow is overcrowded. And there's still the mentality of people, the corruption, etc. even in Moscow.
Now here's a thing, I've learned something about how things are in Eastern Europe vs Poland thanks to watching videos of people who moved from Eastern Europe to Poland. Especially that Russian guy from Transnistria, Roman, explained it well in his videos. According to him in Eastern Europe it's all about the capital of the country. Everyone is moving to the capital, everything is about the capital city and the rest of the country is neglected. The same pattern can be observed within a city - the city centre is taken care of in order to look nice and the rest of the city is neglected. It isn't the case in Poland (according to him and other Russians and Ukrainians of whom videos I've watched).
So, in Russia it's all about Moscow and similarly in Ukraine it's all about Kyiv - that's where everyone is moving to or wants to move.
I don't know, maybe it's changing now in case of Moscow, because as you say it's overcrowded, but I knew from both Russians themselves and Poles living in Moscow, that everyone, even within Russia, was moving to Moscow, as if there were no other cities (maybe exept for St. Petersburg to some degree). What's the state of the rest of the country? What is the quality of life like and the standard of living? Are neighbourhoods where ordinary people live well taken care of? What about small towns and villages?