MBBS in Russia vs Georgia 2026: The Honest Comparison, With Sources

Almost every Russia-versus-Georgia comparison online repeats the same figures, and a surprising number of them do not survive a check against the source. So before writing this we parsed the NBEMS institute-wise performance reports country by country, pulled tuition from universities' own signed fee orders, and checked the current status of NExT against the NMC notice itself.

Where the popular answer turned out to be wrong, we say so and show the document. Where something genuinely is not published, we say that too rather than inventing a range.

Quick overview

Both countries run six-year English-medium medical degrees that Indian students use to sit FMGE. They differ in three ways that actually change your experience: the language you will work in on the wards, the FMGE record of graduates before you, and how the total bill lands once you look past the headline tuition.

One thing to clear up first, because it appears in nearly every comparison: you will read that Russia and Georgia together account for some precise share — often around 42% — of Indian students studying MBBS abroad. No such figure is published. Neither NMC, NBEMS, the Ministry of Education nor any parliamentary reply publishes a country-wise split of Indian medical students abroad. The closest real proxy is FMGE candidate counts, which tell you where graduates are coming from rather than where students currently are.

Full head-to-head comparison

What each university actually charges

Russian state universities are legally required to publish tuition as a signed rectoral order, so these are not estimates. Georgian private universities publish theirs in US dollars on their own sites. Here is what each says for the current intake:

Read that table by row, not by flag. "Russia is cheaper" is true at the bottom — Stavropol costs less than half of Tbilisi State — and simply false at the top, where Kazan is the second most expensive university on the list. The countries overlap; the universities do not. Anyone comparing Russia and Georgia as blocks is hiding a ₹4 lakh spread inside each one.

Two things the table deliberately does not include. Tbilisi State also runs an American MD track at US$13,500 a year — a different programme, not the one most Indian students take, and quoting it as "Georgia's fee" would be misleading. And we have left out monthly living costs as a single number, because no university publishes one: Tbilisi State's own site says students spend roughly US$300–600 a month on rent plus US$150–250 on other costs, which is a range wide enough that a single figure would be fiction.

FMGE pass rates — the deciding factor

Your degree is worth nothing in India until you clear FMGE, which makes this the one comparison that should carry real weight. NBEMS publishes performance by institution and country, so this can be measured rather than asserted. We aggregated every institution in each country from the published reports; the per-country totals below reproduce each report's own grand total exactly.

Georgia leads in all three years, and by a wide margin in 2023 — 26.26% against 19.43%, when the national average was 16.65%. That is a real, repeated advantage and it is the strongest argument for Georgia that exists.

Two honest qualifications, though. First, a country average is not a university. Russia's 29.54% in 2024 is an average across 59 institutions whose individual rates run from single digits to well above Georgia's national figure — some Russian universities beat the Georgian average outright — Orenburg State Medical University passed 194 of 447 (43.40%) in the same report. Choosing a country and assuming you have chosen a pass rate is the most common mistake in this decision. Our FMGE pass rates hub has the university-level table for exactly this reason.

Second, Georgia was not the world leader in every year either. In the 2022 report Bangladesh passed 801 of 1,771 candidates — 45.23%, comfortably ahead of Georgia. Georgia did lead in 2024 among every country sending more than a thousand candidates, but "highest in the world, always" is not what the data says.

What about NExT?

You will see it written that NExT replaces FMGE from 2026. It does not. NMC public notice No.Cdn.19012/15/2022/Coord-NMC, dated 13 July 2023, states that the National Exit Test is deferred on the Ministry's advice until further directions from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and that deferral has not been lifted. NEET PG remained the postgraduate gateway for 2026, and FMGE continues to run twice a year — the June 2026 session was held on 28 June 2026. Plan for FMGE, and treat any specific NExT start year you see quoted as a prediction rather than a notification.

Language — the real difference

If one factor explains the FMGE gap, this is the candidate. It is also the factor most often glossed over, because "taught in English" is technically true of both countries and hides the part that matters.

• ›Russia. Russian universities describe their English track precisely, and the phrasing is revealing: it is training with включенное обучение на языке-посреднике — "an intermediary language". English is the medium of instruction; Russian is the language of the hospital. Russian is taught alongside the degree because patients, nurses and ward staff do not speak English. How much this affects you depends on the university and the year, which is why you should ask for it in writing.
• ›Georgia. The MD programmes Indian students take are delivered in English throughout, clinical years included, and Georgian universities generally do not require you to reach working fluency in Georgian to complete the degree. That removes an entire category of difficulty.
• !What to actually ask. Not "is it taught in English" — both will say yes. Ask: which years are taught in which language, what language ward rounds and patient histories are conducted in, and whether the Russian or Georgian language course is examinable. Get the answer in writing before you pay a deposit.

Safety, climate and student life

On the Global Peace Index 2026, published each June by the Institute for Economics and Peace and covering 163 countries, Georgia ranks 94th (score 2.066) and India 127th (2.409). Russia ranks 163rd and last (3.367), for the second consecutive year, a placement driven overwhelmingly by the ongoing conflict rather than by conditions in a university city.

Use that with care in both directions. It does not mean a student in Kazan is in danger, and it equally does not make Georgia one of the world's safest countries — a claim that circulates widely and is simply wrong. 94th of 163 is mid-table. What a prospective student should weigh instead is concrete: how cold the winter gets in that specific city, how large the existing Indian student community is, how far the campus is from a major airport, and what the university's own hostel and security arrangements are.

• ›Climate. Georgia's is milder. Russian winters vary enormously by city — this is a real quality-of-life factor over six years, and worth checking for the specific city rather than the country.
• ›Cohort size. Russia's Indian community is substantially larger — 11,276 Russia-trained candidates sat FMGE in 2024 against Georgia's 4,221. A bigger cohort usually means established student associations, Indian mess facilities and seniors who have been through the same paperwork.
• ›Class size and teaching style. Georgian private universities generally run smaller cohorts than the large Russian state universities. Ask each university for its actual batch size for international students rather than relying on a national generalisation.

Universities, and how to check one yourself

Universities Indian students commonly ask us about in each country:

Whichever country you lean towards, run the same three checks on the specific university before you commit — they take about ten minutes and they are the whole of due diligence:

• ›Search it in WDOMS. Confirm it is listed and currently operational. Note what the directory says about itself: listing does not denote recognition, accreditation or endorsement. It is a floor, not a seal of quality.
• ›Look up its FMGE record, not its country's. The university-level table is where the decision actually lives.
• !Get the FMGL-2021 conditions confirmed in writing — 54 months of study plus a 12-month internship at the same institution, in English, with the degree licensing you to practise in that country. This is the condition that catches people, and it catches them in Russia more often, because the six-year Russian specialist degree does not automatically include a separate internship year in the sense NMC means. Our NMC rules guide goes through each condition.

The verdict — who should choose what

Georgia has the better case on the evidence. It has led Russia on FMGE in all three published years, its clinical teaching is genuinely in English, and its climate and mid-table peace ranking make for an easier six years. If clearing FMGE at the first attempt is your overriding priority and the fee difference is manageable, Georgia is the more defensible choice — and that is what the data says, not a preference.

Russia wins on price at the bottom of the range, and on scale. Stavropol at ₽285,000 is less than half of Tbilisi State, and no Georgian option comes close to it. Russia also has a far larger Indian student community, which is worth more than it sounds when you are nineteen and filing migration paperwork in a language you do not read. But be honest with yourself about the language question, because it is the thing most likely to bite.

The framing we would push back on is the one everywhere else: this is not really a country decision. A strong Russian university beats a weak Georgian one on every measure that matters, and both countries contain both. Pick three specific universities, run the three checks above on each, and compare those — talk to us if you want that comparison done properly for your marks and budget.