EX-SOVIET IMMIGRANTS FACE HOSTILE RUSSIA
by Dario Thuburn
Agence France Presse — English
December 4, 2006 Monday 2:46 AM GMT
They were once citizens of a single state. But 15 years after the
Soviet Union’s collapse, immigrants from former Soviet republics are
now considered undesirable foreigners in Russia.
"I see this every day," said Gavkhar Dzhurayeva, who heads the Law
and Migration centre in Moscow, an organisation that aids thousands
of labour migrants from across the former Soviet Union.
Many Russians refer to their former Soviet brothers with open contempt,
blaming them for crime and dirty streets. People from Central Asia
get called "churki" ("idiots"), those from the Caucasus "khachi"
("simpletons").
But Dzhurayeva, who fled from the Central Asian state of Tajikistan
after a civil war erupted in 1992, said she could not shake the
feeling that she ought to be welcome in Russia.
"For me it’s very difficult to change my consciousness and see Russia
as a different country. I still have a Soviet mentality," she said.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants leave their homes in poor former
Soviet republics each year to find work in Russia, mostly in major
cities like Moscow, and send money home to their families.
Many work on the rumbling construction sites that are ubiquitous in
Moscow and other Russian cities, or else work as cleaners, stallholders
and street sweepers, eking out a precarious existence in the shadow
of police abuses, organised crime and racist violence.
One of the most prominent and deadly cases of recent racist violence
came in August, when a group of ethnic Russian ultranationalists
detonated a bomb in a market frequented by many immigrants from
Central Asia and the Caucasus, killing 11 people.
"These foreigners are considered second-class citizens because of
their ethnic appearance," said Alexander Verkhovsky, head of the Sova
Centre in Moscow, which researches racism in Russia.
However they are treated, the influx of immigrants is turning Moscow
into a multi-ethnic city.
Between 1989 and 2002, the percentage of Russians in Moscow fell from
93.3 percent to 85 percent, while the proportion of immigrants from
the Caucasus states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia multiplied
five times to 4.5 percent, according to the Institute of Geography
at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Olga Vendina, an institute expert and author of a report entitled
"Ethnic Moscow," said southern parts of the capital had been most
affected, with the proportion of ethnic minorities rising from five
to 15 percent since 1989.
"Immigrants mostly try to fit into Moscow life and become like
everyone, not stick with their diasporas," Vendina told Russian media,
adding that the appearance of "ethnic ghettos" was linked to poverty.
President Vladimir Putin said earlier this year that the number of
immigrants, most of them illegal, may have reached 15 million, which
would give Russia the highest immigration rate in the world.
The trend is supported by the visa-free travel regime between most of
the former Soviet republics, which allows many immigrants to settle
in Russia illegally.
The high levels of immigration have led many in Russia, from
ultra-nationalist groups to mainstream politicians, to turn against
the visa-free regime.
"Everyone used to live in one country surrounded by barbed wire,
now everyone lives in a place that’s open to anyone and everyone,"
said Vladimir Zharikhin, head of the CIS Institute in Moscow.
"This is not normal," said Zharikhin, adding that the only solution
would be for individual countries of the former Soviet Union to
strengthen their borders with each other and impose visas.
Negative attitudes towards former Soviet immigrants are not shared
by all Russians, however, as many, particularly in older generations,
cling to the Soviet ideal of "friendship of the peoples."
A study conducted by the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public
Opinion in July found that 33 percent of Russians polled considered
citizens of former Soviet republics their "compatriots."
The leaders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine met in Belovezh Forest near
Minsk on December 8, 1991 and signed the Belavezha Accords dissolving
the Soviet Union.
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev announced his resignation 17
days later.