SOUTHERN AND EASTERN
MIGRANTS IN RUSSIA
KAARINA AITAMURTO
ALEKSANTERI INSTITUTE
KAARINA.AITAMURTO@HELSINKI.FI
THE RUSSIAN CROSS
REASONS FOR MIGRATION
• Russia is the second biggest receiver of migrant
after the USA
• Huge inequalities between the living standards
• Political pressure in many central Asian countries
RUSSIA NEEDS MIGRANTS
• For the demographics
• On such developing areas as Moscow and St.
Petersburg
• Migrants are doing the jobs that Russians will not?
HIERARCHIES OF MIGRANTS
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Citizens of Russian Federation
Officially registered migrants
People with ”non-Slavic appearances”
http://nelegal.ru/
THE EVERYDAY LIFE OF A MIGRANT
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Problems in housing
Problems in registration
Raids by the police
Nationalistic gangs
Exploitation by the
employer
LEGALTY AND ILLEGALITY
• Not a clear division, but a grey zone
• Soviet ”propiska” vs. current registration
• Racism and the discussion about the ”illegals”
MIGRATION POLITICS
• Sergey Abashin: there has not been one, but many
competing migration policies. No coherent line
• “The National Issue in Russia”, written by the President of
Russia, Vladimir Putin and published in Nezavisimaya
Gazeta in February in 2012: “The ‘melting pot’ of
assimilation is stalling and smoking, unable to ‘digest’ the
growing migration flow. In politics, a reflection of this fact
has been ‘multiculturalism’, which rejects the notion of
integration through assimilation. It elevates the ‘right of
minorities to be different’ to the absolute and, at the
same time, fails to balances this right with civil,
behavioral, and cultural obligations with regard to the
indigenous population and society as a whole.”
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT
• The rise of nationalism, including xenophobic
radical nationalism in Russia
• The target of nationalists is most often migrants
from South and South-East, a central element in
this criticism is the ”cultural argument”, the claim
that the migrants cannot integrate to (modern)
Russian society due to their cultural specificity
• Similar xenophobic rhetoric can also be found in
the mainstream media
• The increasing criticism of the authoritarianism of
the ruling elite and demands for political
reformations
• Putin’s proposal of the Eurasian Union
INTEGRATION OR ASSIMILATION
• Russian language
• There are not enough services
for migrants, especially the kind
they would need
• Education instead of practical
help
• The myth about the critical
number of migrants
• Western Europe as a warning
example
• The role of religion?
ILLEGAL MARKETS
(ANNA-LIISA HEUSALA)
• “Economic crime leads to direct monetary losses
and indirect societal consequences through
unhealthy market competition, loss of
entrepreneurial innovativeness and structural
corruption. Where firms hire workers illegally, there is
space for criminal organizations to emerge as
intermediaries or authorities in such markets. These
intermediaries – which can also include state
authorities of various levels - contribute to keeping
workers’ claims low, playing a sort of anti-union role.
The products and services themselves may suffer
from lower standards, thus in the worst case,
producing hazards to the wider public.”
WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO FIGHT
AGAINST ILLEGALITY
• The police system: reliance on bribes, quotas for
arrest
• Illegal migrants are cheap labor
• The prevalence of corruption, grey markets provide
much room for money laundering
THE CONSEQUENCES TO THE RUSSIAN
WELFARE REGIME
• Citizenship and citizen’s rights are not unambiguous
categories
• Social problems explained in ethnic or cultural terms
• Masses of socially unprotected migrant workers
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!