Category Archives: Immigration

Vedomosti has a great article on the history of Russia’s housing crisis. Housing, as Maksim Trudoliubov notes, is a chronic historical problem in Russia, one which the Soviets tried to attenuate, but made little headway until the 1960s.  “The comfort of our home life is still not good for many of us,” Trudoliubov begins.  “As in the early Soviet and even in the “mature Soviet” period housing was the main problem for the majority of citizens.  Life was collective not because the state managed to inculcate citizens with a fancy for the romanticism of “communal life,” and because of this all of Stalin’s construction projects must be seen in this light. There’s just not enough housing (as is the case up to the present).  But even more important, housing–from the bunks in dormitories to elite apartments in nomenclature buildings–was an instrument of manipulating people.”

Indeed, as Truboliubov continues, solutions to the ..read more

Hypochondriacs beware!  Swine flu has officially landed in Moscow. According to Novyi region, two women have been hospitalized in the capital. “Both women are citizens of Russia.  One of them arrived in Russia from New York yesterday, the second today.  They had fevers and were admitted to the hospital by our insistence,” Gennadii Onishchenko told Interfax. Interestingly, in Russia doctors call the virus, which has damned the good name of the pig the world over, “California 0409.”  That should make pigs feel better, but what of the sensitivities of us Californians?

Swine flu’s arrival makes Russia the fifteenth country to be infected.  The global hysteria sparked by the pandemic has led to altering flights, calls for a mass slaughter of pigs,  the quarantining of hotels at the first site of a Mexican tourist, and a whole host of other theories.  In Israel, the deputy health minister Rabbi Yakov Litzman won’t even ..read more

Anti-racist activists finally have a reason to mildly celebrate.  Today, Russian xenophobe Aleksandr Belov was sentenced to six months in a penal colony for violating Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code (“Inciting hate and enmity as well as the debasement of human dignity”). The case stems from the Russian March in fall 2007 where Belov goaded protesters “to chant anti-Semitic and anti-government slogans.”

People were wondering whether Belov would serve any time at all. The authorities were apparently afraid that jail time would turn Belov into a martyr.

Belov’s sentencing also led to his resignation as leader of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI), Russia’s largest ultranationalist movement.  According to Belov, he was forced to resign because  if he was convicted while serving as DPNI’s leader, the organization would have been banned as extremist.  “I do not want to let my brothers-in-arms down. I’m sure that they will never denounce me. ..read more

Citizens of the Russian Federation comprise of the third highest number of asylum seekers according to statistics complied by the UN Refugee Agency.

The top country of origin of asylum applicants in 2008 was Iraq (40,500, down 10 percent from 45,100 in 2007), followed by Somalia (21,800), the Russian Federation (20,500), Afghanistan (18,500) and China (17,400). Of the 10 main nationalities claiming asylum last year, some remained stable while others registered significant increases.

Countries of origin recording a significant rise in applications included Afghanistan (up 85 percent), Zimbabwe (up 82 percent), Somalia (up 77 percent), Nigeria (up 71 percent) and Sri Lanka (up 24 percent). All of these countries experienced unrest or conflicts in 2008.

And where are Russian citizens going?  Poland, of all places.  According to the report, “As in 2007, Poland remained the prime destination for asylum-seekers from the Russian Federation in 2008, with a total of 6,600 new claims.” Poland ..read more

Anyone interested in migrant labor and ethnic/race relations in Russia, should check out “Diary of an Uzbek Gastarbeiter” on Opendemocracy.net.  It’s a harrowing story of an Uzbek migrant named Shukhrat Berdyev, 48, experience as a migrant laborer in Russia over a ten year period.  Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Berdyev had a bright future ahead of him.  He had a stable family life and was a student at the Tashkent Pedagogical institute and Communist Party member. All that ended in 1991, and Berdyev, who first visited Russia in 1980 as a tourist, returned as a day laborer.  I’ll only reproduce a few entries here, but the whole thing is worth a read to get an understanding of what Russia’s gastarbeiters must go through to eek out a living.

25-26 August 1998

At midday the director of the market, an Uzbek, told me to come and see him. He’d noticed that ..read more