Russia’s migrants living on the edge

A Tajik worker chops window frames for firewood in a migrant settlement outside Moscow

Three times a week at a quarter past three, Batyr goes to Moscow’s Kazansky railway station to meet the train from Tashkent. Smartly clad in a black leather jacket and winklepickerish shoes, the Uzbek youth stands out among the passengers laden with plastic luggage spilling on to the platform. “I can get you anything you want – passport, immigration papers, work permit,” he says, ignoring a group of policemen hovering nearby. “Just call my mobile. We can meet at any Metro station or anywhere you like.”

Kazansky station is the hub for trains arriving in the Russian capital from former Soviet Central Asia. Its mock-medieval arrivals hall and warren of bustling underpasses are a favourite haunt of traders selling khogos – an Uzbek word meaning documents – to migrant workers, and anyone else who is interested.

Over the past decade, there have been plenty who are. Russia is taking in migrants on an unprecedented scale to fill a growing hole in its work force. Among the largest group are Central Asians fleeing poverty and political oppression to earn money to support relatives at home. Official statistics are hard to come by but independent experts believe at least 3 million migrants from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are working in and around Moscow alone – most of them illegally.

These largely poor and uneducated Central Asians will accept menial, low-paid jobs that Muscovites don’t want to do – slaving on construction sites, sweeping streets and hauling heavy loads at city superstores and markets. Once citizens of the same country bonded by a shared language and communist ideology, Central Asian migrants now live on the fringes of Russian society, hounded by police, exploited by employers and increasingly disliked by much of the population.

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Uzbek labourers queue in Moscow

From the nearest bus stop, it is an hour’s walk to the shack Tahir has built in marshy scrubland outside Moscow’s ring road. Along the way the Tajik migrant scans the path for signs of police van tracks in the mud. “I have worked all over Russia ... there are homeless people everywhere,” he says. “For some reason the police always pick on us migrants.”

Tahir, now in his late-forties, arrived in Russia in 2001 after fleeing the aftermath of a violent civil war that left Tajikistan in ruins. For the first few years he led an itinerant life, labouring at construction sites in Russia’s booming oil towns and building country houses for the new rich along the Volga river. Worn out and limping from a leg injury, he now picks up odd jobs in construction. In a good month he earns about $700 (£450) – a fortune in Tajikistan but barely enough to lead a normal life in Moscow, let alone leave spare cash to send home. Poverty has driven him into a life of petty corruption on the margins of society. “There are no jobs back there and it’s not going to change,” he says. “I have to live here to feed my family.”

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A bulldozer could make light work of Tahir’s rickety shack. The foundations are a jumble of kitchen sinks and lorry tyres, supporting walls of corrugated iron. In the middle a stove fashioned out of an old tin trunk belches smoke. A couple of policemen know about the place but Tahir pays them Rbs1,000 (£20) a month to turn a blind eye. It’s far cheaper than renting a room in Moscow.

But a recent spat between Russia and Tajikistan could put an end to this precarious security. In November, the Kremlin flew into a fury when a Tajik court sentenced a Russian pilot to eight-and-a-half years of hard labour for smuggling. In the name of a crackdown on illegal immigration, Russian police rounded up hundreds of Tajik workers. Tajikistan caved in and released the pilot even as the first migrants were deported.

Nationalism is on the rise in Russia and the pilot case became a cause célèbre – the Kremlin had put tiny, impoverished Tajikistan in its place and taught illegal migrants a lesson. Russian commentators let rip about the threat migrants posed to the health, security and cultural identity of the nation. TV stations wrapped footage of revolutions in Kyrgyzstan and dire poverty in Tajikistan into their coverage of the scandal, portraying Central Asians as a dirty and dangerous lot. Last month, Gennady Onishchenko, Russia’s chief public health official, said a temporary ban on Tajik migrants should be considered to slow the spread of TB and HIV-Aids.

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Uzbeks arrive at the city’s Kazansky station

Immigration is new to Moscow. Twenty years ago the city was populated almost entirely by Slavic Russians and it has struggled to adapt to the growing influx of migrants. Lev Gudkov, a sociologist who runs the Levada Center, a polling agency, says almost half of Muscovites are opposed to immigration and many would like to see all migrants forcibly deported. City officials have stoked racial tensions. “Claims that migrants are responsible for most of the crimes committed in Moscow are simply not true,” Gudkov says.

Among migrant groups, Central Asians are the poorest, the most despised and the most visible because they usually work outdoors. Jobs tend to be divided by nationality. The Kyrgyz have most of the street-sweeping jobs in elite quarters of central Moscow where residents can afford generous tips and there are rich pickings from dustbins. Tajiks are known as good builders and are often employed to renovate apartments or do odd jobs at smart country houses outside the city. Traditionally, Uzbeks like trading and work in markets.

Unable to pay for decent accommodation, Central Asian migrants cram into shabby rented rooms, despised by their Russian neighbours who have only recently escaped the confines of Soviet-era communal apartments. Others, like Tahir, squat in basements or demolished buildings, hoping to escape the eye of anyone who might report them to the authorities.

Unlike migrants from the Caucasus, few Central Asians want to settle in Russia, says Gudkov. But they are not wanted by their governments at home, where they would only swell the ranks of the unemployed. Remittances account for more than one-third of the gross national product in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. “They are working here because they have no other way to support their families. They try to stay in the shadows and avoid the attention of police,” he says.

But xenophobia has recently spread to the general public. On November 4, when Russia officially celebrates National Unity Day, at least 7,000 Muscovites turned out to join the annual Russian March. They included skinheads in masks chanting racist slogans, Christian Orthodox fundamentalists, retired couples and parents with their children.

Experts give a number of explanations. The loss of the Soviet empire has left older Russians with an overwhelming sense of low self-esteem, says Gudkov. “They blame the weakest social group – the migrants,” he says.

Uzbek cleaner in a Moscow hostel

Young Russians, meanwhile, disappointed by the lack of opportunities, vent their frustration on the same group, according to Nataliya Zolotova, an expert on migrants at the Russian Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. “Hating migrants is just a channel of dissatisfaction. The degradation of Russian education and healthcare has “given birth to the monster idea that migrants are the enemy.”

Alexei Malashenko is a specialist in Central Asia at the Carnegie Moscow Center. He says a “hierarchy of hate” has developed among Russian xenophobes. “Migrants from the Caucasus are loathed, but they are also respected because they strike back when attacked,” he says. “Central Asians are hated as well, but they are less aggressive and no one is afraid of them. They are considered as lesser brothers and slaves.”

This pattern is also recognised by Vera Galperina who works at the Sova Center for Information and Analysis, an organisation that monitors hate crime in Russia. “Unless attacks result in murder or serious injury, Central Asian migrants rarely report racial violence to the police.” As a result, Central Asians are soft targets for attack. “What worries me most is that there are so few complaints – they see being covered in bruises as an inescapable side-effect of living in Russia.” This means that unscrupulous employers exploit Central Asian workers as a cheap, malleable source of labour. Illegal migrants are unlikely to complain about unpaid wages for fear their masters turn them over to the authorities.

A group of forlorn-looking Tajik migrants waits in the anteroom of the Committee for Civil Assistance, an organisation that provides legal support for labour migrants. Anastasia Denisova, who advises on advocacy, says more than 400 people have come to the committee this year alone complaining about non-payment of wages – many of them representing whole teams. “Many migrants are really forced labourers. Employers give them an advance and then no more money is forthcoming,” she says. “Then they are trapped – they can’t pay to register, can’t send money home and can’t leave.”

Sorbon Zhumakhonov came to the Committee for help after a brawl at a Moscow carwash almost cost him his life. It happened last summer when migrant workers demanded their wages and the boss, fearing a rebellion, called in the mob. “Four or five jeeps arrived and some thugs I did not recognise jumped out and started beating us up,” says the Tajik migrant, speaking in the flat tones of a person who has seen too much violence. “One of the men grabbed me by the neck, dragged me behind the pumps and broke my nose with the butt of his air gun. I tried to run but he shot me in the back at short range.”

Moscow courts are inundated with cases involving the abuse of migrant labour, but few are settled in favour of migrants, according to Denisova. Zhumakhonov’s case will probably be no exception. The Committee has provided the migrant with a lawyer but the investigation has stalled. “It appears that there is some collusion between the [migrant’s] former employer and investigators,” she says.

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Uzbeks at work on the city’s streets

As in European capitals a debate is under way in Moscow about how much immigration should be controlled. But in Russia’s case the discussion is more complicated because immigration controls are corrupt and policy makers feel compelled to satisfy so many conflicting interests.

Moscow has set a target to lift the country’s population to 145 million by 2025 from the current level of 143 million. However, even if this goal is met the country will need to import at least 10 million workers in the coming decade to fill the gap in the labour force. “Moscow cannot survive without more migrants. There is no question about it,” says Gudkov. “The population is getting old, the labour market is growing and young Muscovites don’t want the low-status jobs that Central Asian migrants do.”

Nataliya Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank, believes the migrant population will continue to grow unless the Russian economy totally collapses. Some firms have begun laying off Russian workers and hiring cheaper migrant labour as concern grows over the eurozone crisis. Meanwhile the threat of a breakdown in security in Central Asia as instability spills over from Afghanistan and Pakistan is encouraging more, not less migration from the region. “It’s better to live in a big oil-rich country like Russia than a poor country without oil like Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan,” she says.

“Russia is caught in a trap,” says Malashenko. On the one hand the Kremlin has encouraged the “Russia for Russians” policy to unify the population and distract attention from social and economic ills. But at the same time the authorities realise they have to allow an inflow of low-cost migrant labour from Central Asia to keep economic growth on track.

The fact that the Kremlin still clings to its past as a mighty Eurasian country adds an ideological dimension to the problem. “We cannot shut our borders to them for historic reasons,” says Ekaterina Egorova, deputy director of the Federal Migration Service. “Not long ago we were all one family.”

But the cultural and ideological ties that once bound the peoples of Russia and Central Asia have disappeared since the Soviet Union collapsed. Many young Central Asian migrants do not speak Russian and find the culture alien. As Slavic Russians re-embrace Christian Orthodoxy, Central Asians are discovering their historic roots in Islam. And while officially Russia proclaims its tolerance of different religions, Malashenko warns that religion has begun to stoke tensions. “A few years ago nobody ever mentioned the religious identity of migrants. But now there is a growing perception that Muslim migrants are a threat,” he says.

Russia’s Federal Migration Service has not yet begun to develop a policy to integrate migrants in society. Instead the service is focused on the battle against illegal immigration. “It’s not going to be easy,” says Malashenko. “Many enterprises, police and officials have a lot to lose.”

Complex bureaucratic procedures introduced to keep track of migrants and their employers only serve to push both sides to the wrong side of the law, says Zotova. “There are so many layers and layers of permits – just like a Russian Matryoshka doll. The immigration problem is not really about migrants. It’s about the problem of Russia’s shadow economy.”

Isabel Gorst is an FT correspondent based in Moscow

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