Central Asian migrants flee suspicious Russians as rouble sinks

To find the train for Tashkent, follow the crowd hurtling with trolleys laden with luggage across the otherwise quiet forecourt of Moscow’s Kazan station as if afraid they would fail to escape. Even travellers with tickets for the three-day journey to the capital of Uzbekistan have to push their way onto the over-booked carriages.

Others – such as young woman who wants to pay her way with a gold earring – appeal to avaricious conductors to let them on. “If you think this is chaos you should have been here before New Year’s,” said a police officer observing the scrum.

Over the past few weeks Russia has been seeing a mass exodus of migrant workers dismayed by the onset of what promises to be a deep economic recession and the collapse of the rouble that has melted away the value of their earnings. Adding to their difficulties, Russia has introduced tough new immigration controls that play on the popular suspicion of foreigners.

Reliable statistics are difficult to come by as many of the millions of migrants who have flocked from impoverished former Soviet republics to make their living in Russia take advantage of corrupt schemes to obtain fake residency permits and remain below the radar of the authorities.

Central Asian republics

Russia’s Federal Migration Service estimates that more than three-quarters of workers from the former Soviet central Asian republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have left Moscow recently, but says large numbers will return after the New Year’s break.

However Panzhi, an Uzbek boarding the train for Tashkent last week said he was making a final break with Russia after working for five years on construction sites in Moscow.

“Life is not getting better for migrant workers. It’s getting worse,” he said handing his passport stuffed with a wad of rouble notes to a conductor. “We won’t be coming back to work here any more. There’s no point.”

A year ago Panzhi’s monthly wages bought roughly $500, allowing him to send money home to support his family in Uzbekistan. That was before rouble depreciation, that began after Russia annexed Crimea in Ukraine in March 2014, gained pace last month after collapsing world oil prices say it spiralling downwards to lose more than half its value year on year. “I can earn $200 in Uzbekistan if I find a job so why would I put up with living here?” he said.

It’s not only the sinking rouble that is driving migrants away. Under tough new screening regulations that came into force on January 1st, Russia requires migrants from former Soviet countries to show a foreign passport before entering the country whereas before simple identity papers would do.

Passports are expensive to obtain in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and will add to the rising costs of working in Russia for migrants who now have to have to pass, and pay for, exams in Russian language, history, culture and law, undergo expensive medical tests and buy health insurance.

On top of these demands the Moscow city authorities have tripled the price of work permits to 4,000 roubles; $66 at the current exchange rate.

Russian officials say the tighter controls, that come on the heels of a wave of deportations last year, are necessary to clamp down on illegal migrants and ensure that foreign workers respect Russian traditions. In future migrants found over extending their legal stay in Russia will be barred from entering the country for up to ten years.

Returning migrants will put an immense strain on impoverished central Asian republics that have little to offer in the way of jobs and rely on remissions to keep their economies afloat.

Political dimension

Russia’s decision to tighten immigration controls also has a political dimension. Citizens of countries that are part of the new Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union, enjoy favoured status and will not be affected by the new regulations.

Migrant feeder countries Armenia and Kyrgyzstan have already agreed to join the union alongside a trio of founding members including Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan. Although the Kremlin wants to expand the bloc, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have not yet negotiated entry terms.

Even in Soviet times when they were all part of one country, Russians tended to look down at non-Slavic citizens and referred to central Asians as “little brothers.”

With nationalism on the rise, that patronising attitude has hardened to raw hatred and suspicion. More than 70 per cent of Russians favour the deportation of all migrants according to a 2013 study by the independent, Moscow-based Levada polling agency.

Yet although they are widely disliked, migrants serve a useful role accepting low pay for menial, often back-breaking jobs that most Russians don’t want to do.

As the stream of departing migrants grew to a flood early this month, Muscovites were calling into the Echo Moskvy radio station to complain that their dustbins were overflowing and there was no one to clear the snow that was clogging the city’s roads.