Workers are putting up the stage for a concert on the Red Square, Moscow.
Photo: Alexey Kudenko
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The Great Non-Migration
Russians regions are not ready to welcome compatriots
The federal program to attract ethnic Russians back to the country, which started this month, has stumbled in its enforcement. Most regions are not ready to receive Soviet compatriots and cannot offer them the benefits which were promised. The regions lament a shortage of money, jobs and housing for new-comers. Meanwhile, ex-USSR citizens are not rushing to apply for immigration. Experts say the program is close to a failure. A source of Kommersant in the Kremlin noted that authorities in a number of CIS nations are countering the program.
Tver Region is the only one to have declared readiness to implement the program. Governor Dmitry Zelenin said the region is ready to welcome 7,300 people from CIS countries. The migrants will receive benefits, including mortgage ones, and jobs with monthly salaries of up to 25,000 rubles. Tver Region is the only district with this kind of offers for compatriots. Highly-skills specialists have earlier left the region for neighboring Moscow and St. Petersburg. Zelenin was among the movers of the program, and regional authorities quickly created conditions for it.
Tver is one of the 12 regions that take part in the federal program on the resettlement of Russians from CIS countries. President Vladimir Putin signed the blueprint this June. The program covers the years 2007-2012 and is aimed at bringing highly-skilled labor to Russian regions from the CIS. The propaganda component was present as well. Russia tried to demonstrate for Russian speakers in the former USSR that they are not forgotten but, quite on the contrary, they are in demand. 17 billion rubles is to be allocated to implement the program. The money will be spent on travelling to the place of residence and work and housing purchases. Russian authorities hoped to attract to Russia as much as 100,000 people (40,000 of them are able to work) next year. The 12 regions were to file applications on the number of foreigners they are ready to receive by September 1, this year.
The applications, however, are either not ready or include the lowest possible number of migrants that the regions are ready to accommodate next year.
Novosibirsk Region’s governor Viktor Tolokonsky, for one, showed no hospitality for migrants. “We are in shortage of housing, and we have lots of other problems,” he said. “It would be a better idea to attract Russian speaking young people to come to study here.”
Primorye Territory has not filed the application on the migrants to the government yet. The neighboring Khabarovsk Region hopes to get only 2,000 migrants. It all happens despite the fact that federal officials underline the strategic role of the Russian Far East in the program which was to halt the expansion of Chinese here. In 2007, Khabarovsk Region is waiting for 400 people while the city of Khabarovsk expects only 200. Elizaveta Telushkina, deputy economic development minister of Khabarovsk Regions, says “migrants will not enjoy particular benefits.” “It is going to be their employers’ business to provide them with accommodation. Employers will be granting loans to buy apartments,” Telushkina said.
Regional authorities have actually shifted the housing problems of would-be migrants on to employers. Tyumen Region is the only one district willing to compensate mortgage interest rates from the regional budget to migrants. In Kaliningrad Region housing prices skyrocketed after Governor Georgy Boos had expressed willingness to receive up to 300,000 migrants in the next ten years. Local experts believe that the hike came as an anticipation of a large number of migrants. As a result, the Affordable Housing national project is jeopardized in the region, the experts note.
Migrants, however, are in no hurry to go to the regions that expressed readiness to receive Russians. Only 596 people filed for migration to Kaliningrad Region though the area is willing to receive at least 10,000 migrants.
Experts predict the program to become a failure. “Instead of solving a personnel problem in regions, authorities are creating a heap of new ones. Regions just don’t have the money to accommodate so many people. That’s why they simply rush from this program,” said Konstantin Zatulin, director of the Institute for CIS Nations. “There is absolutely no informational backing for the program in the CIS. Nobody knows about it there. So, no wonder that there are so few applications to immigrate to Russia.”
Drafters of the program are convinced that nothing dramatic has happened to it so far. “We did not aim at getting as many people as possible. We just wanted to create auspicious and attractive conditions for our compatriots who want to make a contribution for this country,” Maxim Topilin, head of the Federal Labor Service, told Kommersant. “This is a very dynamic program. The budget was calculated on an assumption that we’re inviting 100,000 people in the first year. But we will surely have some amendments on the way.”
Modest Kolerov, head of the presidential administration’s international and cultural ties department, shares the upbeat opinion of the chief labor official. “The program is to be launched as late as in January. I’m sure we will have the influx. What we have now is only pilot estimates and testing the machinery. There are already 10 million migrants in Russia now. Another 3 million foreigners could come.”
The only problem that the program’s drafters admit is the hostile stance of some CIS countries. Sources of Kommersant in the Kremlin reported that Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan had welcomed the idea of resettlement. For instance, 600,000 people may move from Kyrgyzstan, and 55,000 people are already on a waiting list to leave the country. Russia is a traditional market for Kyrgyz human resources. An estimated $300-500 million comes from Russia to Kyrgyzstan’s budget in money transfers that Kyrgyz citizens who live and work in Russia send to their relatives. Kyrgyzstan’s budget totals $550 million.
Ukraine and Kazakhstan, however, have put up a vehement opposition for the movement, according to the source of Kommersant. Russian officials do not make secret of the fact that Russia is set to attract highly-skilled human resources, primarily engineers and technicians, including those from the military industry. “Kazakhs got indignant and commissioned articles in the press with slogans like ‘We won’t let it happen!’ The same thing with Ukraine. Local official made it clear to us that the outflow of Russians from Ukraine is undesirable. For instance, the Ukrainian East is not happy that we are encroaching on their tank specialists and employees of secret military machinery building plants,” the source said.
Indeed, Kazakh authorities have not commented on the migration issue directly but local media encouraged a heated debate of the matter. Heads of Slav Cossack communities have backed the resettlement, championing benefits for former compatriots in obtaining the Russian citizenship. The patriotic part of the Kazakh elite believes, however, that valuable personnel should remain in the country. Over 2 million people have already left Kazakhstan since 1993.
Officials in Ukraine preferred to announce their attitude to the program openly. Leonid Grach, head of the Supreme Rada’s human rights, national minorities and international relations committee, told Kommersant that the emigration of ethnic Russians is highly undesirable for Ukraine. “Russia is calling its compatriots to come back – fine, it is their right. What is more, Ukrainian authorities have sneezed at the Russian language, culture and traditions for the last 15 years,” Grach says. “In any case, the emigration of some 11 million ethnic Russians will be a catastrophe for Ukraine in terms of science, technology and national identity, that is why we cannot let it happen.”
Counting Fellow Russians Abroad
Between 20 and 30 million Russian speakers are estimated to live abroad now.
A large Russian community was formed in CIS and Baltic nations back in the time of the Soviet Union. 30 million people were living there before the collapse of the USSR in 1991. 3 million Russians moved to the republics between 1991 and 2005. At present, various estimates put the number of Russians residing in the CIS and Baltic countries at 16-20 million, which means that from 13 to 17 million Russians went back to Russia after 1991.
The largest Russian community lives in Ukraine where 8.3 million people consider themselves Russians and 14.3 million call Russian their mother tongue. Other big Russian communities can be found in Kazakhstan (4.1 million people), Belarus (1.2 million) and Uzbekistan (some 1 million).
1.2 million people left Russia in 1991-2005 for elsewhere. The total number of Russians living outside the former USSR is estimated at 5-9 million, taking into account earlier emigrants (12 million people left Russia between 1917 and 1991) and their descendants.
The largest Russian speaking communities are situated in Germany (about 3 million people), the United States (2.9 million) and Israel (1.2 million).
Ivan Tyazhlov
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 11, 2006
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