President Putin is asking the Duma to abolish the amendments to the Law on Citizenship initiated by his own administration only a year and a half ago. The authorities have understood that there is no point getting in the way of natural migration processes.
Thus, we could say that our government is capable of acknowledging its mistakes and listening to common sense, no longer trying to stop life’s natural flow. In an interview with Expert, Zhanna Zayonchkovskaya, who directs the laboratory for migration analysis and forecasting at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Economic and Social Forecasting, is convinced that the president made the only right decision.

- One of the most prevalent myths of the 90s was that Russia was soon going to be overwhelmed by a wave of immigration. Sure, all of us have witnessed some kind of change in this area. Nonetheless, migrant numbers and qualitative changes in migration patterns are two different things. In fact, in the ten years since the USSR fell apart, the number of immigrants to Russia has not changed compared to the 1980s. The increase in the migration balance, estimated at over four million people, is the result of a dramatic decrease in emigration from Russia.
- Are Russians the only ones who aren’t wild about immigrants?
- No, though this can’t be observed everywhere. Migrants are very active people. In big cities, their adaptation period usually lasts about one or two years. They either find suitable work or start creating jobs. Jobs that are also taken by locals. However, in small towns, against the background of alcohol-abusing locals, they stick out. Ill will toward them emerges. I often meet migrants and always advise them not to ask for too much, as there are a large number of people among the local population from disadvantaged groups like pensioners, people who have lost their savings, and the unemployed.
- Tell us something about the infamous “Chinese threat.” There’s the sense that this hysteria has actually been whipped up by governors pushing for government subsidies to prevent the Russian population from migrating.
- Our standard statistical reference says that Russian citizens cross the Russo-Chinese border twice as often as the Chinese. About 800,000 to a million Russians versus 400,000-500,000 Chinese. Both groups are shuttle traders and that’s how they earn a living. Yes, some of these Chinese settle in Russia, but some Russians also stay in China.
- How many illegal Chinese immigrants are there in Russia?
- I made some estimates in the later half of the 90s (most likely they were slightly exaggerated, as I was wary of underestimating). I ended up with 300,000 one-time visitors to Russia who did not live here permanently in the entire zone from Lake Baikal to Nakhodka. There were about the same number in Moscow City and Province, and in the Urals. My colleagues’ estimates in 2000 (they confirm that mine were exaggerated) were 400,000 one-time visitors total. Maximum. Far from the millions terrifying the governors.
- One of the conclusions of the opponents to liberalizing migration legislation is that Russia is losing money due to immigrant remittances.
- Just like other countries where immigrants work. But we also export coal, for example. Are we also losing out there? Yes, we are losing remittances, but in return we get labor and the products it produces. This loss, by the way, would be less if we had a normal banking system and banks took a percentage. Now migrants send cash. But that is really not the most important issue. No one has ever counted how many companies saved themselves from bankruptcy in the early 90s thanks to their workforce. What do we want, anyway? Moscow’s bus and tram depots can’t find enough drivers to work for their ridiculous salaries. Do you know how Ukrainian drivers live? We conducted some research in the mid 90s. You have two drivers for one bed. One works, the other sleeps. By any standard these are inhuman conditions, but people still agreed to them. They were even willing to work fourteen hours a day in order to earn some comp time to go home. We were also doing some work in the Rostov mines back then. I remember the figure of 800,000 rubles. The Russians quit. The Ukrainians thought it was good money. They saved our mines for going bankrupt.
- How does political stability and economic growth affect migration?
- You see, the consequences of the default had just begun to fade, a certain amount of increased activity began, and they introduced the permanent residency permit [Rus. vid na zhitel’stvo] in October 2000. Actually, they hadn’t even introduced it yet, but had only published a memorandum expressing the intention to do so. When this happened, people froze and movement decreased by 20%. This sort of thing continued with the Law on Foreigner Entry and those notorious migration cards. All without any preliminary warning. I am convinced that we will sit out this wave of stupidity. No matter what, companies will get around these obstacles by hook or by crook. The governors will help them do it, until the barriers come down.
Or let’s look at the new Labor Code. At a discussion of this Code, I heard one entrepreneur say that he couldn’t show his true workforce under the new code, just like he couldn’t under the old. Either he goes around the law or closes shop. Do we really want these companies to close? According to our forecasts, by the way, Russia will see a sharp decline in the workforce after 2006 and we will have to raise the retirement age, but this will only bring relief for four or five years. Then the decline will be even more marked.
- How large do you estimate the black market for labor is?
- It makes up about a third of the total labor market. I can’t imagine how, say, Sverdlovsk Province would get along without it. The entire workforce is from Kazakhstan. Of course, without the proper papers. Russians work the same way in Kazakhstan. The majority of countries react in the following way to illegal migrants. If a person has been living and working in a country for several years illegally but breaks no other laws, this person is given the right to legalize. The length of migrants’ stays work in their favor, and legalization become a sort of amnesty. Russia has never conducted any legalization measures in the post-Soviet era. Unfortunately. The labor deficit is growing. We especially need machinists, construction workers in the big cities, and drivers for public transportation in Moscow and other cities with populations of more than a million. We really need unskilled labor, work that Russians won’t agree to do.
- Have hard-headed political authorities caused some damage to Russia?
- Yes, thanks to them we have lost many Ukrainians, Moldavians, and Belorussians who could travel to almost all the Mediterranean countries without a visa. Russians needed visas, but they didn’t. Had politicians been smart enough, Russia would have had enough labor for five to seven years of dynamic growth. We did just the opposite, however. In 2000, at the peak of our economic upswing, the government introduced the permanent residency permit and Moldavians, literally in the space of a year, started looking to Israel and the Mediterranean. Russia lost its priority.
- How should Russia deal with migration?
- In the last several years we have been constantly repeating that our strategic fate in terms of migration is to welcome immigrants, and therefore we need not barriers, but smart policy to settle these people. Returning to the Chinese, we don’t need to limit them; we need to distribute them evenly, integrating their enclaves with communities of Koreans, Vietnamese, and so forth. Mixing populations will reduce the threat of Russia losing territory in the long term. Let them balance each other out. If we think that an area is strategically important, we need to support the area’s connections via people, transportation, etc. We need to analyze the types that predominate among these people and the way they settle into communities. Vietnamese and Koreans can’t create communities on the border which could then be united with their countries. That would make no sense, as there is no common border. The Chinese on the other hand do have an interest in increasing the size of their territory at the expense of their neighbors. We need to think all this through and act accordingly, instead of waiting until an area becomes totally devoid of people and then overrun by migrants we can’t deal with.

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