In a globalized world-system, flows of migrant workers are essential for economic development. The constant need for affordable labor has forced countries to seek out workers beyond its own borders. Immigrants have tended to travel from poor under-developed nations to rich first-world capitalist countries in Western Europe and North America. In recent years, however, Russia has emerged as a country with one of the largest immigrant populations in the world. The dissolution of the Soviet Union was followed by the erection of new international boundaries between former Soviet republics. Over fifteen years after the collapse, the Russian Federation has emerged as the economic and financial power-house of the post-Soviet region. With its enormous revenue from gas and oil exports, Russia has undergone a rapid economic transition. By the late 90s, there was a growing economic disparity between Russia and the surrounding republics, most notably in the Caucuses and Central Asia. In the span of a decade, Russia transitioned from a migrant-exporting to an overwhelmingly migrant-importing nation. As a relatively recent phenomenon, Russia has not been able to respond to the reality of being a major destination for immigrants. Increased immigration to Russia has been the direct result of capitalist development and is therefore similar to other waves of migration experienced in the capitalist West. Nonetheless, the case of Russia is exceptional in more ways than one due in part to its historical legacy.
Throughout modern history, Central Asia and the Caucuses had been part of Russian territory, first as regions of the Russian Empire and later as socialist republics in the Soviet Union. Russian domination over neighboring ethnic and religious groups could be interpreted as being both imperialist and colonial. Yet unlike European colonialism, Russia did not annex territory for economic benefit in the forms of human labor and raw materials. The Russian Empire was, above all, a military and symbolic entity that used territory to exert geo-political pressure on its neighboring countries. Despite that fact that ethnic minorities were granted formal autonomy, the Soviet Union inherited a highly centralized state from the Russian Empire. The communist party, for example, promoted a policy of Russification throughout the Soviet republics. How is it then possible that former Soviet citizens with a common identity now regard each other as foreigners?

While the world expanded freedom of movement in order to enhance the flow of capital, the Soviet Union remained strictly speaking a police state. Mobility within the Soviet Union was extremely limited as a result of a complicated system of residency controls. Every Soviet citizen was issued an “internal” passport that had the individual’s name, address, ethnicity, marital status, and other information. In addition to this, each Soviet citizen has to possess a valid “propiska” (registration) from the local police. Any person caught by the police in the city without a valid registration was liable to imprisonment, banishment, and/or fines. Given this strict system of oversight, citizens could not simply relocate to different parts of the Soviet Union without obtaining a permit from the authorities. As a result, there was limited movement of people between the regions and republics of the country. Surprisingly, this archaic passport system is still in force in modern-day Russia, albeit in a less rigid form.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, human mobility has been greatly facilitated. Travel between Russia and other CIS republics is visa-free, open, and poorly regulated. As part of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the former Soviet republics have agreed to allow freedom of movement between member states. Unlike the European Union, however, the economic disparity between the respective countries is much greater. As is highlighted in “International Flows of Humanity”, migration is defined by the capitalist principles of supply and demand. In the case of immigration to Russia, it is important to look at the situation in terms of Bhagwati’s “push” and “pull” factors. Like with most forms of migration, economic inequality between the Central Asian republics and Russia is the main reason behind this flow of migration today. More importantly, however, than economic inequality are the cultural and historical bonds between Russia and its neighbors. As the former epicenter of the Soviet Union, Russia has retained its superiority in terms of industry, science, culture, military, and education. The geopolitical domination of Russia over this vast region has to a large extent predetermined the trajectory of migration movement because “inequality needs to be activated as a migration push factor – through organized recruitment, neocolonial bonds, etc.” (Sassen 136). This explains why Kyrghyz and Tadjik migrant workers are more likely to immigrate to Russia rather than to China or Iran. In this particular case, Russia’s relationship to its neighboring republic would be more aptly described as “neo-imperial” rather than “neo-colonial”. As far as the pull factors are concerned, the demographic crisis within Russia has left it in dire need of both skilled and unskilled workers in most sectors of the labor market. Construction firms and other private companies have been active in recruiting wage laborers from poor underdeveloped Central Asian countries. Unlike in Germany,however, the importation of migrants has developed outside of any national government programs and has remained largely unregulated.

On the surface, the immigration to Russia from Central Asia and the Caucuses seems to mirror the experience of post-World War II Western Europe. There is the post-imperial legacy, the need for cheap labor, and the concentration of capital in a single region. Generally speaking, this is a typical Center-Periphery dichotomy as is presented in word-systems analysis. Nonetheless, migrants arriving in Russia today experience an environment very different from that of Western Europe. Despite the recent economic success, Russia remains an extremely poor country, especially in its more distant regions. This situation creates conflict between the poor local ethnically Russian population and the migrant guest-workers from abroad. Whereas in Western Europe there was a “hunger for immigrants…to supplement the domestic labor force and also to ensure that the social security systems do not wind up bankrupt”, in Russia there is no functioning social system at the moment (Bhagwati 212). Guest-workers do not pay taxes in Russia, but neither do the majority of Russian citizens.

Bhagwati is naive in believing that “it is impossible to incarcerate migrants caught crossing borders illegally without raising an outcry over humane treatment” (216). Given Russia’s corrupt and undemocratic regime, the mistreatment of migrant workers hardly raises any eyebrows.


While European and North American nations are closing their borders to flows of migrant workers, Russia has left its borders open while providing a hostile environment for those workers that do migrate. Upon arrival, migrant workers encounter a complicated web of Soviet-style bureaucracy that is both confusing and frustrating. According to Russian law, migrant workers need to register at an immigration office within 3 days of their arrival in the country. According to Human Rights Watch this system is inefficient and complex:

Many migrant workers entering Russia under the non-visa regime do not have a job or a place to live when they arrive in Russia, and for most of them three days is a very short period in which to identify one or the other, unless they already have established contacts prior to their arrival (HRW 2009)


http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/02/09/are-you-happy-cheat-us

Therefore being unable to follow the official law on immigration, these migrant workers immediately become “illegal”. Here is a short advertisement produced by the Federal Migration Service warning potential immigrants of the dangers of failing to register with the authorities:



In the video a guest-worker named “Ahmet” goes to Russia and is too lazy to register legally, gets into trouble with the authorities, and is sent back to his village. The content of this video exposes the racist and discriminatory attitude of the Russian government officials towards migrant-workers. Abuse of migrant workers by police is rampant and gruesome. Anti-immigrant sentiment among the Russian population is extremely high. In the short span of time since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the “other” in the form of a guest-worker is “represented, stereotyped as from a different race and culture” (Sassin 135). In the photo below, Russian police is raiding a construction site with migrant workers. Usually, the police abuses, robs, and beats the workers before releasing them for a bribe.




Generally, most of the literature on flows of migration has focused on the immigration to capitalist democratic nations. Although Russia is indeed a capitalist nation thirsty for cheap labor, the concept of human rights is virtually non-existent within its borders. While large Western corporation have exploited cheap labor via outsourcing in Asia, immigrants within these countries borders have, to a large extent, enjoyed the same social, political, and economic rights as the local population. The European notion that “the individual is now an object of law and a site for rights regardless of whether a citizen or an alien” does not hold true in Russia (Sassen 23). Under a corrupt, semi-authoritarian regime, both the local population and guest-workers are to a certain extent limited in their political and social rights. Nonetheless the local Russian population feels threatened by its former neighbors turned foreigners. In essence, Russia is stuck in the nineteenth century with open borders, a lack of human rights, rapid capitalist development, and a need for cheap under-paid labor. At the same time, it is still attempting to maintain its influential historical and cultural role over the entire region. In the meantime, the suffering of migrant workers in Russia seems to have no end in sight.