“The quality of labour migrants in Russia is higher than in other countries”

Interview by Daria Melikhova, exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza

President Vladimir Putin approved the Concept of Social Security of Russia; it requires the development of complex target programs on the prevention of lawlessness, social and inter-ethnic conflicts. The necessity of the document is explained by several factors. One of them is ethnic conflicts which are caused by the short-sighted migration policy of previous years.

Rinat Karimov, the chairman of the labour migrants’ union, told Vestnik Kavkaza about ways out of the difficult situation in the sphere.

-          What measures should be taken to make migration policy effective in Russia?

-          A complex of measures is needed. Firstly, those labour migrants who plan to move to Moscow should be told that about 2 million migrants live in Moscow today, most of them are from the CIS countries. Plus, there is internal migration. At the same time, the government of Moscow sets a quota for labour migrants who can work in Moscow – 150,000 people. It is less than 10%. It is for 2013, while in 2014 the quota will reduce. Thus, they have to think twice before coming to Moscow which is overwhelmed with labour migrants. The Russian Federation is a big state which has more than 80 constituents. Some regions of the federation have a different situation; there are jobs, but they lack local population and labour migrants. A certain targeted work should be provided among labour migrants who live in Moscow, so that they would be motivated to move to the regions of Russia, which demand them. It is a great work. Of course, salaries are smaller there in comparison to Moscow. But expenditures are also smaller in other regions. They can rent a cheap apartment and so on. I think these are two essential moments which could normalize the situation; however, it will take a lot of time.

-          Do you think visas should be launched for the CIS countries?

-          These days everybody thinks that visas are a panacea: if we launch visas, the number of migrants will reduce. We shouldn’t forget that Russia has 11 million labour migrants, and they will stay here and nothing will change. This is the first point.

Secondly, a person will get some kind of visas anyway. We travel all over the world, visiting Egypt and Europe; and tourist visas are available. You need only to book a hotel to get a visa. Even if citizens of neighboring countries get not labour visas, but tourist visas or visas for education, when they will come to Russia they will stay here illegally, like many of them today.

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Rinat Karimov thinks that even though labour migration is a global process, migration processes in the post-Soviet space are unique: “We had one state, we had one common language of international communication. These people went in a Soviet school. If he is a turner in Tashkent, he will be the same turner in Barnaul, Novosibirsk, Moscow. It was the same country with a common history. So, the quality of labour migrants in Russia is higher than in other countries. Labour migrants from Africa where the general level of development is lower than in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan, and Armenia come to Italy. Greece receives migrants from Bangladesh which is underdeveloped in its economic and educational level. A quality of a labour migrant from Bangladesh and Gabon is much lower than the quality of a labour migrant from Tajikistan.”

“There are 11 million migrants in Russia, while the quota is 1.745 million people. Sometimes people misinterpret the figure and think that 1.745 million people can come to Russia in 2013 additionally to 11 million. It is a dangerous mistake. It means that only 1.745 million people among 11 million can stay in Russia. 8.3 million migrants should leave Russia,” Karimov stated, explaining the situation by a simple example. “When you come home and see that the tap is dripping, your bath is full and your apartment is flooded, a good housewife runs to turn the water off, a bad housewife starts dragging water and pouring it into drains without turning the water off. The Russian Federation is a bad housewife who tries to deport migrants without regulation of their inflow, i.e. turning it off. To turn it off, no visas will help, but the head of the state could address labour migrants: “Don’t come to us anymore because we have a unique period in Russia, when we can do without you.” However, instead of this, our President last year told the Tajik in Tajikistan that you would have a benefit in migration registration – a term would be not 7, but 15 days for you; and you would get license not for a year, but for three years. And a poor Tajik citizens think that the Big Russian Brother takes care of them, think that they will have a better life here and come to Russia. It concerns geopolitical interests. Thus, geopolitical interests interpreted in such a way are unfavorable for Russia.