Constantine Romodanovsky, head of the Federal Migration Service (FMS) of Russia, attended government hour in parliament today. He said that most vendors in Moscow's markets do not speak Russian, despite having Russian citizenship. The official proposed scrapping the simplified process of citizenship granted to Kyrgyzstan, because many foreigners receive citizenship for commercial purposes only, RIA Novosti reports.
Romodanosky said that over 260,000 people are registered at only 6,000 addresses, which means 43 people living per address. Some of them may be criminals registered illegally. Russia has registered about 800,000-900,000 violations by foreigners and over 1.5 million by Russians in the last 5 years. He noted the need to limit migrants’ access to Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The FMS will use advanced equipment to monitor migrants, it will form a registry of active and outdated passports to prevent frauds. The service will simplify temporary accommodation terms for foreigners arriving for treatment or visiting relatives.
The temporary accommodation permission system is outdated, Romodanovsky says. There are no legal reasons to allow foreigners to stay, unless they arrive for work. He proposed adjusting the terms of temporary accommodation by adding categories of foreigners’ visits.
The official noted that Russia had launched a program for pre-migrant training. The first group of graduates of polytechnical universities arrived from Central Asia to Russia with skills and knowledge of the Russian language.
173 such graduates arrived from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The first group arrived in St. Petersburg.
Leonid Slutsky, head of the parliamentary committee for the CIS, said that the Russki Mir Fund is realizing projects in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to teach locals the Russian language. 100 Kyrgyz and 100 Tajik people are involved. Their lessons started in September 2011. They will become technical specialists needed in Russia.
Slutsky hopes that further integration with Russian partners within the framework of the Single Economic Space and Eurasian Union would coordinate migration processes.
