Migration ties between Russia and neighboring territories (the former outskirts of the Russian Empire, then the union republics of the USSR) have traditionally been centrifugal in nature, i.e. were sent from the center to the outskirts. This was the settlement of Novorossiya (southern) at the end of the 18th-19th centuries, settlement from the 18th century. and especially intensively - during the period of development of virgin lands (1950-1960s), Russian agrarian development of some regions of Central Asia, and during the period of industrialization - the formation of the working class in previously “backward national outskirts”. Urban population The republics of Central Asia, Transcaucasia, partly Ukraine and the Baltic states were largely formed by immigrants from Russia. In Russia, population migrations have also traditionally been centrifugal in nature: migrants from the center of the country settled and developed territories annexed to Russia in the north, south and east. In the 20th century The main direction of migration was eastern - the settlement of Siberia and the Far East. The population of the Far North grew especially rapidly. The exit areas for migrants were most of the Central regions. Since the 1960s among the inflow areas the share has increased Central Russia(Moscow and Moscow region), Leningrad and Leningrad region, and the pace of settlement in the eastern regions decreased. In the 1990s. trends in interregional migration changed dramatically: an outflow of population from the regions of the north and east began. For 1990-2000 Far East lost about 900 thousand people due to migration, the European North - more than 300 thousand people, Eastern Siberia - about 200 thousand people. Western Siberia has positive balance migration due to the influx of migrants from Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Migration between city and village, which throughout the 20th century. were sent from villages to cities (except during periods of war), in the early 1990s. have undergone changes. At the end of the 1980s. the intensity of migration between city and village decreased several times, and in 1991-1993. There was even a small influx of townspeople to the village. But subsequently the influx of migrants from the countryside to the city was restored, although less than in the 1980s.

Population migration is a combination of movements of people of different nature across the borders of certain territorial entities accompanied by a permanent or temporary change of residence. As we said in the previous chapter, migration can vary: by the nature of the borders crossed (external and internal), by duration (irrevocable, temporary, seasonal, pendulum), by the reasons that determined it (voluntary and forced), from the point of view of compliance with norms current legislation in the country (legal, illegal), by method of implementation (independent, organized). In this chapter we will look at the concept of " forced migration».

Forced migrants are people who flee their places of residence due to fear of violence, persecution or natural disasters. Legally, there are two categories of forced migrants in Russia - refugees and internally displaced persons. Refugees - faces without Russian citizenship who arrived in Russia fleeing persecution and temporarily residing in the country. Forced migrants include Russian citizens living in Russia or abroad and forced to leave their places permanent residence as a result? armed conflicts, persecution or natural disasters. Unlike refugees, internally displaced persons have the right to receive housing, loans and other types of assistance.

History has long been familiar with the forced movement of thousands of people from one region of the world to another. The problem of refugees appeared on earth even BC. The Assyrian army of King Sennacherib I, entering 1695 BC. to the lands of Judea, immediately warned the local residents that their homes would be occupied by Assyrian colonists. About 50,000 Jews hastily left their homes, moving to Egypt.

In 375 AD In the Roman Empire, refugees - the Goths - rebelled: about 300,000 people fled from the invasion of the nomadic Huns to the lands of Rome, where they were turned into semi-slavery. During the bloody uprising, Emperor Valens was killed, and the Goths received the right to settle where they wanted.

In the VII-IX centuries. As a result of the devastating Viking invasions of Britain, some 40,000 islanders moved to France, established temporary settlements and mixed with the local population.

The appearance of the ancient Slavs on the territory of future Russia was the result of migration. Migration was at the same time, to a large extent, the colonization of new territories for these people, which they developed. This migration-colonization gradually covered vast territories, which had a strong impact on the specifics of society and the state. The Slavs moved slowly between Aboriginal settlements, which could only have happened as a result of low population density. The Slavs settled in clans, tribes, and tribal unions. This process went in all directions, where natural obstacles did not interfere.

The reason for migration to new territories was not an absolute shortage land resource, but the limitless (at least it seemed to these people) real and potential opportunity for multiplication and development of new land resources that developed at certain stages.

Specifics of conditions and driving forces migration was organically connected with the specifics of the lifestyle. IN. Klyuchevsky drew attention to the way of life of peasants, which could only have developed with wide opportunities for migration and low settlement density.

Historian M.K. Lyubavsky, speaking about the XII-XIII centuries, wrote that Russian population in ancient times, it was located within its Pale of Settlement in groups, oases among the steppes, forests and swamps.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is a country with traditionally high population mobility. However, it is based on a difficult and free choice by citizens of their place of residence, determined by their individual preferences and characteristics of labor and housing market factors, but a completely different type of mobility, which is planned, mass and ordered, in a word, forced - in nature. The culmination of this kind of “mobility” was the deportation of the population, which rightfully became one of the main components Stalin's repressions. This unambiguous focus on the separation of masses of people from their established and familiar habitat and, therefore, on movement in space (sometimes many thousands of kilometers) is another fundamental feature that combines the problems of forced (forced) migrations with studies of “classical” migrations and giving it a priori a geographical character.

The thirties were a period of sharp intensification of the foreign policy self-isolation of the Soviet Union. It was then that the “curtain” began to be built, which was later called “iron”. In the mid-30s. A series of actions began to ensure the security of large cities, borders and border areas by “cleansing” them of “socially dangerous” elements, from the point of view of the Soviet leadership.

Since January 1936, the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) of Ukraine and Kazakhstan discussed the issue of eviction of 15 thousand Polish and German households (about 45 thousand people) from border zone Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Poles and Germans living along the then state border with Poland on the territory of the training grounds, the construction of which had just begun, were subject to resettlement. The main goal, obviously, was to stay safe.

In accordance with the resolution of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) and the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) dated July 17, 1937, special checkpoints were introduced on the borders of the USSR protective stripes or border areas. To organize them, 1,325 Kurds were evicted from the border regions of Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1937.

However, the main front of deportation operations in 1937 It was not the Western, but the Far Eastern border, and their main victim was, undoubtedly, the Koreans - the first ethnic group in the USSR to be subjected to total deportation. By October 25, 1937, 36,442 Korean households (171,781 people) had been evicted. Most of the migrants unloaded in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

So, entire regions in the Far East were completely deserted. Things were difficult with the settlement of empty lands. In the period from 1937 to 1939. Only 3,700 households arrived. Thus, it was not possible to compensate for the demographic and economic damage from the expulsion of Koreans.

Of course, in 1937-1939. “cleansing” was carried out not only on the western and eastern borders of the Union, but also on the southern, in particular, with Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. A total of 40 border regions of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were intended to be freed from the “unreliable element”. Total“new contingent” of those deported in 1933-1937. can be estimated at approximately 260 thousand people.

It is known that on September 1, 1939, with the German attack on Poland from the west, the Second World War. On September 17, having attacked Poland from the East, he entered it and Soviet Union.

After the occupation of the eastern voivodeships of Poland by the Red Army in September 1939, which were immediately turned into the western regions of the “reunited” Ukraine and Belarus, “cleansing” operations began in them as well. Polish, Ukrainian, Jewish and other “nationalists” now had to experience them for themselves. In 1940, the mass eviction of Poles began. There were four carefully prepared operations in total (February 10, April 9 and 13, June 29). The total number of deportees during this period was 275 thousand people. Deportations from the territory of annexed Polish lands continued until Hitler's attack on the USSR.

According to some estimates, a total of 1.6-1.8 million people were taken from pre-war Poland to the USSR, not counting Belarusians, Lithuanians and Jews.

The total number of deportees from the new western regions of the USSR in 1940-1941. reached 380-390 thousand people. The regions of eviction were the North of the European part, the Urals, Western and Eastern Siberia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

The years of the Great Patriotic War for the USSR were marked not only by the unprecedented tension of all state and popular forces in a deadly but victorious battle with an inhuman and powerful aggressor, but also a whole series of acts of injustice, discrimination and repression against part of its own population. In the first months of the war, more than 17 thousand Chechens and Ingush were mobilized, 40 thousand Meskhetian Turks went to the front.

During the Great Patriotic War, the very first deportation blow fell on the Soviet Germans. About 1.2 million Soviet Germans were displaced. The entire German population was forced to concentrate east of the Urals.

Back in 1943, the second and third (after the Germans) to take the punitive blow from the NKVD and the Ministry of State Security (MGB) were the Karachais (in November) and the Kalmyks (on the very eve of the New Year). Kalmyks and Karachais suffered, as stated in the decree, because they “... joined detachments organized by the Germans to fight Soviet power,” “... betrayed their Motherland,” “... betrayed honest Soviet citizens to the Germans.”

The territory of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) was practically not under occupation, however, the official motive for the accusation was “... active and almost universal participation in the terrorist movement directed against the Soviets and the Red Army.” By March 1, 1944, 387,229 Chechens and 91,250 Ingush were sent. . And on March 7, 1944, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council (PVS) of the USSR, the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was liquidated, and in place of areas inhabited by Chechens, the Grozny District was created as part of the Stavropol Territory.

In August 1942, a short-term German occupation of part of the territory of the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic began, and on January 11, 1943 it was completely liberated from the Germans. On April 8, 1944, the Decree of the PVS of the USSR was issued on the resettlement of Balkars and the renaming of the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic into the Kabardian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The total number of deportees in places of resettlement amounted to 37,044 people.

April 13, 1944, immediately after the liberation of Crimea, the NKVD and People's Commissariat The State Security Service (NKGB) began to “cleanse” its territory of anti-Soviet elements. As a result, by the summer of 1945, only 379 thousand people remained in Crimea (compared to 875 thousand before the war).

The next victim of Stalin's geopolitical concept was his own homeland - Georgia. The decision to resettle 7,602 Turks was made on July 31. Turks here mean Meskhetian Turks, residents of the Georgian historical region of Meskheti-Javakheti. Because the, state border passed through Adjara, the “cleansing” operations did not escape it either.

The total number of citizens deported to the USSR in 1944-1945, in addition to the punished deported peoples, was about 260 thousand people.

The authorities were forced to forcibly resettle the so-called “legal population” located in the neighborhood into the empty areas. Undoubtedly, such relocation caused great damage to all sectors of life, especially agriculture. The eviction of Chechens had a negative impact on the industry of the former republic. The resettlement also had a negative impact on socio-cultural and ethnic factors. Many regions found themselves depopulated (for example, the Kaliningrad region).

It is noteworthy that after the war, deportations continued with enviable consistency. In June 1948, for the first time, “parasites” (collective farmers who did not produce mandatory minimum workdays). In addition, deportations of OUN members continued ( Ukrainian nationalists) from the western regions of Ukraine.

For 1940-1953 203,590 people were sent from the Baltic states to special settlements, and on June 11, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) issued a decree on the procedure for the reception, transportation, resettlement and employment of persons evicted from Moldova.

Deportations continued into the 1950s. Thus, in March 1951, 2,795 Basmachi and members of their families were evicted from Tajikistan.

Since the second half of the 70s, the direction of migration has changed to the exact opposite: to central Russia and to the east of the country from the southern republics and regions. Migration “expansion gave way to their re-emigration to their republic.” This displacement of the Russians was “literally a bolt from the blue.” In 1979-1988. The process of re-emigration of Russians covered most of the republics of the USSR. Then this migration took on the character of evacuation, including departure from areas of acute ethnic conflicts, where it acquired the character of mass exodus.

Collapse of the USSR, education sovereign states, the emergence of local armed conflicts was a turning point in the development of migration processes occurring in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). A fundamentally new institution has emerged government controlled- Migration Service of Russia.

The political and economic crisis that broke out in the country in the late 1980s affected all spheres of public life. Naturally, it also affected migration processes: the scale and intensity of migration movement, direction and structure of flows. Forced resettlement has reached enormous proportions, and a special social category- refugees, persons in a situation of forced displacement within the country. The first forced migrants appeared in Russia in the late 1980s in connection with interethnic conflicts in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Uzbekistan. Already by January 1990, 71.1 thousand people were registered in Russia who “temporarily left their places of permanent residence.” More than half of them (36 thousand people) settled in the North Caucasus, a significant part found shelter in the regions of Central Russia. The emergence of new sources of armed conflicts on the territory of the USSR contributed to the influx of new contingents of forced migrants: on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the fall of 1991, in Russia, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), there were 208.4 thousand people who had temporarily left places of permanent residence.

Since 1992 received refugee status or forced migrant about 1.6 million immigrants from the CIS and Baltic countries - almost every fourth who arrived in Russia. At the beginning of 2005, there were already only 239 thousand people who had predominantly forced migrant status (refugee status is granted with significantly greater difficulties: in 2003, 58 people received it, including 24 people from countries CIS and Baltic countries, in 2002 - 51 people, including only 5 people from neighboring countries. The number of refugees is declining especially quickly: as of January 1, 2004, there were 3.1 thousand refugees in Russia, while at the beginning of 1998 there were 235 thousand.

According to the Federal Law “On Forced Migrants,” forced migrant status is granted to Russian citizens who arrived in Russia, as well as internally displaced persons, regardless of citizenship.

According to the Federal Law “On Refugees”, forced migrants who do not have Russian citizenship can apply for refugee status or temporary asylum. IN exceptional cases, in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, political asylum may be granted.

In accordance with the Federal Laws “On Forced Migrants” and “On Refugees”, applicants for status must prove that they have been subjected to violence, persecution or the existence of real danger persecution of them and their families. Armed conflicts and wars in the states of their previous residence are not sufficient grounds for granting status.

Since 1997, refugee status has practically not been granted to citizens of the newly independent states. In accordance with the version of the Federal Law “On Refugees” of 1997, the vast majority of immigrants from the CIS and Baltic countries can only realistically apply for temporary asylum.

Despite Russia's accession to the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees in 1992, in subsequent years Russia was unable, for financial reasons, to fulfill its obligations towards applicants from non-CIS countries. Refugee status is granted to citizens of traditional foreign countries in isolated cases. At the same time, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has registered several tens of thousands of people claiming refugee status.

The reason for the steady decline in the number of forced migrants is the loss of status of refugees and forced migrants who arrived in Russia in the early 1990s in accordance with current legislation; the influx of new applicants for status does not cover this attrition. (Forced migrant status is granted for 5 years, refugee status for 3 years.)

The majority of forced migrants arriving in Russia since the second half of the 1990s come from states Central Asia who have no intention of returning and strive for rapid adaptation to Russia, which is facilitated by the presence of Russian citizenship and forced migrant status. Unlike forced migrants in previous years, among whom were predominantly people evacuating from armed conflict zones, they had the opportunity to prepare for resettlement in Russia, including obtaining citizenship, removing property and selling real estate. In essence, these are repatriates for whom it is difficult to prove the forced nature of the relocations, as required by the Laws “On Refugees” and “On Forced Migrants”.

As of January 1, 2005, according to the Federal Migration Service (FMS) of Russia, there were 238.6 thousand forced migrants and refugees in the country. And in total, during the time the laws were in effect, more than 1 million people received forced migrant and refugee status. About 42% of them were former residents of Kazakhstan, 14% - Uzbekistan, 9 - Georgia, 7% - Tajikistan. About 47 thousand people. (20%) moved within Russia from regions with an unstable socio-political situation (internally displaced persons). Basically, these are forced migrants from Chechnya and the Ossetian-Ingush conflict zone (78.4 and 19.9% ​​of displaced persons at the beginning of 2004, respectively). The overwhelming majority of displaced persons (over 82%) are concentrated in the regions of the Southern federal district.

Regional migration services registered Russian repatriates as forced migrants in order to somehow alleviate their situation. The majority of those who applied for recognition as a forced migrant or refugee received the desired status: in 1998, 81.1% of applicants received it, in 1999 -92.2%. (At the same time, some migrants who had grounds for obtaining forced migrant or refugee status did not apply for it, seeing no point in overcoming bureaucratic obstacles to receive meager benefits and benefits.) In 2003, 64.0% of those who applied received status.

Among forced migrants, there is a high proportion of children (25.2%) and elderly people (16.0%), 55.3% of them are women. This composition reflects Russia’s desire, in conditions of limited resources, to provide status, first of all, to the most vulnerable in socially persons. Russia, in the person of forced migrants, receives an excellent replenishment among them: in 2003, persons with higher education accounted for 17.7%; with incomplete higher and secondary vocational education - 32.2%; average overall - 49%.

According to the State Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation, migration flows in the Russian Federation in 1991-1999. (from region to region and from other countries) affected more than 30 million people arriving and leaving; the migration balance alone over these years amounted to more than 3.5 million people.

Mass forced migration is now a serious factor, limiter and resource that must be taken into account in the Russian situation. It enhances the urgency and relevance of making optimal decisions in the field of social policy, relations between the state and society, the center and regions, and the choice of effective management technologies.

Currently, migration processes are caused by fundamentally new circumstances or a different nature of their manifestation than before. This is primarily a problem interethnic relations, which has become one of the most conflicting. National tension has gripped almost the entire country, drawing different ethnic groups and social strata into confrontation, giving rise in peacetime to such a terrible phenomenon as refugees.

Spontaneous migration processes create one of the most complex state problems in Russia. Hundreds of thousands of forced migrants are in need of material and financial assistance, the volume of which exceeds the current socio-economic capabilities of the state and individual regions, and the conditions in which the economically active part of the migrants could engage in self-sufficiency are practically absent. Contradictions also arise when choosing a new place of residence: the interests of forced migrants and the interests of the state as a whole, regions and local authorities often do not coincide.

This is a huge social, political and humanitarian problem that requires special resources and skills to resolve it or, at least, alleviate the situation of the victims.

Today, migration acts as a reflection of social, economic and political contradictions not only in our country, but also beyond its borders. There have been radical changes in the migration exchange of the population between Russia and the states of the new abroad. Over the past five years, the influx of migrants into the country has increased by more than a third. And over the same period the increase Russian population, due to this category, increased 5.6 times.

The problem of social protection of refugees and internally displaced persons is at the intersection of two topics: migration and social protection. But both the first and second have been studied more in relation to the permanently resident population in aspects relating to traditional approaches, directions and forms. Actually, social protection Refugees and forced migrants in Russia have so far received insufficient attention in science as an independent object of study. Moreover, the problem of refugee was previously unknown either to the population of the former USSR or to the administrative bodies of the previous authorities.

Today, millions of working migrants live in Russia, mostly from the countries of the former USSR. Did it exist work migration V Soviet era? Of course, just not on such a scale and form as today.

From captured Germans to Turkish builders

As we know, in Soviet years the country consisted of 15 union republics. Therefore, only citizens of other states could be called guest workers. The word “guest worker” itself means “foreign worker”. This was the name given to Soviet prisoners taken to Germany to work for free in production and for private owners.

After the war, the labor of captured Germans was widespread on the territory of the USSR. They were mainly engaged in the restoration of destroyed buildings and infrastructure. Subsequently, most of them were able to return to their homeland.

In the 70-80s, many Vietnamese worked on the assembly line at the Moscow AZLK and ZIL plants. Contracts were concluded with them for four or six years, which could not be terminated at the initiative of the hired employee. It was profitable to hire Vietnamese: they worked conscientiously, hardly drank alcohol, and also bought Soviet consumer goods that were not in particular demand among the local population. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Vietnamese guest workers began to work illegally throughout the CIS.

Also, during the perestroika years, Turks began to come to work in the Soviet Union, mainly engaged in construction. A Chinese diaspora has also emerged...

In the late 80s, the first refugees appeared in the Soviet Union. They came from republics where unrest and persecution of citizens of other nationalities began - from the Baltic states, Transcaucasia, and Central Asia. They mostly migrated to the Slavic republics - Russia and Ukraine.

In the early 90s, 80% of refugees came to Russia from Tajikistan, Georgia and Azerbaijan. These were both indigenous residents of the republics and representatives of the Russian-speaking population.

As a result of active processes of internal and external migration, the urban population in almost all former Soviet republics became multinational, especially in the capitals of the union republics. In addition, before perestroika, a Russian language environment existed in almost all cities of the “fraternal” republics. In the 90s, Russian schools in these republics began to close everywhere, and nationalist tendencies appeared. As a result, life became not very comfortable for the Russian-speaking population of neighboring countries, whose number at the time of the 1989 census was 25.3 million.

Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Moldovans also began to come to Russia - after the collapse of the USSR, it became difficult to live in their homeland due to the difficult economic situation. In 1992, the Federal Migration Service (FMS) was created in Russia to register newly arrived citizens who were now considered foreigners.

Help please!

Compare the main directions of migration in the USSR and Russia.

Migration ties between Russia and neighboring territories (the former outskirts of the Russian Empire, then the union republics of the USSR) have traditionally been centrifugal in nature, i.e. were sent from the center to the outskirts. This was the settlement of New Russia (southern Ukraine) at the end of the 18th-19th centuries, the settlement of the North Caucasus from the 18th century. and especially intensively - Kazakhstan during the period of development of virgin lands (1950-1960s), Russian agricultural development of some regions of Central Asia, and during the period of industrialization - the formation of the working class in previously “backward national outskirts”. The urban population of the republics of Central Asia, Transcaucasia, Moldova, partly Ukraine and the Baltic states was largely formed by immigrants from Russia. In Russia, population migrations have also traditionally been centrifugal in nature: migrants from the center of the country settled and developed territories annexed to Russia in the north, south and east. In the 20th century The main direction of migration was eastern - the settlement of Siberia and the Far East. Since the liberalization of immigration policies in 1965, the number of first-generation immigrants living in the United States has quadrupled, from 9.6 million in 1970 to approximately 38 million in 2007. 1,046,539 people were naturalized as US citizens in 2008. From 2000 to 2010, approximately 14 million immigrants came to the United States. In 2006, the United States was accepting more legal immigrants as permanent residents than all other countries in the world combined. Currently, the leading countries for immigration to this country are Mexico, India and the Philippines. The share of migrants from China is also growing rapidly. Although the influx of new residents from different cultures presents some challenges, "The United States has always been energized by its immigrants," President Bill Clinton said in 1998. “America is constantly gaining strength and spirit from wave after wave of immigrants.” Family reunification accounts for approximately 2/3 of legal immigration to the United States each year. Also, one of the fastest ways to obtain US citizenship is to serve in the US Army. But for this, the candidate for service must have a green card, that is, he must already be an immigrant. Military service gives the right to expedited receipt citizenship: after 1 year of service in general, or without qualification (that is, the next day) in the case of service in a combat zone. Both men and women can serve. Cases of obtaining a Green Card and then US citizenship through various visas have become more frequent. Over the past 10 years, about 33 million Green Cards have been issued. For example, a visa, which is the most in a fast way getting a green card is one of those visas. Issued to founders and managers foreign companies who wish to open a branch of their business in the USA. After a year of operation of the company's branch in the USA, the founders and managers and their families receive permanent residence. Previously, only large companies could afford this, but in recent years, America has begun to welcome medium and small businesses, and the refusal rate for this visa has been only about 18% since 2010. And already in 2015, at the SELECTUSA summit, the President of the United States Barack Obama announced further simplification of the procedure for obtaining L-1 visas. This means that it is now much easier to obtain an L-1 visa than before. This initiative, some politicians argue, will increase the flow of immigration to the United States.