Karina Minasova. Outcasts

Raised
Karina Minasova

Publication date: January 3, 2002

I know that you can’t imagine this, you can only feel it with your skin, you have to live it, but still... You live in your own home, go to work every day, you are surrounded by family and childhood friends, and then one unfortunate day day in the middle, or even at the end of your serene life, by someone’s will, you lose everything at once and the humiliating word “refugee” is stuck to you, like a label, until the end of your days.

- Kind people! We are refugees, we came to your city, we can’t get a job, the children are hungry. Help, whoever can ...

Isn't that familiar? A mournful voice in a subway car, a dirty guy in rags, pulling an unkempt, snotty child behind him. Admit that this picture and the text spoken day after day evoke in your soul not pity and compassion, but contempt and disgust. I guarantee with my head that there is not a single true refugee among these beggars, but they further discredit the caste of the disadvantaged with their appearance and way of life. True refugees go to completely different places and try not to call themselves out loud the derogatory word “refugee.”

"Are you a refugee?" - Having looked the elegant young woman from head to toe, the high official asked with undisguised amazement. I witnessed this scene. He, apparently, also represented refugees in rags and with an outstretched hand. Unfortunately, they are really forced to extend their hand by these very high officials, although everything should be given to them themselves. I’ll be objective - of course, they give, and sometimes they voluntarily lend a helping hand, but in general...

Migrantophobia . This is a new term, and it has not yet entered the explanatory dictionary - but it has already been heard in the media. According to the Center for the Study of Problems of Forced Migration in the CIS, two-thirds of the population of Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Smolensk are openly hostile towards migrants. So, how do we perceive these second-class people, or refugees, or forced migrants, as they began to be called more decently? Although, if you think about it, if he was forced to move, that is, not of his own free will, it means he was expelled. My point is that all these people, united by another beautiful word - “migrants”, are essentially outcasts. Is our society, a humane society that has entered the third millennium, in which “man is man to man,” ready to accept these outcasts as equals?

According to the same survey, 60% of the population believe that migrants should be resettled in rural areas, and a negligible share of respondents spoke in favor of the possibility of their settlement in “their” city - from 3.1% in Nizhny Novgorod to 1.1% in Moscow . And even then, not everyone - for example, people from the countries of Africa, Afghanistan and China, for the most part, suggest that people “should not be allowed into Russia” at all, and as for “persons of Caucasian nationality” (which, by the way, does not exist in nature, but this definition appeared with a light hand, or rather, the language of Nevzorov), then from 5% to 10% of respondents are ready to accept them into their arms, while a third of these percentages were in favor of a ban on the registration of these same “persons”.

Sociologists also inquired about the reasons for this attitude: people, it turns out, suspect Caucasians of criminal activity and the desire to take control of the movement of goods and money. As for Russian refugees, 80% of respondents were in favor of granting them asylum in Russia. So, Russia is “only for whites”! What suit are mixed families? The sociologists' conclusion is not very comforting: "Both trends in public consciousness - the relatively old "Caucasian phobia" and the new "migrant phobia" - mutually feed each other, creating an unfavorable background for the actions of government bodies responsible for the settlement of refugees and internally displaced persons."

"Image of the enemy" from the inside out

We know about missing people in Chechnya, but we don’t know the whole truth. There are reports in the media about missing Russian soldiers and about Western missionaries and businessmen. But Chechens are also disappearing. For example, the teenage nephew of probably the most popular person among Chechens, Aslambek Aslakhanov, the only State Duma deputy from Chechnya, major general, doctor of legal sciences, disappeared.

- The most defenseless and the poorest remained in Chechnya. They cannot leave because they are extorted money at checkpoints. They die from dystrophy and disease - the young go to bed and don’t get up in the morning. “It’s scary, ” says Aslakhanov. - Arbitrariness and lawlessness flourish in the republic. A vicious practice has developed when people in uniform plant drugs and ammunition on completely innocent people. There is a complete disintegration of the power structures of Russia, whose representatives are simply profiting from the grief of these defenseless people. Chechens have become a source of extra-budgetary funding for werewolves in uniform - not only Chechens, but also people of other nationalities who cannot leave and who know that no one needs them anywhere. In the first Chechen campaign, which Grachev began, it was not Dudayev’s palace that was bombed, but peaceful objects. And this second campaign is no different from the first - everything is being done to ensure that every Chechen man takes up arms. Why do you think? - Aslakhanov asks me. I already foresee the answer:

- So you came to Khankala, locked yourself in there surrounded by three hundred riot police, stayed there for six months - received an extra star, brought the stolen gold to your wife, you receive a hefty salary and are not responsible for anything - no matter what happens, the Chechens are to blame for everything. And here? The fence is not painted - the authorities will let you go. Politicians do not need this war - they built up their ratings on it and gave this tidbit to the military for plunder, just as in the old days they gave a captured city for three days. Therefore, this war is dear to the high ranks, they do not want to leave there. So it turns out that the bandits are alive and well, and the civilian population is dying out, and even Russian boys who have not been shot at are blown up by mines. And, do you know what’s the worst thing? They do what they want there, release their adrenaline, and someday they will return here. Having become accustomed to killing people just like that, can you imagine what they will do here?! Chechnya is now a forge of murderers. Of course, they will all be expelled from the authorities and from the army, but how many will they manage to cripple!

Taking advantage of the opportunity, I gave Aslakhanov a letter from the Chechen Magomadov family, whom the war brought all the way to the Saratov region, where they are not registered, which means they are deprived of the opportunity to get a job. Aslambek Akhmedovich read, sighed and told about his difficult lot as a State Duma deputy - up to a hundred people a day turn to him from people of different nationalities who escaped from Chechnya. But in Russia, despite the fact that they are its citizens, they all find themselves without rights.

In my stepmother homeland

First there was the “Law on Refugees”, followed by the “Law on Forced Migrants”, according to which Russian citizens are considered migrants, and not citizens - refugees. But persons who have suffered from interethnic conflicts are recognized as forced migrants, while persons who have suffered as a result of hostilities are not recognized as displaced persons. People from Chechnya who died during the war, and not before it began, and who have Russian citizenship are neither displaced persons nor refugees by law. They are illegal immigrants in their homeland. Like the Somalis, for example.

What kind of refuge did Russia provide to those who quickly understood the situation and left Chechnya before the start of the war? Firstly, the status of forced migrants, secondly, compensation for lost housing, thirdly, six square meters per family member in a house that the Federal Migration Service built for refugees in St. Petersburg in 1997, in one from "sleeping" areas. In a nutshell, the history of this ill-fated house is as follows. Since 1991, the public non-governmental Association for Assistance to Refugees began to strive for the construction of a cooperative. She achieved a positive decision and even the allocation of funds from the federal budget. Then Sobchak abolished his previous resolution, the allocated funds disappeared without a trace in the city budget, the FMS took the house and instead of apartments, people received communal apartments under a lease agreement (more recently, a rental agreement), which was renewed by the former Migration Service annually. People are not given warrants, so they cannot exchange or sell their square meters. In this mansion live forced migrants from many fraternal republics (completely international!), including from Chechnya.

Compensation for lost housing was given only to them and not to everyone either - it was still necessary to prove that there was housing and that it was lost. It was assumed that with this compensation the family would buy a home in St. Petersburg and free up a room for the next person on the waiting list. However, not everyone acted this way: some received compensation and live in the mansion. And now the Migration Service has filed lawsuits against the eviction of such Chechen families. It’s unclear where. But this, they say, is for the court to decide. The migrants themselves explain the whole matter by saying that they did not have time to buy housing before the default. And then the money became worthless, and they simply ate it. Humanly, they can be understood, but the Migration Service is right in this case.

Of course, people who came, as they say, in what they have, from the South to the North, had to put something else on themselves, but with work - excuse me. With temporary registration, they didn’t even hire me as a cleaner in a housing office, and they openly stated - no, we don’t need Chechens (that’s what they told one Russian refugee from Chechnya, by the way). And in general, everything is fine there, Russian troops are stationed, so “go home.” You and I have almost determined how “everything is normal” there, but the fact that most people have only ruins left of their house can be imagined even without a rich imagination.

Registration in the tower was not immediately allowed, so many residents of this ill-fated house spent a long time hanging around without work. What can we say about those who do not receive the status of forced migrants, and, unfortunately, they are Chechens, not Russians.

About friendship of peoples

It would seem that all immigrants, regardless of nationality, have a common destiny, and they certainly cannot divide each other into “whites” and “blacks,” and in general mutual understanding and mutual assistance should flourish in this community. This is how it should be ideally. But, as always, it is far from ideal.

“Why don’t these Armenians give us a warrant?” - a Russian refugee from Grozny asks me. √ “And in general they tortured us, why did they put us in the same house with them?”

Yes, grandma, they settled because it was they, the Armenians (Baku refugees), who secured a house for you all. And while you were still living quietly in your apartments in Grozny, they wandered around other people’s corners and knocked on the thresholds of offices, proving that they were people and they needed to live somewhere.

And literally half an hour later I accidentally become a witness to how the same grandmother, dissatisfied with the Armenians, tells her neighbor how she received such humanitarian aid “from the Armenians” that she did not know how to get it home, but in her organization uniting displaced people from Chechnya, I haven’t received anything for a long time. This is such simple psychology!

Yes, people from Chechnya, following the example of others, also created their own public organization, the chairman of which was a young energetic well-wisher who had a very indirect connection to Grozny (I deliberately omit the name of this Ostap Bender, since we have such a concept as the presumption of innocence). They opened an account, began to look for sponsors, charitable foundations (and found them) - in a word, vigorous activity unfolded, and in July 1997, the organization “Chechen Migrant” spun off from the “Society of Forced Migrants from the Chechen Republic”, which registered a subsidiary LLC "Perspective". All organizations were led by the same Ostap Bender.

The Perspektiva office is equipped according to the most modern requirements. And for some reason, humanitarian aid to those lucky few who were among the chosen ones was given out for 30 rubles. But one fine day, the energetic leader, along with the car donated to the society, simply disappeared. The people waited and waited, and then, again rallying in a single noble impulse to get what they wanted, they opened the office premises, where they were missing a lot of things. That is, everything from the beginning. But refugees are no strangers - they are scared with bombs, they are not given jobs, and they are robbed, but they don’t care at all - they are tenacious!

This is unknown to those interviewed who suffer from migrant phobia. It is also unknown that the birth rate in Russia is falling, and very soon there will be no one not only to defend the country, but also to work in it. And refugees do all sorts of jobs out of boredom: from a theater manager to a foreman, from an economist to a cook, from a process engineer to a stall, from a journalist to a farm. And so on. They are shot - and they give birth to children, six meters away, and they get married. Indestructible! The hardening is good - neither cold, nor hunger, nor the authorities take over.

So who are they, these “migrant sapiens”? At my request, employees of the former Migration Service, and now the former Territorial Body of the former Ministry of Federation Affairs, National and Migration Policy of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, provided exclusive statistical information about migrants from Chechnya. Judging by it, it turns out that the majority of them are women and children, and there are slightly fewer old people than able-bodied people, basically all of them have one form of education or another. But if in an era of change it is not easy for an ordinary Muscovite or St. Petersburger to survive, then it is a hundred times more difficult for these people. They, however, do not walk with an outstretched hand, because they have the main quality for a person - dignity.

I ask all the people I know who come from Chechnya the same thing: are they happy in Russia and do they want to return to their real homeland? It’s bad for everyone - both Russians and Chechens. I can say the same with confidence about all other migrants - from Baku, from the Baltic states, from Abkhazia, from Kazakhstan. And who will feel good if you are reminded day after day that you are a second-class citizen and live in Russia out of mercy? An outcast, in a word.

But no one wants to return to where they were expelled from. Except for the Chechens. For example, a refugee named Ilona believes that someday (though it’s unlikely that these will even be her grandchildren) their family will return to Chechnya:

“My grandfather returned from exile in Kazakhstan to the same house from which he was sent. Maybe someday all this will end?” - this beautiful young woman asks me.

What should I answer her?