Pathetics of hospitality

National diasporas do not have to count on support from official authorities

The first reporting forum of the Federation of Migrants of Russia, “Migrant Communities for Civil Solidarity and Interethnic Harmony,” which took place last Friday, showed that if ethnic communities of representatives of the near and far abroad are ready to take the first step in implementing the official migration policy of the authorities, then government officials are ready to work together with national diasporas not ready.

The public association Federation of Migrants of Russia (FMR) was founded in February last year by representatives of national diasporas of 26 non-CIS countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa and did not initially intend to deal with the problems of the largest category of labor migrants from the CIS countries. However, as FMR President Muhammad Amin told Vremya Novostey, due to the fact that migrants, regardless of their country of origin, often face the same problems, the federation is ready to extend its trustee functions to guest workers from Commonwealth countries. In particular, the first, essentially representative forum of the migrant federation was attended by members of the Congress of National Associations, numbering more than 50 diasporas of peoples of neighboring republics traditionally living in the country, and such most active representatives of ethnic communities of neighboring countries as the Federal National-Cultural autonomy of Azerbaijanis in Russia (AzerRos). However, the organizers apparently still counted more on the attention of the official authorities. “It took us the whole year to agree on the constituent documents and search for contacts in the Russian authorities. This, as you understand, is not so simple,” Mr. Amin told a Vremya Novostey correspondent. The atmosphere at the opening of the forum literally screamed about the urgent need of the migrant federation for state support. In particular, natives of various states, trying to emphasize their commitment to the laws of the new civil homeland, opened their rally with the Russian national anthem, and the stage of the conference hall of the President Hotel, where the meeting took place, was decorated with a portrait of Vladimir Putin, specially hung for the occasion, in “ course" which representatives of national diasporas hope to find "a guarantee of stability and democracy." Democracy, in their opinion, “begins with respect for the rights of national minorities.” “Russia should not be associated with skinheads, Russia is Putin, this is the humanitarian intelligentsia who for centuries contributed to the development of the countries of the post-Soviet space or the near abroad, as it is now called,” Ravshan Nazarov, an ethnopolitical scientist from Uzbekistan, caused applause from the audience. However, he could not resist criticizing the Kremlin’s current policy, saying that “we must talk about a real fight against xenophobia and migrant phobia” and that this message must be reflected in the forum’s resolution. But the organizers asked to save the bright speeches for local round tables. The migrant federation approaches such large-scale goals as instilling tolerance towards foreigners in Russian society with diplomatic cunning. The final document of the forum, for example, provided for the creation of not only centers for sociocultural adaptation of visiting foreigners, but also organizations for training personnel, for example, translators, from among the migrants who settled in Russia for the state customs service, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and other government bodies.

However, representatives of the presidential administration and the capital's mayor's office, whose participation in the forum the organizers managed to achieve, debunked the hopes of national communities for close cooperation with officials in the implementation of specific projects. As Aleksey Grishin, adviser to the Russian Presidential Administration's department for relations with public and religious organizations, made it clear to journalists, the idea of ​​creating some kind of center for training foreign personnel for government agencies will not go further than discussion at the forum. “We can discuss problems and find common ground,” he said with restraint, adding that the association of foreign diasporas should focus its efforts on independently working to adapt migrants, “so that they do not behave like at home.” And Deputy Head of the Moscow Department of Education Yuri Goryachev told Vremya Novostey that Moscow, which has significantly reduced the quota for foreign workers, is still content with its own project, within the framework of which there are three pilot groups in the center of interethnic education “Ethnosphere” for legal and language training of migrants and employers .

Yulia KHOMCHENKO