Sergei Melnikov found out how the migrant workers who died at the Kachalovsky market lived

How many people died last week during the fire at the Kachalovsky market is still unknown. Nobody knows who these people were and from what countries.

Sergey Melnikov

Thousands of identical gray hangars and utility rooms occupying the outskirts of the capital. There are a variety of posters on them - “car service”, “tire service”, “wheel alignment”. None of them have "people" written on them. The buildings of the Kachalovsky market, where migrant workers burned down last week, are no exception. People lived in one of the cabins, no different from the surrounding warehouses. When the fire broke out, the window bars were welded shut and the door was locked from the outside. As a result, everyone living in the cramped room burned alive. Either 17 or 18 people. Either Tajiks or Uzbeks. How can one say more precisely about the dead Central Asians, who were not paid much attention to during their lifetime? Neither the state nor employers.

After the police, representatives of the investigative committee and the embassies of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan visited the scene during the day, the market was empty. The doors of other buildings on Kachalovsky are sealed and covered with tape. A toothless man walking past “from the garages” located next to the ill-fated buildings says: “Eh, guys... Where they worked, that’s where they lived... They spilled water, carried vegetables... It’s a shame.” But other migrants working just 300 meters from the market know nothing about the tragedy.

It is now already known: the Investigative Committee has decided to seek the closure of the Kachalovsky market. The "Kachalovo" sign by the road is knocked out by two daring men on a stepladder with hammers so that splinters fly. They say that they have no relationship with Start-2 LLC, the company that owns the building, whose general director Vladimir Lykov was arrested.

“All these markets are fragments of the Cherkizovsky market, which was closed three years ago,” says Tajik human rights activist Gavkhar Dzhuraeva, head of the Migration and Law center. “There workers raked garbage out of trash cans at night to sleep in them. When we tried to film all this with the Rossiya TV channel, the cool guys who arrived in luxury cars took the camera away from the operator. All these markets are not subject to Russian law. These are states within a state, and representatives of diasporas thank their owners for providing them with work and shelter.

According to Karomat Sharipov, chairman of the All-Russian Movement of Labor Migrants of Tajikistan, there are especially many Tajiks now at the Lublin market and the Sadovod market. But the Moscow authorities are planning to demolish the Lublin Market in the near future. So the traders have almost moved out, and auxiliary workers are wandering around the market. But the hostel at the market does not complain about the lack of guests.

On the three-story "panel" there is a sign - "Hotel". The security guard, reclining on a chair, watches TV and doesn’t let you in: the administration doesn’t tell you to. But the entrance from the courtyard to the “hotel” is open. Day - many are at work. On the third floor I meet an Uzbek Rustam in long shorts and a sweater. He talks about his simple accounting.

— Here at the hotel they welcome everyone: Moldovans, Caucasians, and Russians... The fees are high: 400 rubles a day, 12 thousand a month. And there are four beds in the room. From the entire room the owner receives almost 50 thousand a month.

Rustam gives a short tour of the floor. “Here is the shower, look, it only works in the evening, there are several taps. We wash our clothes next door,” says the Uzbek. We pass by the electricity meter. Rustam comments: “Whoever wants can buy and watch TV. But they are not allowed to turn on the kettle.”

The rooms have four single-tier beds. On one of them, a young guy sleeps on a bare mattress with his shoes on. On the next one, only the gray head of a man, covered with several overalls, is visible. At the table, a small boy with slanted eyes is slurping soup. In a black jacket, which he wears, it seems, both in winter and summer, both on the street and at home. There is “borch” on the plate. A large saucepan sits directly on the floor. There is a dusty TV on the clothes cabinet. They know about the burnt migrants in the hostel - they listen to TV. “But we’re not afraid to burn ourselves!” - exclaims Rustam. Although they are not allowed to use a “kettle-mine”, there was a heater in the room, and the “borch” was cooked on an electric stove...

The day after the tragic death of the migrant workers, of course, completely different Asians came to the five-star President Hotel, located in the center of the capital. The women are real oriental beauties - in heels and makeup, the men - in formal suits and ties. The congress of the Federation of Migrants of Russia, an organization formed by more than 70 diasporas from countries far and near abroad and supported by the Russian government, was greeted with the banner “Putin is our president.”

The main issues of the congress were the elections of the chairman of the organization, heads of executive committees and other organizational structures. After an hour and a half of meetings, the forum opened, which the Federation of Migrants organized jointly with the Public Chamber. The main topic is the concept of the development of migration policy until 2025, developed in March by the FMS together with Strategy 2020. True, there are no representatives of the FMS at the forum.

In the end, they finally remembered the grief that happened in the south of Moscow; a fiery speech was made by the first deputy chairman of the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia (TSDUM), a member of the Public Chamber, Albir Krganov. The mufti who took the floor said that he was praying for the souls of the dead.

As sad as it is to admit, in the case of the dead migrant workers we can really only talk about souls. The identities of the dead are very difficult to establish. Former deputy head of the Federal Migration Service, president of the 21st Century Migration Foundation, Vyacheslav Postavnin, states:

— We cannot take into account the death of a specific illegal migrant who is actually in the Russian Federation. It is not registered anywhere. To register with us, you need to prepare a bunch of documents and money, find an office address and have a living space where you can legally move in.

It is not surprising that officials and authorities have differing views on the death of workers. Sources in law enforcement agencies talk about a dozen identified citizens of Uzbekistan, the FMS says that it remains to be established whether the dead were Russian citizens or illegal migrants... And the chairman of the Tajik Labor Migrants, Karomat Sharipov, confidently states that the dead were ethnic Tajiks, but citizens of Uzbekistan... Gavhar Juraeva from the Migration and Law center says that Sharipov should be trusted in the last place. Obviously, there are squabbles between organizations defending the rights of migrant workers.

The fire at the Kachalovsky market does not scare anyone. And millions of people coming from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan continue to seek employment in vast Moscow. So the Uzbek Adolat, leafing through a newspaper with job advertisements, asks me:

- Do you want me to help you? Well, I can’t just ask for money, give me something to work on...

Burnt out without a trace