Golyanovo, Biryulyovo - then everywhere...

On the night of October 13 in Moscow, it was already sad famous folk gathering in the West Biryulyovo area, which ended xenophobically motivated attacks on passers-by and a pogrom against a center and vegetable base to the accompaniment of racist slogans. came true dream of the nationalists: for the first time in the capital, a violent crime, committed by a non-native, led to an outburst of anti-migrant sentiment, which resulted in riots developing along the so-called Kondopoga scenario [1].

Some may say that this case in Moscow is not the first, and recall the events on Manezhnaya Square in December 2010. However There is a fundamental difference between the riots then and now: the base of the xenophobic protest on Manezhnaya Square has become a good organized and initially racist group - football fans who married “her own”, and in Biryulyovo such a base were primarily local residents. Of course, there were instigators in the person of nationalists, both regional and others, the same football fans and, according to one version, even bandits, interested in obtaining land occupied by a vegetable base, under construction, but still this does not explain why this incident is so "shot". After all, there are always instigators, and pogroms, fortunately, occur extremely rarely.

So why now? And why in Moscow? What has changed? Level anti-migrant sentiment in society remains consistently high last few years. The number of visitors is also significant, but no reason to believe that there are more of them. Murder, unfortunately happen every day, and their sad statistics are also unchanged, and Moscow is not a small provincial town where the death of a person can stir up the public. The answer, apparently, lies in the fact that over the past few months, the migration subject. That is, it was not the attitude of Muscovites towards migrants that changed, but the degree the importance of this issue in the public mind.

The beginning of a much broader discussion of issues related to migrants, was laid down by Vladimir Putin's winter speech, in which the President supported the idea to ban entry to Russia from 2015 citizens of "certain CIS countries" on internal passports, obliging them to have with a passport. This proposal is essentially neutral and does not containing nothing revolutionary or xenophobic, caused a broad discussion of migration issues in general, and under “individual countries of the CIS" already understood the specific states of Central Asia and Transcaucasia.

In the spring, the nationalists, feeling the increased interest of the public in the issue, launched a broad campaign for the introduction of a visa regime with these countries, arranging rallies and pickets throughout the country. These activities also caused quite a broad discussion, so this (generally, not new) the initiative received a great response, which, by the way, happens with initiatives nationalists are rare.

Perhaps the topic would again go to the media periphery, if at the beginning July there was no conflict in the city of Pugachev, where, we recall, the death 20-year-old paratrooper Ruslan Marzhanov in a domestic fight with a minor native of Chechnya provoked mass unrest and speeches of local residents under xenophobic slogans. Information about events in Pugachev did not leave the top lines of news agencies in for several days, that is, the topic of ethnic relations and the question of external and internal migration were on the agenda for the third time in six months.

And soon, against this background, in a number of subjects of the Federation, including Moscow, regional election campaigns unfolded. IN situations where both capitals have always been cities where migrants, according to for obvious reasons, more, and the level of xenophobia is higher than the average for country, these topics were not left out of the election campaigns.

It can be immediately said that all election programs were considered migration processes are extremely narrow, following the lead of public opinion and focusing solely on the problems that these processes.

The first issue the candidates raised was crime. For example, Sergei Sobyanin, answering a question about dissatisfaction Muscovites by the presence of “illegal migrants” in the city, said: “In the city has about 300 thousand illegal migrants. If we take away the crimes, committed by visitors, then Moscow will be the most law-abiding city in the world" . About the same opinion was shared by Alexei Navalny, who, at every opportunity, declared that about 50% of all crimes in Moscow are committed by migrants. As already repeatedly It was said that this thesis does not correspond to reality: after all, according to according to the Moscow prosecutor's office, for the first half of 2013, non-residents Moscow committed every second crime, of which foreign citizens - more than 40% of crimes [2]. Thus, for the share foreigners account for only about 20% of crimes (17% in 2012), which of course is also a lot, but still not half. And Sobyanin's statement in in this light looks like a fair exaggeration: a reduction in crime by one-fifth would clearly not make Moscow the most law-abiding city in the world. Even less impressive is the statistics for the country as a whole, where the share of foreigners accounts for about 4% of crimes [3].

Another topic often raised in connection with visitors is cultural differences that are seen as an absolute evil. For example, the same metropolitan mayor said: “If someone leave, then, first of all, Russian-speaking, with adequate our traditions of culture. … People who do not speak Russian well, who have completely different culture, it is better to live in your own country. Therefore we are not we welcome their adaptation in Moscow” [4]. However, the mayor did not explain who can assess the adequacy of the culture of this or that person "our", what, in fact, does he understand by “our culture”, and what are the criteria estimates. Approximately in the same vein, the candidate spoke in his program from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Ivan Melnikov: “ Migrants are cheap slave labor, bringing profit to the dirty business and the bureaucracy covering it. IN As a result, the attack on traditions, culture, native language and the spirit of Moscow… ” [5]. Even officially opposed to xenophobic approach to migration policy, candidate from the party "Yabloko" Sergei Mitrokhin did not avoid this topic: “ Moscow from the capital of Russia becomes a province of Central Asia. Moscow is being taken away from us culture, and at the same time European civilization ” [6]. The candidate does not explain how you can take away a person's culture, and even more so take away civilization from someone.

In addition, all candidates, without exception, said that those who employ illegal migrants to work, as well as generally reduce the number of jobs, traditionally occupied by visitors. With the thesis about the illegality of hiring people, illegally staying in the country, it is difficult to disagree. But out of context often it became obvious that the reference exclusively to "illegal immigrants" - this is just a cover and that in fact it is about everyone visitors, and not only about violators of the migration regime. Straightaway recalls the banned ultra-right Movement Against Illegal immigration (DPNI), which in fact opposed any "non-Russians", in including citizens of Russia, only hiding behind the topic of violation of the law.

For example, Alexei Navalny in his program only talks about illegal immigration: “ Corrupt officials or contractors hire illegal migrants for pennies and put most of the allocated budget funds into their pockets. At migrants are in the position of slaves, subjected to bullying and extortion ” [7]. However, later, in an interview on the radio "Echo of Moscow" he no longer distinguishes between legal and illegal visitors, insisting on the introduction of visas with the countries of Central Asia and Transcaucasia, proposes to expel all those who came to the country during visa-free regime (even those whose documents are completely in order), and only then decide which of them is worthy of returning, and who is not: “ When we we say “all these millions of people are legal migrants”, for me they, in general, should immediately become illegal. We must introduce a visa mode, send them back within six months, and then invite them already in small portions " [8]. In addition, in the same interview, Navalny demanded the termination of the process of issuing Russian citizenship to residents CIS. He did not even begin to substantiate this thesis, apparently considering it self-evident.

LDPR candidate Mikhail Degtyarev, who initially also spoke about illegal component of migration, the debates on the Dozhd TV channel did not became more almondy and expressed his position in this way: “ Zero migrants, legal and illegal, in Moscow. Catch all illegal immigrants and send home. Send organizers to places not so remote. IN There are many people in Russia who want to work, but the places are occupied by migrants ” [9]. All the other candidates spoke less harshly, although they also proposed certain measures to reduce the number of visitors in general, and not just illegal immigrants.

Looking at the programs and applications of the candidates, it is easy to see that their was not interested in migration policy as such, and all the talk on this topic is just an attempt to please the xenophobic majority, which wants "all these non-Russians" to be as few as possible. giving unprecedented attention to the issue of the number of migrants, candidates there was practically no discussion of the possibilities of the state or the city to influence on the qualitative components of the migration flow, left in fact without attention to the issues of adaptation of visitors, work with the local population and many, many other questions, which, in fact, constitute migration policy.

The populist nature of the election campaign was also clearly visible and according to how Mayor Sergei Sobyanin “reinforced with deeds” his view on migration issues. Recall that the Moscow authorities, using in As a pretext, an attack by immigrants from Dagestan on police officers On July 27, at the Matveevsky market, large-scale checks of the markets began and other places of congestion of visitors to identify illegal immigrants. As a result, with several hundred people were detained by numerous violations, who were partially placed in the temporary detention center, and when that overflowed, they began to send people to an organized hastily tent camp in Golyanovo. The courts sentenced people to deportation from amazing speed, often without paying attention to their documents. It is noteworthy that most of the detainees were non-citizens of the countries – traditional donors of migration (countries of Central Asia and Transcaucasia), and people from Vietnam. This gave rise to the popular version that Moscow the authorities were afraid of their exemplary fight against "illegal immigrants" spoil Russia's relations with the CIS countries and chose the Vietnamese in as the least problematic group in this respect: Russia has no there are no such close political and economic ties with Vietnam grounds and talk about some kind of influence of the Vietnamese community inside countries.

The raids carried out clearly did not solve any real problems, but, according to Apparently, such a task was not set. The raids demonstrated to the townsfolk that the authorities are also against “these”, they are ready for forceful methods. Their main result is the legitimization of collective responsibility: the crime of one visitor (in this case, a citizen of Russia, arrived in Moscow from Dagestan) may be a reason for attacks on visitors as such. And this logic, judging by the events in Biryulyovo, was learned.

The election campaign as a whole is in itself both symptom and cause of the rise of xenophobic sentiment. Enough note that the "hunt for migrants" was carried out not only in regions where elections took place. Following the candidates on the problematic aspects of migration all the media, including federal TV channels, started talking. Words like “Has our city become too hospitable” reports began and programs, journalists gladly accompanied the nationalists in their illegal trips to the places of residence of migrants, were actively covered raids to detain illegal immigrants, data on crimes were broadcast, committed by visitors.

After the events in Biryulyovo and the subsequent speeches of the nationalists the topic again does not go to the front pages, and again its discussion revolves in first of all around various kinds of prohibitive measures. In social networks there are many stories about manifestations of everyday xenophobia, witnessed by Muscovites, there are many expressions solidarity with the inhabitants of Biryulyovo.

Of course, the problematic aspects of migration have been discussed before, but far not in such quantities. The authorities also showed populism before, but not in on such a scale.

Meanwhile, no matter how many Russians dream, the reality is such that in countries with a negative demographic balance and emerging economies, immigration is inevitable. A set of measures aimed to make this process the least painful and the most useful, and is the essence of migration policy. At least, should make up.

Since almost any discussion on this topic immediately rests on the demand "to deport everyone and not let anyone in", since to be it is no longer shameful to be a xenophobe, and corruption in this area, judging by everything, will not go anywhere, we will continue to have what we have: tough prohibitive measures on the way to naturalization instead of assistance in integration, economic and corrupt demand for cheap labor and xenophobic local population, which will in every possible way prevent cultural adaptation of new arrivals.

The scenario for the development of the situation is known: criminal incidents will occur more frequently, the xenophobic aggression of the local population, in response to which aggressive cohesion will begin to grow ethnic minorities. As a result, all these "people's gatherings" will at times escalate into full-blown inter-ethnic clashes. Unfortunately, on At this stage, there are all prerequisites for such development.

I would like to hope that Russian politicians will stop dealing with demagogic flirting with the xenophobic consciousness of the population, and instead turn to common sense and think about how the country respond realistically to the challenge of mass migration.

Notes 1. The “Kondopoga scenario” refers to a situation where household or a criminal violent incident between "Russians" on the same side and "non-Russians" on the other, results in the performance of local residents under xenophobic slogans with more or less active participation nationalists.

1. Every second crime in Moscow is committed by guests of the capital // RIA News. August 2, 2013 (http://ria.ru/incidents/20130802/953807530.html).

2. Official data on crime in Russia, including in regionally and including the number of crimes committed non-citizens are available on a special website created by the General the prosecutor's office. See: General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation. Legal portal statistics (http://crimestat.ru).

3. Sobyanin opposed the permanent residence of labor migrants in Moscow // Grani.ru. May 30, 2013 (http://grani.ru/Society/Xenophobia/m.215136.html).

4. Election program of candidate for Mayor of Moscow Ivan Melnikov // Krasnodar regional branch of the Communist Party. July 24, 2013 (http://kubkprf.ru/news/link?id=15019).

5. Mitrokhin Sergey. How Moscow is taken away from us // Yabloko. Special issue. 2013. Summer.

6. The program of the candidate for mayor of Moscow Alexei Navalny. year 2013.

7. Interview of Alexei Navalny to Alexei Venediktov. Migration // Echo Moscow. August 23, 2013 (http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/beseda/1139878-echo/).

8. Degtyarev urged to “send home” all migrants // Polit.ru. 2013. August 31 (http://polit.ru/news/2013/08/31/degtyarev/).

Sources

• Golyanovo, Biryulyovo - further everywhere ... // Polit.ru. November 13, 2013