Locked in Moscow

Labor migrants do not have enough means of existence and help. Hundreds of thousands of people were in a hopeless position

The self -isolation regime, which has been in Moscow for the third week, perhaps the most hit the labor migrants. Many of those who worked officially were sent on unpaid vacation. Those who worked illegally may not return to work. Despite the loss of income, many need to pay for a labor patent - 5350 rubles per month. While some landlords give delay or discounts, others threaten to drive out into the street. And on the street, police officers, as if nothing had happened, check the documents from people of “non -Slavic appearance”.

The correspondents of the Novaya were versed in what labor migrants, locked in Moscow for the quarantine period, and how they could threaten the current crisis.

"For many years they would have wished Putin if the patent payment was canceled for at least a month"

With the advent of the epidemic, the migrants lost their income sources, but they still should pay income tax. Migration patent for work in Russia should receive foreigners from Abkhazia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine - states with Russia with a visa -free regime. If a labor migrant from these countries wants to work legally in Moscow, every month he gives 5350 rubles from his pocket (last year it was 5 thousand, and 4,500 in the year before last).

Someone works without a patent, but those who followed Russian laws fell into a trap.

“Every month of the second day I pay 5350 rubles,” says Oybek Nuraliev. A citizen of Uzbekistan, 42 years old, of which 15 years have been living and working in Russia. - Already on May 2, I will not have money for a patent. I don't know what to do.

Oybek-a loader-compound, worked in Moscow in a warehouse. At work, he was asked to sign an application for unpaid leave for a month - from April 10 to May 10. Together with him “on vacation” they sent another 15 people.

It was impossible to refuse.

Now, together with his wife and son, he is sitting at home. Both need to pay a patent. Zhenya was more fortunate - she at least not lost her job. He continues to wash the entrances, however, without any means of protection. Now they live on his salary over the past month and the salary of his wife: "We do not complain."

Hafizphone, a single mother from Tajikistan, was worse. “Such a difficult time. We will not even be able to pay for housing. We are taking off. And the school needs to be paid, and the kindergarten, and the patent, and for extending registration. There is no [money] for food at all. Revolutionary time, ”she laughs with a gloomy laugh.

She has two boys - the elder is studying at school, the youngest is not even four years old. Before the birth of her second son, Hafizphone worked as a midwife in the hospital, then went on maternity leave. When the decree ended, she went to work in a bakery - already illegally.

Whether she can return to work after quarantine, is not clear. "They told me:" If Che, let us call. "

She needs to pay a patent until May 1.

“We would have wished Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin for many years, more than a hundred wished him to live if the patent payment was canceled for at least a month,” Oybek is entrusted for all labor migrants. - Imagine, 15 thousand - an apartment, then a patent payment. For food, each person comes out 5-6 thousand. Registration every month is 1,500. Already in the region of 20 thousand, consumption is released. When are you sitting at home, where to get them from?

“[Usually] the state tries to help people, writes out material assistance from the budget,” says Renat Karimov, chairman of the Central Committee of the Migrant Workers Trade Union. - Here - on the contrary. A huge number of people are not received from the budget, but replenish it. It would be very timely if the authorities said: "Dear migrants, do not pay for your patent in April." Thus, they could pull their pants a little, because 5350 rubles ... In Moscow, people can stretch out a month with this money.

"There will be collapse on the border"

As early as March 19, before the first appeal of the president, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia explained how the term of the temporary stay of foreigners in Russia due to the pandemic would extend. On the website of the department they wrote that for this you need to contact the nearest body of the Ministry of Internal Affairs with a statement written in any form. According to the new rules for foreigners with a visa and visa -free entry, the deadline in the country was extended, even if it has already expired.

The order from afar, but they forgot to prescribe the procedure, which opened the possibility for refusing to extend, says Valentina Chupik, executive director of the Tong Jahoni organization, which has been protecting the rights of migrants in Russia for many years.

- As a result, people came to the MFC, and they were told: “It is not enough that one owner of the apartment came. All the owners of the apartment should come if it is in shared ownership. ”

If suddenly the owner is alone, they said: "You have falsely filled out the application."

How to fill out the application in any form, no one explained. It was still possible to take shape until the end of March, but from March 30, “My Documents” in Moscow closed.

The borders of Russia also closed - for entry and exit. Those who did not have time to draw up documents remained in a limbo. Oybek Nuraliev, for example, is valid, and his son ended on April 1. “How many times I called, I still call - they say that at the end of the month they will open. There will already be a delay! But it’s not us to blame that they closed to quarantine, and that our registration ends on April 1. ”

It is unclear whether after the end of the self-isolation regime in Moscow some sanctions for migrants who involuntarily violated migration legislation. Chupik is sure: this is a great opportunity to extort money from thousands of migrants who risk expulsion from the country.

“Now restrictions are valid until April 30. Suppose after that they will say: "That's it, we open the boundaries." Hundreds of thousands of people who are here now will be forced to leave because they have the end of the registration, ”Renat Karimov fears.

- They say to them: "The quarantine will end, go to yourself." There will be hundreds of thousands of such people.

And no throughput of either buses or trains is able to cope with this.

People will immediately rush to buy tickets. Many of them will not buy. Private translators will appear: "For 50 thousand I will take you to the border." There will also be a collapse on the border: checkpoints, automobile transitions are not designed for such a combination of people.

"We check migrants for involvement in the coronavirus"

It would seem that with the introduction of the self -isolation regime of manifestations of racism by the police, the police should have become less: most labor migrants lost their jobs and sit at home. But it happens exactly the opposite, according to Valentina Chupik.

“The police have become much more rigid,” says the human rights activist. - Every day I have at least 15-17 detentions - despite the fact that people practically do not go out. In pre -quarantine times, there were about 30 detentions per day, but usually a completely different stream of migrants. The flow decreased every 5-6, and the number of detentions has only reduced. ”

On Saturday morning, a young man called her - he was detained at the Airport metro station.

“They told him:“ We are checking migrants for involvement in the coronavirus, ”Chupik laughs. -And he is an engineer-designer, an educated guy. Of course, it was absolutely delighted. ”

By nationality, he is Uzbek, but with Russian citizenship, so he simply showed the police a Russian passport. This did not convince them - they suspected a man of involvement in extremism and demanded to unlock the phone. After 10 minutes, he was still released.

Oybek ran into police officers when he went to the market for meat. In the store, only chicken and pork are sold near the house. Pork is not a freebie, but there is one chicken tired. “The cops are police, that is - they caught me, the protocol drew me up. I explained to them humanly: now, I was forced to go for meat. I bought meat and go back. They did not understand this, ”Oybek complains.

Several police officers brought him to the platform at the Kievskaya station, photographed against the background of the sign and released. They said that the court decision would come to him by SMS. Oybek returned home, "as they say, with nerves."

"They can just drive out into the street"

The main burden for migrants who have lost their jobs is renting housing. If for companies most injured due to the situation with coronavirus, the authorities approved the conditions for providing a deferral of rental payments, then nothing similar was made for ordinary people. Lessers of residential premises cannot be forced to be forced to anything - it is not easy for many of them now.

Altynai-single mother. She is twenty -eight years old, she has a three -year -old child, and now she is in despair. The girl from Bishkek was worth it to rent a apartment in Moscow: the owners refused to populate the tenants of the "non -Slavic appearance" without a Russian passport. Altynai promised her current landlord that she could pay for housing on time. But in early April, the girl was fired, and now she is afraid to tell her mistress about it, because "she will not make any discounts and can simply be expelled outside."

Altynai worked unofficially - in Moscow at least a million such migrants as she. How many of these people managed to leave the capital, and how much they lost their jobs and remained in Moscow without a livelihood is unknown.

“My first work was official, but not very much according to the schedule: I was uncomfortable to take the child to the garden and take it,” Altynai says by phone, shouting children's laughter against the background. - Therefore, six months ago I found another job - in the field of trade. The company is small, and I was asked to work without a contract. It seems that people were good, I trusted them and worked just like that, and they paid me everything correctly. I worked in the wholesale department of the sales manager. I also made analytical reports for management on request. And now the crisis has come, and they began to reduce people. And first of all, I fell under the reduction, because it is easiest to dismiss me. They told me:

“Altynay, I'm sorry, I have to reduce you because the company does not earn. Go further yourself. ”

The girl was not paid any compensation - Altynai believes that she was lucky that the company paid at least for the days worked last month. Now the girl is sitting at home with a child and “desperately looking for a job”: “Let me work as a courier, let the seller, even if I have such an experience-if I have any money, then I will not think about bad. I do not want to return to my homeland, because I am already used to it here: I like the mentality here more, I like the opportunity. There are no relatives and there is no house - that's the difference for me. ”

Altynai Aizat, who unofficially worked before the crisis, the call center operator, with the lessor was lucky a little more.

- I rent an apartment. The owner said that you need to pay the entire amount, but if it is very difficult, you can divide into two or three parts. Although some friends tell me that they are either 50 % inferior or shifted [payment term] for a month.

"We have nothing to feed children"

Previously, almost everything that she earned, Aizat sent to her homeland. In June, the girl planned to fly to Kyrgyzstan - now she has to spend money on food and apartment laid out on a trip. In addition, the girl helps her compatriots, who found themselves in a more difficult situation than herself: “There was no help from the Kyrgyz government. But there are families who need: single mothers or those who are simply in a difficult situation, who do not have money for food, accommodation. We, activists, collect money from who has money, help each other. We throw off and take the products. There are those who keep the apartments. They invite you to live at least a month. ”

(The solidarity of migrants deserves special attention. For example, Hafizphone told us that she had recently given 500 rubles to an unfamiliar Tajik to “eat”, despite the fact that Hafizphone herself lives on $ 200, and she has no more money from her. Also in early April, the media wrote about how a point of grocery was working on the distribution of product sets to migrants organized by the Tajik human rights activist in an Amon).

Despite the messages of the embassies of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan about assisting compatriots who remained in Moscow (for example, the ambassadors of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan said that the authorities of the republics settled several dozens of people who did not have funds for living, and the Tajik Ambassador mentioned the request for Tajik businessmen With work and arrangement), the allocated resources are clearly not enough.

According to the head of the charitable organization of assistance to refugees and forced immigrants “civil assistance” by Svetlana Gannushkina, some families are in a “catastrophic situation”:

- People turn to the fact that they have nothing to feed children. They write to us: "Children did not eat for three days." Of course, they remained alive, but no light in the window, it is not clear when it all ends. We collect money, try to feed those we can. We transport products. Basically, of course, refugees, but also labor migrants too. Happy children's face surrounded by canned food and packs with pasta. Those to whom we gave products will somehow reach May 1. Someone was given some amount for rent, but we cannot cover it entirely-the rent is very expensive. While we have enough funds, but they quickly diverge. We filed a grant - to humanitarian aid to migrants. Nevertheless, I do not expect at all that we will get this grant. Because we are “foreign agents” after all.

Surprisingly: we are called "foreign agents" of those who have a sense of citizenship.

"If illegal immigrants now get sick, they will hide"

According to Gannushkina, the Russian society should be interested in “the migrants receive help”: “We want them to sit at home. So, they must somehow eat. And to live somewhere. And do not gather in large crowds. Otherwise, this will end very bad for us in terms of pandemic. ”

Migration expert Gavhar Dzhuraev is even less optimistic in their forecasts: “Migrants are in the most vulnerable position now. Today they called about one migrant who has already died. He worked in the country, the owners of the cottage arrived from abroad. He began to feel bad, and he was taken to the ambulance - the hosts patted.

And they were cured, and he died from coronavirus.

I am sure - illegal immigrants if they get sick now, they will hide so that they are not expelled, so as not to lose the right to work in Russia for violating the migration regime. Only in extreme cases they will go to the hospital. ”

The New Gazeta sent official requests to the Moscow government, the embassies of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as to the Ministry of the Interior with a request to comment on the current situation. As soon as the answers to the requests are received, we will immediately publish them.