THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE IN MOSCOW, PART ONE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 010502

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/19/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL KDEM RS
SUBJECT: THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE IN MOSCOW, PART ONE

Classified By: Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs Alice Wells.
Reasons: 1.4(B/D).


1. (C) SUMMARY. This is part one of a two-part series on the
typical experiences of immigrants in Moscow. The current
cable describes the experiences of a partly disabled Chechen
male who has lived on and off in Moscow for the past 20
years. The second cable relates the experiences of a Kazakh
female who is a newcomer to Moscow. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) The subject of this cable, Adam, is a highly educated
construction engineer who graduated from Moscow State
University in 1991. He lived in Moscow during the First
Chechen War, worked in Eastern Europe for a few years, and
spent the Second Chechen War in Grozny. He currently lives
and works in Moscow and sends money to his mother, wife, and
three daughters who live in Grozny. Adam has been classified
since childhood with a second-tier disability (severe and
permanent) because of his poor eyesight.

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Registration With The Interior Ministry
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3. (C) The problem of getting registered anywhere outside the
Chechen Republic is very acute for Chechens. A landlord has
to be strongly motivated and have a good knowledge of the
laws and stamina to get the police to register a Chechen at
his place of residence. The absence of registration creates
numerous problems for Chechen migrants. They are often
denied access to free medical services, although the law
guarantees provision of urgent medical help. Getting a job
with a legitimate employment contract and receiving state
benefits and pensions become nearly impossible in the absence
of registration. Enrolling children in kindergarten and
school also becomes more difficult. Adam said his daughters
were denied enrollment at several kindergartens and started
school late because of the length of time and difficulties he
had obtaining registration.


4. (C) Often police officers, who are obliged to regularly
visit homes where Chechens reside, threaten rental landlords
with trouble. As a result, landlords often reject
"inconvenient" tenants or allow them to rent housing, but
without registration. Rents are often increased for North
Caucasians by USD 200-300 per month. Adam said he was
rejected by landlords many times in the 1990s because "they
didn't want his sort of person living in the building." When
he tried to rent a private room in a dormitory, the landlord
told him he had to provide an update about the tenants every
week for the "structures," making Adam too much trouble at
any price.


5. (C) Even when landlords give their consent, the struggle
to get registered can last for months, if not years.
Registration of Chechens is often accompanied by a
humiliating procedure, which includes getting a permit for
registration from the head of the local police precinct, a
special check for a criminal record, compulsory
fingerprinting, and a mugshot. Adam confirmed that this was
the procedure he was subjected to. His sister, who has lived
in Moscow most of her life and is married to a non-Chechen,
was visited 3-4 times a week by the police while he was in
the registration process (prior to that she was visited 3-4
times a year). If a registration certificate is ultimately
issued, a file is created on virtually every Chechen, like
those created for criminals.


6. (C) These files are used to track Chechens, particularly
when a terrorist attack happens. For example, following the
Dubrovka theater incident in 2002, monitoring of legal
Chechens increased dramatically in addition to mass
"cleansings" of illegal Chechens and others in Moscow from
the North Caucasus, Adam said. Chechen residences were
visited more frequently, cellphones were checked to see what
calls had been made to and from them, and phones were tapped.


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Obtaining Benefits Difficult
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7. (C) Benefits without a registration certificate are
granted only to those people from Chechnya who were
registered as benefits receivers outside Chechnya before
December 1997. All remaining residents of Chechnya,
including those who left after hostilities resumed in August
1999, can get registered to receive benefits outside the
republic only if they have a residence registration and a
benefits file. Adam who has poor vision has been classified
since childhood as having a second-tier disability and was
eligible to be in the former category since he received

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benefits while he was at university. However, when Adam
moved back to Moscow, it took him almost six months on top of
his struggle for registration to be enrolled to receive
disability benefits. During the process, he was accused of
having a fake disability certificate (even though it is
obvious he has difficulty seeing) and of submitting falsified
documents. But only after he threatened several times to
take the Social Benefits Department to court did he begin to
receive the benefits. Adam said he was fortunate because he
knew the laws and normative acts governing disability
benefits, which are confusing and complicated, better than
many new migrants. He said many give up because they are
deceived and bullied by the authorities and because they
don't know their rights well enough to persist.

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Problems Finding A Job
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8. (C) Although Adam is highly educated and motivated, after
the First Chechen War from 1994-1996, he found it nearly
impossible to get a job in Moscow. Once prospective
employers looked at his passport and saw that he was Chechen,
they frequently rejected him even though he was qualified for
the job. He was told "we don't want any problems for the
firm because the police will keep checking up on you." So he
spent the mid-1990s working in Eastern Europe, where he said
he encountered no discrimination. He returned to Chechnya in
1998 and stayed there for part of the second war to support
his elderly parents. He returned to Moscow in mid-1999 to
earn money to send back to his family, who stayed in Grozny.


9. (C) The best job Adam could find on returning to Moscow
was as a nightwatchman for a retail store. He was on duty at
the store when the first apartment building was blown up in
September 1999. The police visited the store -- only a few
blocks from the apartment building -- hours later as part of
the initial investigation into the bombing. Adam said he was
treated well until they checked his passport. When they
discovered that he was Chechen, they brought in OMON troops
who searched the store and started removing items. They beat
Adam when he protested that merchandise could not be removed
from store without notifying the owner. Adam was taken to
the local police precinct and was told repeatedly that drugs
would be planted on him if he did not admit to a role in the
bombing. After being held incommunicado for almost 24 hours,
they finally let him go. He was fired from that job a short
time later.


10. (C) Although no one claimed responsibility for the
bombings, Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov announced "Operation
Whirlwind," enlisting over 20,000 law enforcement officials
to undertake a massive anti-terror campaign. The operation
ultimately rounded up 20,000 non-Muscovites, mostly ethnic
minorities primarily from the Caucasus, and resulted in the
expulsion of approximately 10,000 individuals who reportedly
did not possess valid residence registration papers. Adam
said that he felt lucky to "only lose his job and be subject
to frequent identity checks" and not be expelled like many
other Chechens.


11. (C) Adam said he was hired for his current well-paying
job as Marketing and Sales Director at a pharmaceutical
manufacturing company because the owner was a college friend
who knew of his difficulties. He said if he did not have
this job, the only alternatives open to him would be to
either return to Grozny or menial labor. He said he was
feeling secure at the moment because he had a good job and a
strong support network of Chechen and non-Chechen friends who
would be able to help him if he ever ran afoul of the police.


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Discrimination In Society
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12. (C) According to a 2006 study by the Open Society
Institute, riders on the Moscow Metro who appear non-Slavic
are twenty times more likely to be stopped by police than
those who look Slavic. Riders who appear non-Slavic make up
less than five percent of all Moscow Metro users but account
for over half of all people stopped by the Moscow Metro
police. However, the study found that police stops uncover
administrative document violations only three percent of the
time, which calls into question the effectiveness of ethnic
profiling for migration and anti-terrorist measures. Adam
said that his personal record for being stopped by police was
10 times in a week, but that the last time he was stopped was
in May. In his opinion, the situation was worse 3-4 years
ago. The police are better at ethnic profiling now, he
thought, and are targeting working-class migrants from
everywhere -- not just Chechnya -- more frequently and

MOSCOW 00010502 003 OF 003


leaving alone well-dressed, middle-class Chechens.


13. (C) Adam's daughters spent several years in Moscow before
returning to Grozny. While in pre-school and kindergarten in
Moscow, many of their classmates would use ethnic slurs
without really knowing their meaning. They were simply
repeating what their parents were saying at home. As the
daughters got older, teachers treated them more harshly than
their classmates. They were given lower grades because they
would "eventually go back to Chechnya and didn't need good
grades there."


14. (C) COMMENT. The level of xenophobia has ebbed and flowed
with the Chechen wars and terrorist attacks in Moscow and
other Russian cities. While Adam's case is somewhat
complicated by his disability, he made it clear that his
experiences with getting registered, renting an apartment,
finding a job, and being racially profiled were par for the
course for Chechen men in Moscow. He said if he could
support his family by working in Grozny, he would move back,
but for now he can make much more money in Moscow. This
continued discrimination of immigrants, particularly from the
North Caucasus, is increasingly at odds with Putin's declared
policy from May 2006 to "stimulate immigration to Russia,"
but it is in line with periodic opinion polls conducted by
the Levada Center. In 2005, 58 percent of respondents
categorically objected to foreigners buying apartments in
Russia. Between 41 and 46 percent have consistently
responded in polls over the last few years that ethnic
Russians in Russia are poorer than members of other ethnic
groups; only 6-9 percent think otherwise. As recently as
August 2006, 51 percent of respondents believe that "ethnic
minorities wield too much power in Russia."
BURNS