- Title: RUSSIA: Newspaper launched for migrant workers aims to foster integration
- Date: 28th March 2011
- Summary: TURAN NEWSPAPER ISSUE
- Embargoed: 12th April 2011 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Russian Federation
- Country: Russia
- Topics: International Relations,Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA4TTF0UR71M35X6UGNVYM2TNS8
- Story Text: Millions of migrants from Central Asia arrive in Russia's major cities throughout the year, seeking jobs to help support families back home. These migrant workers are essential to the Russian economy which will lack an estimated one million workers each year up until 2017.
But the flow of migrant labour into Russia and its role in the economy remains largely unregulated and even ignored by Russia's policymakers. Many make the difficult journey from Central Asia to find work in northern Russian cities like St Petersburg, with no definite job waiting at the other end, speaking poor Russian and without friends or family to fall back on in times of crisis.
St.Petersburg businessman Igor Belousov saw the problems faced by migrant workers in his city and decided to help, he says.
"A guy comes here to earn money. He may have been tricked into coming here and he is not happy he has come. So imagine, he is sitting here, poor guy, with no knowledge of the language or anything. He may be behaving incorrectly for the simple reason that he doesn't know how to behave. So I thought the best way of getting this information out is to publish a newspaper," said Belousov at his office from where he runs his business.
According to the Russian Federal Migration Service's office in Tajikistan around 98 percent of Tajik migrants in Russia work as unskilled labourers. The Moscow-based Center of Migration Studies says that only 50 percent of labour migrants are literate enough in Russian to complete official documents.;20 percent have no command of the language at all.
An ethnic Russian, Belousov said he felt close to Central Asia as he was born in Kazakhstan when Central Asia was still part of the Soviet Union.
He called the newspaper 'Turan' which means Central Asia in Farsi. The circulation is 10,000 copies but he has plans to print more. So far his company has published two issues, all in three languages: Russian, Tajik and Uzbek. He plans to add the Kyrgyz language to the list, soon.
Belousev says the project is purely non-commercial and that his other business interests pay for the newspaper. He employs an editor and a couple of translators.
But with the growing number of migrant workers in Russia, this is also a largely untapped market.
Belousev says the goal of the newspaper is to help migrants integrate better with local Russians, learn about Russian history, culture and the way of life in their host cities.
'Turan' is also designed to provide non-Russian speaking migrants with information and advice on how to find work and accomodation, without falling prey to conmen.
"One reader wrote to us about how he tried to rent a room in St.Petersburg and was cheated by the estate agency. He writes about how to deal with such situations and gives advice to the others of how not to fall for such afraud," said the Turan editor Anastasia Tashkina.
Tashkina came to St.Peterburg from Tatarstan and said she knows the problems of migrants first- hand.
Once the current issue was ready, the staff distributed the newspaper themselves.
Tashkina personally delivered a package with the freshly printed newspaper to one of its biggest clients - the Uzbek community centre which looks after the 100,000-strong army of Uzbek migrant labourers in St.Petersburg.
"We come here to work, earn money, though sometimes with no luck. But with the help of this newspaper a lot of things will be different. Now there is somewhere we can write to, turn to, share our stories. We hope 'Turan' will not be just a newspaper but a real help to us," said the centre's coordinator Valisher Khaidarov.
"We want people to understand that we didn't come here to live on someone else's expense, we came to earn money. We work and earn, we don't eat anyone else's bread," added Khaidarov, who personally hands the paper out among his numerous community.
As most of the migrants are Muslim, St.Petersburg's central mosque was the first stop for the rest of the 'Turan', wgere they offered the new issue to worshippers on their way to prayers.
Asked what the migrants expect from the newspaper, most said they would use it to find work and seek legal advice in their own language.
"What interests us is where work is available, vacancies," said Uzbek labourer Mohammad Ruziakhunov.
"(I want to know) what legal documents I need, how to find work, how to work legally," added Roman Nazarovn from Kyrgyzstan.
But legal problems are not the only ones migrants face in Russia.
Polls show that Russians generally want to see fewer migrants rather than more. With elections coming up in December and in 2012, politicians are unlikely to challenge public opinion on the issue.
Resentment of Russia's migrant workers was fanned by economic slowdown and high unemployment in 2008-2009, and even as its economy picks up and relies increasingly on migrant labour, public attitudes of racism and xenophobia remain ingrained.
Human rights activists say officials have long turned a blind eye to these traits in a country where racist violence and vandalism are a regular occurrence. Earlier this year Moscow witnessed ethnic rioting and Russian human rights research group SOVA reported that at least 60 people were killed in hate crimes in Russia last year. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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