Citizenship, Belonging and Moldovan Migrants in Post-Soviet Russia

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Citizenship, Belonging, and Moldovan Migrants inPost-Soviet Russia

Alexia Bloch

To cite this article: Alexia Bloch (2014) Citizenship, Belonging, and Moldovan Migrants in Post-Soviet Russia, Ethnos, 79:4, 445-472, DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2012.751929

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2012.751929

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Citizenship, Belonging, and MoldovanMigrants in Post-Soviet Russia

Alexia BlochUniversity of British Columbia, Canada

abstract Drawing on ethnographic research among transnational Moldovan house-holds in Moscow, this essay considers how ideals of belonging, assertions of historicallyinflected rights, and aspirations for mobility are all part of the everyday practice of citi-zenship. Mobile subjects encountering increasingly restrictive post-Soviet citizenshipregimes often recall incorporation into a greater historical polity than their currentpassports would suggest. Three key areas are examined: the intersection of citizenshipregimes and popular understandings of belonging; the sense of rights driven by culturallogics informed by previous history; and the way in which ideals and practices of citizen-ship are diverse among migrants from apparently homogeneous migration streams. Thepost-Soviet context where the Soviet promise of enfranchisement continues to informhow people on the margins view citizenship illustrates just how deeply citizenshipregimes come to be incorporated into popular understandings of belonging even longafter formal citizenship ceases to exist.

keywords Post-Soviet, Russia, citizenship, belonging, migration, Moldovans

Introduction

In June 2002, I first became acquainted with migrants from Moldova when Imet Bella in the wholesale garment district of Istanbul, a place widely associ-ated with ‘Russians’ exporting goods from Turkey.1 I rounded a corner and at

the intersection of two streets came upon nearly 100 Russian speakers confer-ring among themselves about where they might find positions as domesticworkers or day laborers. Bella told me she had been coming to Turkey offand on since 1996, and most recently had worked there for a year, keepinghouse for two different families in Smyrna, ‘Homer’s homeland’ as she describedit. Like many of the women gathered, she lamented missing the ceremony

ethnos, vol. 79:4, 2014 (pp. 445–472), http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2012.751929# 2013 Routledge Journals, Taylor and Francis

marking the end of school (poslednyi zvonok) back in Moldova. Her eldest sonwas graduating from high school and would soon depart for Romania to takeup a scholarship to study computer science, while her eight-year-old son wasstaying with his uncle, waiting for his mother and father to return from theirmonths away as labor migrants. Toward the end of our conversation Bellasaid, ‘Make sure to get this down. I want to meet with Greenpeace and askthem who they think they are defending. What about us? Who will defendus [post-Soviet migrants]?’ Just then Bella was approached about a possiblejob, and she quickly wrote down her phone number and address in Moldovaand urged me to visit her so I could ‘really learn’ what drove people to seekwork in Turkey.

The following summer I took Bella up on her invitation and traveled tosouthern Moldova, to the region known as Gagauzia. Bella lived in a typicalSoviet-constructed, two-story, concrete-block apartment building. Like muchof the town during that summer, the building lacked running water for mostof the day, and only had electricity for a few hours in a 24-h period. Bella apol-ogized that her apartment was in poor order; she had only just returned fromMoscow. She left Moscow after working for more than a year renovating apart-ments, and becoming expert at spackling and painting. While the pay wasmiserly, Bella said the worst part was the violence on the part of the Moscowpolice. She noted that in Turkey at least you could reliably bribe officials toavoid being deported. In contrast, in Russia the police beat people indiscrimi-nately, then took a bribe, and then often still deported people. Bella was plan-ning to set off to Turkey after just a few weeks at home in Moldova; she hadescalating utility bills, tuition, and food and clothing to think about for hertwo sons.

In 2007, I met up with Bella again, this time in Moscow, where she hadreturned after spending nearly two years in Turkey. Bella energeticallyexplained that she was again renovating apartments. Doing domestic work inTurkey was in many ways easier, but working in Russia had become muchmore lucrative.2 The fines for overstaying visas in Turkey had risen consider-ably, and her drywall and painting skills were in demand in the oil-driveneconomy that was fueling a building boom in Moscow. The best part, Bellareflected, was that for the first time in 10 years she and her husband had livedtogether for more than a few weeks. Now he too had been able to work steadilyon a construction crew, and they could afford to rent a room together, instead ofsharing with 8-10 people, something common for labor migrants in Moscow(see Reeves 2010). In thinking about how difficult it was to exist in Russia

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without Russian citizenship, Bella commented angrily how the Russians just‘milk us like cows, until all they get is blood . . . I would never raise my childrenhere . . . the growing nationalism of Russians makes this a dangerous place to beas a foreigner’. She could barely wait until she could settle permanently backhome in southern Moldova.

While the subject of ‘citizenship’ has historically occupied a wide range ofscholars, only recently has research begun to focus on citizenship as somethingthat is culturally contingent and inextricably linked with ‘partial citizenship’ or‘noncitizenship’ and ideals about belonging (Ong 1999; Benhabib 2002; Bosniak2006; Reed-Danahay & Brettell 2011). In this essay, I turn to the way ‘citizenship’is imagined and contested by migrants, where citizenship regimes and popularunderstandings of belonging intersect. Furthermore, in focusing on a contextwith rapidly shifting parameters defining citizenship, the former Soviet Union(FSU) provides an amplified perspective on citizen/state relations and historicalmechanisms of inclusion/exclusion that inform how mobile populations thinkabout claims to citizenship.

Moldova provides both one of the starkest examples of desperation broughtabout by the fall of the Soviet Union and a means for considering the post-Soviet context in terms of a tension between popular aspirations for citizenshipand citizenship regimes which states are imposing in new ways (De Genova &Peutz 2010). These tensions are not unlike those of other former empires andtheir diasporas (e.g. see Mole 2001; Karatani 2003; Saada 2012), but the case ofMoldovan labor migrants clearly highlights how a particular history ofcitizen/state relations informs ideals about citizenship. Moreover, these labormigrants’ experiences also complicate simple categorizations of ‘citizens’ vs.noncitizens, by reminding us of what Coutin (2005) has called the ‘shimmeringquality’ (5) of citizenship created when we take into account both state defi-nitions of citizenship and social realities experienced by migrants. The coher-ence implied by terms like ‘citizen’, ‘nation’, ‘borders’, or even ‘empire’ isbelied by the specificity of historical experience. We can better understandthe disjunctures between popular and official versions of citizenship by bringingan analysis of these multiple layers together with a focus on the ‘shimmering’effect where citizenship plays out in migrants’ lives.

In turning attention to how labor migrants contest circumscribed forms ofcitizenship in Russia, while also appealing to multiple, official designations ofcitizenship, we can better understand the forms of belonging and exclusionwhich typify centers of global power today. The circular migration Bella hasengaged in for nearly 15 years has come to define the lives of working class

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men and women in this region and many people like Bella remain in Turkey orRussia for years on end; as they move between Moldova and these twocountries they employ creative strategies of belonging. The case of undocumen-ted migrants from Moldova in Russia provides a fruitful way of reflecting onhow shifting global citizenship regimes have implications for the types ofbelonging people deploy. In particular, I argue that the case of Moldovanmigrants – including the Gagauz, a Turkic-speaking, but historically Christianethnic group based in southern Moldova, which has widespread strong alle-giances to Russia – highlights how official definitions of citizenship fit uneasilywith more popular understandings of citizenship. I also show how the ideals ofcitizenship which migrants invoke are very much driven by cultural logicsinformed by a history of claims to a broader Soviet concept of citizenship, aswell as, to some degree, by a global flow of information about human rights,as Bella’s comment about Greenpeace suggest. Finally, I draw on the MoldovanGagauz case to emphasize how ideals and practices of citizenship among appar-ently homogeneous groups of migrants are, in fact, significantly diverse, andthese differences are shaped both by historical experience and by prevailingpolitics of inclusion and exclusion (Buckley 2008).

While there is a plethora of work on migration related to Russia and the FSU(Messina 1994; Savoskul 2001; IOM 2002; Tishkov et al. 2005) the actual experi-ences of migrants and the implications of these experiences for theorizingaround citizenship regimes have received little attention.3 In this essay, I turnto accounts from migrants like Bella who are engaged in long-term migrationto Russia in order to better understand how ideas about citizenship are beingreconfigured in the region, and how a history of strong (socialist) state policiesregarding minority rights might inform noncitizen demands for inclusion.

This essay is informed by ethnographic research, and specifically participantobservation and interviews which were conducted over several months inspring 2007 and 2009, as well as in summer 2011, among Moldovan labormigrants working long term in Moscow. While all interviewees were Moldovanaccording to their passports, it is also significant that most identified as ethni-cally Gagauz, a point to which I will return as I examine the factors whichdraw this particular group of people to live and work in Russia. My analysis uti-lizes the concept of ‘noncitizens’ since many people do have some sort of statusin Russia and Moldova and are therefore not always technically ‘undocumen-ted’. Interviewees were identified using a ‘snowball’ sample, drawing on contactsI have developed in the course of a larger research project on circuits of labormigration between southern Moldova, Istanbul, and Moscow (Bloch

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2011a, 2011b). I conducted all the interviews in Russian, a language in which I amfluent.

This essay is organized into four parts. In the first part, I discuss the idea ofthe ‘friendship of peoples’ and the politics of recognition which deeply definedSoviet frameworks for citizenship. I then turn to the ways contemporary trans-national mobility complicates ideas about citizenship and belonging in theregion. In the third part, I examine the relationship between Moldova, andespecially Gagauzia, as a source of migrants and Russia as a receivingcountry. In the final section, I draw on portraits of two separate migrant house-holds and discuss ideals of citizenship among noncitizen Gagauz migrants fromsouthern Moldova.

Citizenship Regimes, the ‘Friendship of Peoples’, and the Politics ofRecognition

For nearly 70 years official discourses around citizenship in the Soviet Unionrevolved around the ‘friendship of peoples’, meant to signify equality forworkers, international brotherhood, and equal opportunities for the diverseethnic groups residing within its borders. Now, two decades after the SovietUnion came to an end public culture in Russia is dominated by very differentsentiments. More than half of Russians polled in 2007 said, ‘Russia is forethnic Russians’ (Kramer 2007), while 60% of Muscovites polled two yearsearlier had a ‘negative attitude toward migrants’ (Yudina 2005: 597). Ethnicallymotivated violence is on the rise and migrant workers and those perceived asethnically other frequently suffer from abuse and exploitation (Human RightsWatch 2009; SOVA 2011).4 Anti-migrant and pro-Russian sentiments areechoed in recent government legislation which makes it illegal for anyonewithout Russian citizenship, regardless of whether they are legally resident inRussia or not, to be employed in a wide range of spheres.5 Despite this crack-down on immigrants, however, a large number of undocumented migrants con-tinue to flock to Russia, and especially to Moscow, from countries that werepart of the Soviet Union.6 Migrants from countries like Ukraine, Tajikistan,and Moldova arrive in Moscow with shared histories, memories, or experiencesof ‘Soviet’ citizenship; these often form foundations of hope for migrants whoseek more inclusive forms of citizenship than currently exist in Russia.

The anti-immigrant trends in Russia parallel those that have emerged glob-ally, especially since the onset of the current world economic crisis. Sharp struc-tural adjustment policies, public and private sector job losses, and a global senseof insecurity in a post-9/11 era all contribute to rising anti-immigrant sentiment

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and more restrictive immigration policies in a number of countries, includingacross Europe, the USA, and Australia (Nagengast 2009; De Genova & Peutz2010; Mohapatra et al. 2010).7 Russia’s relationship with both documentedand undocumented migrants is particularly fraught, and the World Bank esti-mates that Russia has one of the largest numbers of migrants in the world,with as many as 12.1 million migrants in the country (World Bank 2008).

Policies around migration into the Russian Federation have shifted over thepast 20 years, but until the late 1990s they generally allowed for visa-free travelfor those from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a conglomera-tion of countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.8 These relativelyopen borders existed in a post-Soviet setting where widespread calls for separ-atism, territorial claims, and civil war led to large flows of internally displacedpeople and efforts to ‘repatriate’ people to ‘their historical homelands’(Tishkov et al. 2005: 1).9 Over the past 10 years CIS countries have establisheda range of agreements to enable voluntary resettlements, as well as new visaregimes linked to changes in the political landscape.10 Overall, increasinglystrict regulations have emerged in regard to migration into Russia. For instance,in 2002, the ‘Law on the Legal Status of Foreign Citizens on the Territory of theRussian Federation’ established elaborate procedures for legalizing sojourns orresidence in Russia and established a 90-day visa-free regime for citizens ofmany of the countries of the FSU (VISTA Foreign Business Support 2003,2005). Nevertheless, with the lengthy waiting period for work permits, therequired employment contract (trudovoi dogovor), and unpredictable fees,most migrants find it difficult to legalize long-term status in any form inRussia (Human Rights Watch 2009: 3).

The plight of ethnic others in Russia featured prominently in migrants’accounts of their daily lives. They peppered their reflections on life as labormigrants with stories reflecting how dominant ideals about citizenship andethnic others had radically changed from the Soviet to the post-Sovietperiod. Inna, a Gagauz woman, who received a scholarship to study economicsin Moscow, recounted how she was once asked on the Moscow subway, ‘Whatis wrong with your speech, why don’t you go back where you came from?’ Innaresponded to the aggressive woman that there was nothing wrong with herspeech, and that the woman should watch her rudeness – after all, Inna wasnot touching any of this woman’s personal property. When Inna asked wherethis woman was from, the woman relayed that her mother was Ukrainianand father Russian. As Inna said, ‘See! Almost no one is from here!’ Inanother Moldovan migrant’s account, she told a story of a ‘Russian Moscovite

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woman’ who was riding the subway one day and looked around to commentabout a Tajik woman sitting nearby, ‘Agh, so many blacks (chernokozhie)here’. The Tajik woman responded, ‘When we were at war [WWII], we weregood – and now we are bad!’ (‘Kogda voina, my byly khoroshimi – i teper my plo-khimi!’).

Experiences like these underscore the ways in which migrants invoke a senseof Soviet citizenship which incorporated ethnic others in ways that are notbeing recognized by the current Russian government. Migrants imagine aform of citizenship that will enable them to be full participants in Russiansociety, while often maintaining ties back to home communities. Moldovanmigrants seek rights of mobility and belonging that they discussed enjoyingprior to the fall of the Soviet Union, and in this way they invoked types ofsocial connection that go well beyond one state’s recognition (or non-recog-nition) of them as citizens. In this way, migrants are laying claim to a sort of‘transborder citizenship’, to borrow from Glick Schiller’s (2005) definition ofthose who claim and act on a relationship to more than one government (27).As Inna’s Moscow subway exchange suggests, migrants I interviewed oftenpointed to how in Moscow many people have a history of recent migration,and dynamic ties to non-Russian home communities, and this should not begrounds for excluding people from the basic rights of citizenship.

To better understand this perspective on citizenship as malleable and havingtransnational dimensions, it is useful to discuss how ethnic groups and nationalentities were defined in the late Soviet Union and some of the implications forunderstandings of citizenship in a post-Soviet context. As Slezkine (1994)explains, Soviet policies toward non-Russian citizens, or ‘natsional’nosti’, weremuch debated in early incarnations of state policy in the 1920s. Lenin’s position,insisting on fostering trust in the central state and the socialist project by accom-modating local cultural practices and language use, ultimately won out. By thelate 1930s, however, Stalin had reformulated policy toward non-Russians in theFSU and Russians became a de facto privileged ethnic group, supposedly leadingthe Soviet Union forward. The individual Republics and Autonomous Districts,which were closely allied with hegemonic ethnic groups, were officially cele-brated as examples of the cultural diversity of the Soviet Union, but the Russianswere still positioned as first among equals (Slezkine 1994; Hirsch 2000). In con-junction with this hierarchy of ethnic value, a discourse of ‘friendship of peoples’permeated all levels of society, with seats reserved in educational institutions formembers of non-Russian ethnic groups, public celebrations marked by proforma dances, songs, or ‘folk’ culture events from ethnic communities across

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the Soviet Union, and a range of efforts for non-Russians to express non-threa-tening forms of allegiance with co-ethnics.

The phrase ‘friendship of peoples’ embodies both a Soviet specific socialpolicy and a means of containing ethnic diversity and the politics of recognitionwithin socialist societies more broadly (see Yeh 2009).11 Significantly, whilemany urban intellectuals found the concept to be untenable and a sign of theempty ideology of late socialism (Slezkine 1994), for others who tended to beat the margins of society, like Gagauz, Tajiks, Evenks, etc., the concept hasheld critical meaning, even embodying the promise of being equals within abroad set of Soviet citizenship claims (see Bloch 2003). This situation pointsto a variable experience of citizenship within the Soviet Union and also hasimplications for how the cultural others of the former Soviet ‘empire’ aspireto forms of inclusion within Russia today.

Citizenship and Transnational MobilityCitizenship tends to be framed in legal terms as a discrete entity as one of

four types: birthright ( jus soli), blood right ( jus sanguinis), a combination ofbirthright and blood right, or naturalization (Bosniak 2006; Benhabib &Resnik 2009: 2–3). In recent years, however, the study of citizenship has alsotaken on some new dimensions, in part because of intensified transnationalmobilities. As transnational mobility has forged new cultural formations(Marcus 1995; Kearney 1995; Faist 2000; Fouron & Glick Schiller 2001), it alsobrings about challenges to how we understand citizenship.

Scholars have complicated understandings of citizenship by turning atten-tion to its substance, discussing the problematic of multiculturalism (Kymlicka1998; Benhabib 2002; Bloemraad 2007), civic engagement (Reed-Danahay &Brettell 2011), and scales of citizenship, with a focus on types of communityand ‘political citizenship’ as distinct from nationality (Neveu 2000). Recentresearch has also turned to questions of ‘transborder citizenship’ and ‘social citi-zenship’ (Glick Schiller 2005; Glick Schiller & Caglar 2008), forms of governanceembedded within newly ‘flexible citizenship’ (Ong 1999), and the way citizen-ship is inflected by different types of social status, including age and gender(Bloch 2009; Benhabib & Resnik 2009; Constable 2011). Scholars widely pointout how the shifting nature of national borders, as well as the shifting culturalpractices within national borders, shapes how citizenship is legally definedand construed. The heightened mobility of people and reconfigurations ofcenters of global power mean that discourses about inclusivity embodiedin ideals such as ‘friendship of peoples’ or ‘Commonwealth’ are increasingly

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challenged. As Werbner and Yuval-Davis have argued, citizenship needs to beseen as a relationship that is ‘inflected by identity, social positioning, culturalassumptions, institutional practices, and a sense of belonging’ (1999: 4; citedin Constable 2011: 12). In the case of Moldovan migrants, their relationship tocitizenship is likewise shot through with a range of elements that shape theirsubjectivities, including memories of incorporation into a greater historicalpolity than their current passports would suggest.

The money, patterns of mobility, ideas, and particular negotiations around citi-zenship that link post-Soviet migrants could be seen as what Rouse (2002) hascalled a tightly ‘woven together’ community defined by a ‘transnational circuit’.These social practices challenge discreet boundaries around what it means tobe a citizen of a single state, instead suggesting that we need to think in morenuanced ways about the complexity of multiple and shifting citizenships(Coutin 2005). Many times a day text messages about a deportation or theneed for money to pay a bribe or a new job travel across borders in the region.Also, on a weekly basis migrants receive objects transported across borders andinfused with significance; for instance, in Moscow migrants might receive a favor-ite Turkish sweet, a birthday present, or homemade jam from a parent or grand-parent. Meanwhile, material goods and money that are more readily available inMoscow or Istanbul circulate back to Moldova. Migrants themselves periodicallymove between Russia, Moldova, and Turkey; in particular, they return toMoldova to sort out paperwork for meager pensions, make arrangements forchildcare, or receive medical care. In short, a wide array of negotiation goesinto Moldovan migrants’ practices of citizenship.

Like the ‘flexible citizens’, described by Aihwa Ong as working in onelocation and supporting families in another, and along the way seeking toacquire multiple passports (Ong 1999: 214), many of the current post-Sovietmigrants also ‘ . . . embod[y] the split between state-imposed identity and per-sonal identity caused by political upheavals, migration, and changing globalmarkets’ (Ong 1999: 2). As post-Soviet migrants engage in transnational circuitsbrought about by global destabilizations of former structures of power and theemergence of new structures, many express a sense of being connected toRussia by Soviet historical experience. Others look to more recent constella-tions of power embodied in an EU passport, or Russian permanent residency(vid na postoiannoe zhitel’stvo), or sometimes a combination of all three. Citizen-ship regimes shape distinct cultural logics of belonging, and as Moldovanmigrants’ accounts show, rigid state versions of citizenship do not always fitwith the personal identity or widely held aspirations of migrants. A critical

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examination of the category ‘Moldovan migrant’ shows that ideals of citizen-ship cannot be viewed as a simple matter, but instead are intertwined bydiverse ethnic histories, generational subjectivities, and transnational connec-tions. Taken together these reflect the ‘shimmering quality’ of citizenship(Coutin 2005: 5) where popular and official versions intersect in the realitieslived by migrants.

Moldovans, Russia, and Circumscribing CitizenshipDespite widespread impressions to the contrary, Russia is currently more

defined by in-migration than out-migration. Most of this border crossing isdone for the purpose of employment, with estimates of labor migrants residingin Russia ranging from 4 to 12 million people (Tiuriukanova 2003: 179; WorldBank 2008; Human Rights Watch 2009: 10).12 While those leaving Russia insearch of work predominantly seek employment in Western Europe andNorth America, those entering Russia for work are mostly from post-Sovietstates and find employment in informal commerce, construction, and servicespheres, such as domestic work and home repair and renovation (Yudina 2005:593). Legislation passed in spring 2007 invalidated any previously issued tempor-ary work permits, required re-registration of temporary migrants, and initiated acampaign against the hundreds of thousands of people working in Russia withoutproper documentation. In the aftermath of this crackdown it was clear that somepeople with more ‘Russian’ physical features – especially those from Ukraine,Moldova, and Belarus’ – were often overlooked by police in their sweeps ofpublic spaces and markets where migrants were widely employed. However, asBella’s account opening this essay indicates, they were by no means immunefrom abuse. Those appearing to be ‘non-Russian’, or ‘black’ (chernye), wereespecially targeted and threatened with deportation, while the employers couldface thousands of dollars in fines. Paradoxically, while the Russian governmentofficially has taken a stand against undocumented migrants, the economy con-tinues to rely on the low-paid labor of migrants. In April 2007, newly enactedlegislation brought street markets to a standstill for nearly two months.However, demand for labor remains high in Russia, and employment opportu-nities in neighboring countries like Moldova remain few; undocumentedmigration remains steady and the markets continue to flourish.

MoldovaMoldovans depart from a country that is a poster child for the plight of relativelypoor and recently impoverished regions where entire national economies have

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come to depend on remittances sent home by labor migrants (Ghencea &Gudumac 2004; Pinger 2009; Mohapatra et al. 2010). With the fall of the socialiststate infrastructure and the privatization of factories and agricultural enterprises, theaverage household is unable to find adequate local employment to meet even basicsubsistence needs. As Bella’s portrait which opened this essay illustrates, remit-tances have become essential to pay utility bills, buy groceries, and educate chil-dren.13 In 1999 remittances sent to Moldova via formal channels constituted justover US$90 million; by 2009 formal and informal remittances combined werewell over US$1.2 billion (Mohapatra et al. 2010).14 In 2009, 23% of Moldova’s ofMoldova’s gross domestic product (GDP) came from remittances, puttingMoldova in fourth place globally – after Tajikistan, Tonga, and Lesotho – interms of the proportion of GDP provided by remittances (Mohapatra et al. 2010: 3).

Of the nearly four and one half million citizens of Moldova, as much as aquarter of them are said to be absent from the country in recent years.15 Migrantslike Bella are in high demand in construction, domestic work, care for elderlyand children, and agricultural work (Ghencea & Gudumac 2004: 74). WhileWestern Europe is the preferred destination, Moscow to the North and Istanbulto the south are less desirable, but more easily accessed destinations.16 Turkey,with one- and two-month tourist visas that can be procured at the border, andRussia, with short-term visa-free arrangements for most countries of the FSU,have become major hubs for post-Soviet return migration, as well as migrationfrom further abroad (Aktar & Ogelman 1994; Andrienko & Guriev 2005: 25).

Moldovans are particularly well positioned to pursue a range of border cross-ing. They are flanked by EU-member Romania on one side and Ukraine on theother; while the proximity of the Black Sea makes access to Turkey possible viaa 24-h ferry from southern Ukraine. However, migrants who officially identifytheir citizenship as Moldovan in their passports can have very diverse aspira-tions for mobility. Officially ‘Moldovan’ means that someone is a citizen ofMoldova, but in popular interactions among Moldovans this designation sig-nifies a person who identifies with the dominant Moldovan-speaking (effec-tively Romanian) ethnic group in Moldova (King 2000; BBC 2009). Onlythree-fourths of the population of Moldova identifies their primary ethnic affilia-tion as Moldovan, with the rest predominantly identifying as Ukrainian,Russian, Bulgarian, or Gagauz.17

The flow of migration into Russia is especially pronounced from thesouthern area of Moldova, known as Gagauzia. In contrast to the titular Moldo-van population concentrated in the north of the country, the Gagauz, a Turkic-speaking group with a population of about 153,000 people in Moldova, has

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recently struggled for recognition in the region.18 During the Soviet Union theregion benefited from extensive central government investment in agriculture,including viviculture and grain and fruit production. As an ethnic minoritywithin Moldova the Gagauz did not have political autonomy, but they werebeneficiaries of state policies giving them privileged access to education andprofessional advancement. These opportunities meant that Gagauz came tovalue Russian as a lingua franca in the Soviet Union, and something essentialto their identity as Soviet citizens; in contrast, the Moldovan language was sup-pressed under Soviet rule and Gagauz were not generally fluent in it.

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the status ofthe Gagauz within Moldova became increasingly tenuous. In part in reaction tothe 1991 Moldovan government declaration to make Moldovan the officiallanguage, that same year Gagauz voted almost unanimously to remain in theUSSR (King 2000). Citizen militias consisting of ethnic Moldovans gatheredto storm the Gagauz regions of the country and a violent confrontation was nar-rowly averted. While the crisis was eventually resolved, and Gagauz haveremained citizens of Moldova, the moderate local autonomy promised theGagauz has only partially been realized (King 2000: 218–22). Furthermore, dis-crimination has become a serious issue. As one young woman who has workedin Turkey since 1992 told me, she was aspiring to study music but was derided atthe entrance exam with remarks that no one from Gaguzia would stand achance of gaining entry. The dominance of Moldovan as an official languagealso continues to factor into Gagauz marginalization since many Gagauz arenot fluent in Moldovan, and therefore cannot advance professionally or findemployment in government spheres. Gagauz express a strong sense of beinga colony within Moldova and this further intensifies widespread identificationwith Russia, a place many Gagauz look to for scholarships for higher education,jobs, and now, long-term settlement.

Gagauzia as a region has been marginalized within Moldova for decades(Gagauz Autonomous Territory Administration 2013). At the intersection ofcontemporary Romania and Ukraine, over the past 100 years the area inhabitedby the Gagauz has been incorporated into five different countries: Romania,Germany, Russia, the Soviet Union, and now Moldova. Prior to that for over300 years the Ottoman Empire extended its power over this region, bringingabout a situation where today the Gagauz are largely Christian (many areRussian Orthodox, but many also increasingly belong to Evangelical faiths)and speak a language mutually intelligible with contemporary Turkish (King2000). Gagauz have been disadvantaged by being a dispersed population and

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by being located in one of the most agricultural regions of the country, which isnow no longer supported by the Soviet state infrastructure. People speak passio-nately about the ways their lives have been often tragically affected by labormigration, but they also speak about the long-term connections they havewith Russia, both as a source of remittances that are critical to supportingtheir households and as a place where they feel entitled to establishing citizen-ship.

Following the People: Narratives of MigrantsIn this last section, I turn to accounts from Gagauz migrants traveling to

Moscow, many of whom have mothers, sisters, or aunts in Turkey, to demon-strate the ways citizenship is enacted by migrants from Gagauzia. The followingaccounts of two Gagauz migrant households increasingly grounded in Russiareflects how migrants differentially consider the practices and possibilities ofcitizenship and lay claim to a legacy of connections with Russia. The accountsof Moldovan migrants in Russia who maintain links to Turkey and Moldovaalso highlight how structural factors shape aspirations for migrants. In contrastto Turkey, where there are few options for regularizing status, except forwomen to get married to a Turkish citizen (Bloch 2011a), in Russia it is possiblefor men and women to apply for permanent residency, and ultimately citizen-ship, even if the mechanisms and fees for doing so are constantly shifting.19

Despite these possibilities, acquiring a legal status in Russia has variableappeal for migrants. While factors such as gender, family support, educationalopportunities, and class are part of the story of the heterogeneity of migrantsfrom Gagauzia, here I focus on generation and ethnic background as primaryfactors shaping aspirations for citizenship. In examining these factors, we canbetter understand the shifting terrain of migrants’ citizenship ideals within the(in)flexible citizenship regime in Russia and avoid homogenizing the experienceof migrants.

Bella’s account of her migration highlights the experience of many middle-aged Moldovan women who have alternated their labor migration betweenTurkey and Russia, but in recent years younger Moldovans, includingGagauz, frequently bypass going to Turkey. They instead look increasingly toRussia as offering more opportunity. As one 23-year-old Gagauz womanwhose mother has worked in Turkey as an undocumented domestic laborerfor nearly 15 years explained, ‘Why would anyone go to Turkey? Russia ismuch closer to our culture [Gagauz] and besides, my mother has suffered somuch there’. Unlike Bella, who speaks Moldovan, and who ultimately plans

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to return to Moldova, younger labor migrants in Russia are often looking tolong-term settlement in Russia, even if they remain keenly aware of how theyare unwelcome in Russia. In all 10 of the cases of younger migrants (aged 22–30 years old) I interviewed in Moscow, they spoke of having no real reasonto go back to Moldova. In many cases, few family members remain there andthey have no employment prospects or housing. Migrants looked to Russiaas a place they could hope for stable jobs, housing, and long-term prospects,including for their children. They spoke of Russia as a place where theycould imagine a future, but their narratives were also shot through with thechallenges of being considered noncitizens of both Russia and Moldova.

Inna and Valery: ‘No One Needs Us!’ or Being Mobile NoncitizensInna and Valery, both in their early 20s, have lived together in Moscow for sevenyears and maintained ties to Turkey, but equally to Moldova. Inna was in herthird year of her university earning a degree in commerce when I met her andValery, the brother of one of my interviewees in Turkey. Inna arrived in Russiain 2001 to study, but Valery only joined her in 2005 when he was deportedfrom Turkey for overstaying his visa. Given the three-month ‘visa-free’ arrange-ment that Moldova has with Russia, entering Russia was not a problem forhim, and the couple decided to try their luck at getting settled in Russia. ForInna there were few problems. In addition to being on a student visa, likemany women in Russia, Inna dyes her hair blonde and she has fair skin tomatch. The police rarely stop her, and in any case she was able to apply forRussian citizenship through the sponsorship of her aunt, so her paperwork-in-process status has safeguarded her. Valery is not so lucky. He is tall withswarthy features, and Inna says he looks ‘Bulgarian’, but the Russian policetarget him as ‘Turok’, lumping him with other groups considered ‘suspect’, likeAzeris, Georgians, and Chechens. Valery was detained seven times from 2005to 2007, and each time he had to pay US$100 to be released. By spring 2007Valery’s status as an undocumented worker made him even more vulnerableand he began to be more careful about working odd hours or taking constructionjobs in parts of town where there tend to be more police. The sense of needing tobe constantly vigilant weighed on Valery and he struggled with the desire to earnmoney for his family while also wishing to return to Moldova.

Valery and Inna are both closely linked to their hometown; beginning in2007 their daughter, who was then two years old, began to be cared for inGagauzia by her grandmother, in a care arrangement synonymous with those

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forged by many women labor migrants globally (Parrenas 2005; Pratt 2012).20

The previous year Inna traveled home to be with her daughter for one yearand receive modest Moldovan government maternity benefits. Back inMoscow the couple lives in a one bedroom apartment they share with a room-mate. They receive regular parcels of food, such as eggs, bread, and vegetablesvia an elaborate system of friends and acquaintances and a minibus deliveryservice making the 24-h trip from their home town.

In our discussions, Valery and Inna were skeptical of the value Moldovancitizenship might have. Inna recalled how in order to apply for Russian citizen-ship she had to renounce her Moldovan. She was required to send a writtenrequest to this effect, and within two weeks she received a letter saying thather request had been granted; as soon as her Russian citizenship was processed,she would no longer be a Moldovan citizen. Inna was appalled at how easily thecountry dispensed with her as a citizen, and she angrily explained, ‘It seems noone needs us!’ (Kazhetsia my nikomu ne nuzhny). Valery, in turn, was preparinghis documents to apply for a Bulgarian passport, since his ancestry made himeligible for this. Given Bulgaria’s recent admission to the EU, this passportwould open important opportunities for work; Valery said he hoped to ulti-mately hold both Russian and Bulgarian passports, and arrange the same fortheir daughter. Still, as a couple with a ‘mixed’ ethnic heritage – Gagauz, Bul-garian, and Moldovan – Valery and Inna were also happy that their daughterwas being raised by her grandmother in a Moldovan language milieu, some-thing they saw as an advantage in a country where knowledge of Moldovanis essential to securing one’s future socially and professionally. In many ways,these household decisions are parallel to those made by households elsewhere,where maintaining transnational forms of citizenship requires seeking inclusionin more than one set of formal systems of national belonging (Fouron & GlickSchiller 2001).

While the nature of citizenship was particularly tenuous for this couple, as formany young Moldovans, for them ‘citizenship’ was not a single allegiance to asingle state, but something that had to be pursued in multiple forms in order tokeep options open. Relatively strong kin ties to Moldova, as well as a sense thatthere could be prospects there for their daughter, compelled Inna and Valery tomaintain links with home, even as their lives were increasingly based in Russia.Valery’s potential to be granted a Bulgarian passport further complicated theirplans for citizenship. The following case also reflects the ways in which amongyounger migrants ethnic belonging as well as differentially situated kin net-

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works strongly influence the way in which citizenship is understood as muchmore than allegiance to a single state.

Ol’ya and SashaLike Inna and Valery, Ol’ya and Sasha are from a regional town center inGagauzia and have lived in Moscow for nearly a decade; like nearly all oftheir classmates, they left Moldova right after they graduated from highschool.21 Unlike Inna and Valery, in recent years Ol’ya and Sasha’s primarykin networks have extended more to Turkey than to Moldova. As Gagauzwho do not speak Moldovan, their ties to Moldova are somewhat more attenu-ated. They are focused on Russia as the best option for pursuing a future, evenwhile links to Turkey and Moldova still play a role in their lives. I arrived inMoscow from Istanbul in spring 2007 with an entire suitcase to deliver toOl’ya and Sasha; both of their mothers were working in Istanbul and had care-fully shopped for jeans, winter coats, and shoes to send to their children andyoung grandchild. In my first meeting with this couple they told me howexcited they were to finally be settled in an apartment of their own, evenwith a rent of $500/month. While they were not yet permanent residents,their combined savings (his from bartending and hers from being a sales clerkin a supermarket) and remittances from their mothers in Istanbul had made itpossible for Sasha to apply for this coveted status. The 3,700 Euros they hadpaid for Sasha’s permanent residency application was exorbitant, but theysaw few other options for remaining in Russia; within six months they hopedto be free of worries about Sasha being stopped by police who would requestproof of residence, and with the residency permit in place, their daughterwould be eligible for state-subsidized daycare.

Given the distance and expense of travel to Istanbul, and the demands ofwork, in 2007 the grandmothers had not yet seen their granddaughter. Evenbefore this, however, relatives from Moldova did travel to Moscow for her chris-tening, and pictures of that ritual event, and subsequent ones, traveled bycompact disc, cell phone transmission, and in hard copies to the grandmothersworking in Istanbul. The hardships of raising a young child as a family of undo-cumented workers challenged this young couple, but in 2007 they had a fewclose friends in the Moldovan migrant community who helped when theycould. Unlike many families, Ol’ya and Sasha did not have the option to sendtheir daughter home to Moldova to be raised by one of their mothers, buttheir mothers’ financial support made it possible for them to pursue a perma-

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nent home in Russia. From 2008, they have had additional support with Ol’ya’smother foregoing her relatively lucrative domestic position in Istanbul to livewith Ol’ya and Sasha; she has found part-time work cleaning houses and shehelps Ol’ya and Sasha with childcare and maintaining the household.

Sasha and Ol’ya’s childcare arrangements and the location of their closefemale relatives were not the only factors that made Ol’ya and Sasha less tiedto Moldova than Inna and Valery. Ol’ya and Sasha also faced less harassment.The harassment that many migrants feared after the April 1, 2007 decree was lessof a problem for Ol’ya and Sasha since Ol’ya stayed close to home with herdaughter, and Sasha was employed in a formal institution, a bar, rather thanas a contract worker or in the public space of the street markets. While officiallythe legislation made it illegal for noncitizens to hold jobs in a wide range ofspheres, in fact, the police have tended only to raid street markets. In spring2007, employers were anxious about being fined for employing undocumentedworkers, but as Sasha described, they were too short on staff to fire all the non-Russians.22

Overall, the way migrants mobilize transnational circuits of kinship, goods,and finances is marked both ethnically and generationally. As an older Moldo-van-speaking migrant without ambition to stay in Russia, Bella’s strategies arevery different from Inna and Valery’s or Ol’ya and Sasha’s. Citizenship idealsare not shared evenly by those carrying (or recently carrying) a Moldovan pass-port, and the Russian citizenship regime is viewed very differently depending onthe variable status of migrants in their home communities, including whetherthey are ethnic minorities or own property. Turning to the strategies employedto remain in Russia further highlights this point.

Strategies and Challenges in the New Citizenship RegimesThe range of strategies that migrants employ to remain in the country is exten-sive and considerably varies depending on socioeconomic standing and familyand individual circumstances, but especially depending on ethnic affiliation andgeneration. Moldovan migrants are able to take advantage of their geographicproximity to Russia, and as Bella chose to do, migrants have the option toremain legally in Russia by returning regularly to Moldova. Migrants caneasily travel by overnight bus or by train via Ukraine (and sometimes alsoBelarus’) to arrive in Moscow. For instance, in 2007 for 2,000 rubles (aboutUS$77) one could get a bus ticket for the 24-h bus ride to southern Moldova.For 5,000 rubles (about US$192) the driver would deposit a passenger at

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home, and also make sure there were no problems at the border due to over-stayed visas. The Russian government seeks to appear tough on undocumentedworkers, and yet the demands for labor are large enough that the borderremains relatively porous. This is exemplified by the uninhibited arrivals anddepartures of labor migrants that occur daily at one of Moscow’s major busstations. At least for older ethnic Moldovans like Bella, who were educatedand received housing in an earlier era, the risks of undocumented labor areworthwhile; they can return to Moldova frequently and send regular remit-tances without wasting resources on what they see as the tenuous promisesof permanent residency in Russia.

The younger people I interviewed tended to have different strategies; theydid not travel home frequently, but instead sought to establish permanent resi-dency in Russia. Younger migrants, like Sasha, Ol’ya, Valery, and Inna, did notpursue the option of frequently leaving Moscow either because it was not easyto travel with young children, or because of their types of employment.Younger people tended to have more formal employment arrangements thanthe older migrants working on short-term contracts; two of my consultantsworked as bartenders in an upscale restaurant, another one managed a store,three of them worked as waiters, and four of them were working as servicestaff in supermarkets or fastfood chains. Aside from long hours, they had infre-quent time off; so making an overnight journey home was not possible withoutjeopardizing their work. While arranging permanent residency is expensive, thisroute was preferable to them as a long-term strategy.

Furthermore, ethnic affiliation matters immensely in calculations around citi-zenship and citizenship ideals are not shared evenly by those carrying a Moldo-van passport. Bella identified as Moldovan-speaking, even though she grew upin southern Moldova, where the Turkic-speaking Gagauz are concentrated andmake up the majority of the population. People with backgrounds similar toBella’s, who I came to know in southern Moldova, but also met in Istanbuland Moscow, overwhelmingly look to Romania or destinations in WesternEurope for opportunities. In 2006, the Romanian government announcedthat as of September 1, 2006 all residents of Moldova who lived in the Molda-vian territory from 1918 to 1940, when the territory was part of Romania, andtheir immediate relatives, would be eligible to apply for a Romanian passport.In the first week of September 2006, more than 30,000 Moldovans took upthe invitation to apply to receive Romanian passports (see Regnum NewsAgency 2006), and by 2010 120,000 of 3.6 million Moldovans had Romanianpassports, with 800,000 applications still pending.23

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In contrast to those with Romanian heritage, the younger Moldovans I cameto know in Moscow identifying as Gagauz looked overwhelmingly to Russia forfuture prospects. Gagauz migrants in Moscow who are in their late 20s and early30s tend to aspire to long-term residency in Russia. As ethnic minorities withfew prospects within Moldova, and with family ties often spanning at leasttwo, if not three or more countries where they are noncitizens, they aredrawn to ideals of citizenship which reinscribe their ties to a greater Russia.They often seek to reaffirm their investment in Russian social capital in theform of language and Russian educational aspirations. Their lives requirethem to toggle between official citizenships, where Moldovan citizenship cur-rently garners them few benefits and Russian citizenship is a costly andlengthy process. Their understanding of citizenship embodies the value ofseeing citizenship as something that can be multiple in its meaning, but italso exemplifies the challenges faced by those on the margins as citizenshipregimes become increasingly rigid in the twenty-first century.

In conclusionIn reflecting on the (in)flexible citizenship regime in Russia, it is useful to con-sider how structural factors of receiving countries significantly shape how immi-grant communities take shape. In the case of Moldovans moving betweenMoldova, Turkey, and Russia the legacy of the Soviet Union looms large.The Soviet Union very much defined, and in some cases reified, ethnic identi-ties, but it also created some common understandings of citizenship. Even asyounger Moldovan migrants in Moscow look to transnational circuits to main-tain households, they also contest the narrow definitions of citizenship that theRussian state imposes, and seek to be incorporated into a new Russian citizenry.

While the state may ‘milk migrants until they bleed’ from Bella’s perspective,the younger people I met were nonetheless seeking ways to belong and affirmtheir citizenship; this involved obtaining Russian passports, as well as any othersthey could arrange for themselves and their children, but it was also about estab-lishing a sense of their rights in a place to which they have historical ties andclaims to citizenship. Recent anti-immigrant legislation has caused great finan-cial difficulty for migrants as they have scrambled to put documents in order orsecure work that might be less vulnerable to Russian policing. In addition,however, the legislation has also incensed many migrants who consider it adeclaration against self-evident entitlement to belonging in Russia. The caseof the Moldovan migrants looking to Moscow for their livelihoods reflects a

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new flexibility of capital, but it also reflects how a post-Soviet cultural logicshapes migrants’ efforts to challenge Russian state efforts to redefine citizenship.These migrants are ‘Moldovan’ according to the fixed identities established bystates, but especially as ethnic minorities within Moldova, their personal iden-tity is very much ‘post-Soviet’ and transnationally grounded.

The case of Moldovans is reminiscent of broader patterns of empire wherehistories of colonial relationships are reflected in patterns of dominantmigration flows between former colonies and global metropoles (Byron &Condon 2009; Bosma et al. 2012; Thompson 2012). These historical relationsresult in a lingua franca (e.g. English, Russian, or Portuguese) and commonsocial practices (e.g. the sport of cricket), but they also result in pressures forformer colonial powers to recognize the rights of those formerly under theiraegis. Significantly, historical state2subject relations also leave the imprint ofhistorical forms of governance and relations between citizens and states.

The Gagauz-specific migration stream out of Moldova reflects how themeaning of citizenship for a minority group can be historically inflected inimportant ways, especially in a moment when a group no longer enjoys theaegis of a strong state, and is instead marginalized by a new state. TheGagauz case also reflects a variable experience of migration and how evenwithin apparently homogeneous migration streams there is a great amount ofdiversity (see Buckley 2008). Migrants relate to and strategize around citizen-ship regimes in very different ways depending on the types of subjectivitythey have; as an ethnic minority in one’s country of origin the stakes for remain-ing in a host country may well be much higher than for those identifying withthe majority population in a country of origin. Likewise, generation or life stagematters immensely, as migrants evaluate what types of citizenship may be avail-able to them; young people are more willing to risk seeking citizenship or atleast permanent residency and potentially acquiring rights for their children,whereas older migrants may not be prepared to sacrifice the forms of belongingin which they are enmeshed in order to take a chance on tenuous possibilitiesfor citizenship in Russia. In short, ideals about citizenship are both shapedthrough transnational mobility and defined by historical, as well as structural,forces.

Examining questions of citizenship in a post-Soviet context where the Sovietpromise of enfranchisement, or the ‘friendship of peoples’, continues to informhow people on the margins view the host country of Russia starkly illustrateshow citizenship regimes come to be incorporated into popular understandingsof belonging even long after formal citizenship ceases to exist. The experience of

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Moldovan migrants to Russia is a reminder of just how (in)flexible citizenshipregimes can be and how tenuous citizenship has become in our newly globa-lized world.

AcknowledgementsI am grateful to those migrants from Moldova who took the time to speak with meabout their efforts to forge lives spanning Moscow, Moldova, and Turkey. An earlyversion of the essay benefited from a lively discussion at the panel, ‘Working theMigration Puzzle: Security, Labor, and Smuggling across the FSU, the Balkans,and the Europe Union’, organized for the American Anthropological Associationmeetings held in San Francisco in 2008. The manuscript benefited immenselyfrom a careful reading by an anonymous reviewer at Ethnos. The ethnographicresearch for this essay conducted in spring 2007 and 2009 was supported by an Inter-national Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), Short-term Travel Grant, as well asby a University of British Columbia Humanities and Social Sciences Grant.

Notes1. All names used in the text are pseudonyms.2. In 2004, Bella was able to make US$500/month working 12– 14 h days, six days a

week doing apartment renovation on a crew in Moscow; at the same time, as alive-in domestic worker in Turkey she could only make US$300/month. By 2011,Bella was more often an independent contractor, working alone or with just oneother person, and getting paid considerably more while working a schedulesimilar to what she did in 2004; her pay averaged $1,500/month. In both locations,migrants refer to their incomes in US dollars, although they are sometimes paid inlocal currencies, i.e. Russian rubles or Turkish lira. In 2007 in Moscow it was notuncommon for a one room apartment on the outskirts of the city, but still on ametro line, to cost $500/month to rent, and by 2011 the cost was often closer to$800/month.

3. For a thoughtful analysis of this situation see Buckley’s (2008) introduction toMigration, Homeland, and Belonging in Eurasia.

4. A growing number of human rights groups are documenting ethnically motivatedviolence in the Russian Federation. For instance, in 2010 SOVA, a Moscow-basedhuman rights organization, recorded 330 people as victims of ‘hate-motivated’ vio-lence, including 33 deaths. SOVA has tracked ethnically motivated violence for overa decade, and the following gives a sense of the scale of the problem: in 2009 over 11months, 80 people were killed in similar types of violence, with 414 people injured;in 2007 SOVA noted 653 attacks on ethnic minorities in Russia, including 73 deaths,a 16% increase over 2006 (SOVA 2011, 2007). For 2006, the Moscow Human RightsGroup documented 230 hate crimes and 74 racially motivated murders in Russia(United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2007: 170).

5. The first series of anti-immigrant legislation in Russia appeared in 2002. Newamendments to migration legislation came into effect on January 15, 2007. This legis-lation made it easier to employ citizens from most countries of the FSU as long asthey obtain work permits. Now documented migrants can obtain work permitsfrom the Federal Migration Service (FMS), and employers only need to notify

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the State Employment Agency upon hiring a citizen of the FSU. Employers hiringworkers who are undocumented and lack work permits face serious fines, amongother repercussions; in 2007 employing a foreign citizen without a work permitbecame punishable with fines ranging from 250,000 to 800,000 rubles. In April2007, 800,000 rubles was approximately US$31,000. Furthermore, as of April 1,2007, certain jobs, for instance, cashier, became restricted to Russian citizens (Che-botareva & Wilson 2007).

6. In 1994, the height of in-migration following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, 1.1million people immigrated to Russia from the non-Russian FSU states; in 2001, thisfigure had fallen to just 186,200, but a steady flow continues (Heleniak 2002; Flynn2004).

7. For instance, the UK recently restricted the number of immigrants from non-EUcountries permitted to enter the UK annually to 24,100 people, a 5% drop from2009 (BBC 2010). Growing anti-immigrant sentiment in the USA is perhaps mostnotoriously exemplified by contested Arizona state legislation that grants policethe power to demand proof of legal status as part of its routine checks (Sanneh2012). Meanwhile, in 2010 in Australia the already restricted list of possible occu-pations in place for its skilled worker migration program declined from 398 to 181(Mohapatra et al. 2010: 9).

8. The Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, currently consists of 12 membercountries which formerly belonged to the Soviet Union and now work in conglom-eration with Russia on common concerns around economic, defense, and foreignaffairs policies. For further discussion and a map of the region, see http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/cis.htm (accessed April 5, 2011). From 1992 untilthe late 1990s the Bishkek Agreement allowed for an ‘open’ migration regimeand visa-free travel between CIS states (Tishkov et al. 2005: 35), but after 1999,arrangements were made on more narrow terms between specific countries.

9. The 2002 Russian Federation census counted 145,166,731 people comprising thetotal population of Russia. This included 11,976,822 people, or 8.3% of the popu-lation, who identified as ‘foreign born’, a category that would also have includedthose who were born in the countries formerly part of the Soviet Union. OfMoscow’s total population (10,382.75), 1,128.03, or 10.9% of the those polled in thecity identified as ‘foreign-born’. (Russian Federal State Statistics Service, cited inMigration Policy Institute website, http://www.migrationinformation.org/datahub/gcmm/Moscowdatasheet.pdf (accessed January 12, 2011).)

10. For instance, in December 2000, when Georgia refused to allow Russia to traverseits territory to fight against what Russia viewed as separatist Chechens, Russiabegan to require a visa for Georgians who wanted to cross into Russia (Reuters2000).

11. The same discourse of ‘friendship of peoples’ or ‘amity between peoples’ circulates inChina today, where ethnic co-existence is carefully depicted (See Bulag 2002, citedin Yeh 2009:71). As Yeh (2009: 71) writes of China, ‘The only accepted cultural differ-ence is that which upholds the national unity, and does not split the nation’. Thediscourse of ‘friendship of peoples’ delicately points to difference while remainingwithin kosher bounds of political reference.

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12. Even just two years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the FMS estimated that twomillion people were in Russia as undocumented migrants (see Curtis 1996). In 1993,Russia signed the United Nations Convention on Refugees, and Russia becameclassified as a ‘country of first resort’, meaning that Russia had certain obligationsto foreigners fleeing countries outside of the CIS. These new obligations, alongwith the relaxed border security following the dissolution of the Soviet Union,rapidly increased the number of people arriving in Russia seeking refugee status.According to the UNHCR, in 1994 in Moscow alone, about 28,000 foreign (non-CIS) refugees were living illegally; these included roughly 20,000 Afghans, 6,000Iraqis, 2,000 Somalis, and smaller numbers of Angolans, Ethiopians, and Zairians.Other sources point to even larger estimates of as many as 100,000 undocumentedpeople living in Moscow, including 50,000 Chinese (Curtis 1996). From 1990 to 1999,official emigration from Russia to beyond the FSU states averaged about 100,000annually; by 2001, this exodus of mostly skilled, educated persons had fallen bynearly half, and in recent years has continued to fall (Curtis 1996; Heleniak 2002).In contrast, in 2002 the FMS counted 359,000 people entering Russia to work (Tiur-iukanova 2003: 179).

13. For the most well-off households engaged in labor migration in the early 2000s,incomes increased fourfold and for the poorest households incomes increased 13times what they were prior to migration (Ghencea & Gudumac 2004: 49). Onaverage, in regional Moldovan towns 22% of the active working age population isabsent in labor migration, in contrast to just over 9% of the same populationabsent from the capital city of Chisinau (Ghencea & Gudumac 2004: 41).

14. A study of remittances in Moldova based on a sample of 4,500 households, 715 ofwhich had at least one family member abroad from January to September 2003,found that 56% of remittances were received through ‘informal’ channels, that isnot wired into bank accounts or via Western Union money transfers (Ghencea &Gudumac 2004: 11, 74). Even as early as 2004 estimated remittances, including unof-ficially transferred sums, had reached US$1 billion (Argumenty i fakty 2004, cited inGhencea & Gudumac 2004: 75).

15. In recent years, the number of people ‘absent’ from the country in a given year hasbeen said to be as high as 1,600,000 according to local press accounts, and as low as234,000 based on scholarly research (Ghencea & Gudumac 2004: 41; World Bank2011).

16. In May 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Turkish President AbdullahGul signed an agreement to initiate visa-free tourist travel between their twocountries; however, the agreement will only come into being once a ‘readmission’treaty on illegal immigrants is also in place (see Russian Television 2010).

17. In 2004, Moldovans (or those speaking a language that is widely viewed as commen-surate with Romanian) comprised 78.2% of the population, Ukrainians 8.4%, Rus-sians 5.8%, Gagauz 4.4%, and Bulgarians 1.9%. The remaining 1.3% was defined as‘other’ in recent census data (CIA Factbook 2008).

18. The approximately 153,000 Gagauz living in Gagauzia, in southern Moldova, com-prise 82% of the population of the region. There are also over 250,000 Gagauz livingthroughout the FSU. Concentrations of Gagauz live in Ukraine, in Odessa andZaparozhye, as well as in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kabardino-Balk-

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aria. There are also Gagauz in Romania, as well as nearly 20,000 Gagauz living inGreece and Bulgaria, and also in Turkey (Gagauz Autonomous Territory Adminis-tration 2013).

19. The procedure for obtaining citizenship of the Russian Federation is regulated bythe Constitution of the Russian Federation, Federal Law No. 62-FZ, dated May31,, 2002, ‘On Citizenship of the Russian Federation,’ as well as several other regu-latory acts. Currently, successful applications for citizenship require residency inRussia for five years, stable employment, and fluency in Russian.

20. On both sides the grandfathers died years earlier, a commonplace situation in ruralMoldova.

21. Ol’ya said that of the 20 students in her graduating class in 2002, only five remainedin her hometown. All the rest were working as labor migrants in Russia, Turkey, orUkraine.

22. In 2009, Sasha did receive his permanent residency status but as of 2012 Ol’ya hadstill not received hers. Sasha has yet to be granted his Russian citizenship.

23. On Moldovans seeking Romanian citizenship, see Dimulescu and Avram (2011), as wellas the following web resources: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,706338,00.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8029849.stm http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/08/romania-and-citizenship http://www.crpe.ro/eng/library/files/crpe_policy_memo.pdf (all accessed March 10, 2012).

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