On the oft-repeated claim that "there are more and more Muslims in Moscow, so let’s build mosques for all of them, so they can comfortably remain Muslims in Moscow."
U.S. intelligence has forecast global trends through 2030. According to the projections, Russia’s economy will shrink slowly. Experts see the main demographic challenge for Russia in the growing share of the country’s Muslim population. ... In addition to economic problems, the United States is drawing attention to Russia’s difficult demographic situation. The report predicts that Russia’s population will decline from 143 million in 2010 to around 130 million in 2030. Although Russia’s birth rate is now roughly the same as in many European countries, Russians’ life expectancy is 15 years lower, the report’s authors note. This is broadly consistent with data from Rosstat (Russia’s federal statistics agency). According to the agency’s most pessimistic forecast, Russia’s population in 2030 will be 127.91 million. Experts see the greatest danger for Russia in the rapid growth of the Muslim population alongside a simultaneous decline in the number of ethnic Russians. According to their data, Russia currently has about 20 million Muslims—around 14% of the population. By 2030, that share is expected to rise to 19%. “The changing ethnic composition of Russia’s population already appears to be a source of growing social tension,” the American experts note. http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2012/12/11_a_4886381.shtml If you haven’t seen it yet, here, on the same subject, is yesterday’s open letter from the head of the Superjob.ru portal, one of the main online job-search resources: ....the actual personnel policy being pursued is leading to the creation of an additional 25 million jobs for low-skilled migrants by 2020. This is on top of the 10–15 million jobs already created for them. As a result of current state policy, in the coming decades the number of low-skilled migrants brought in from abroad will amount to more than half of the country’s economically active population. Of course, we understand that Russia has set a course toward innovative development. And what is innovation? It is increasing competitiveness through advanced production management methods, cost reduction, and so on and so forth. In that sense, attracting large numbers of low-paid, low-skilled workers—most of whom, moreover, work outside the legal framework under near-slave conditions—is certainly an innovation, one that allows organizations to cut costs and become more competitive. It is an excellent solution! But it makes tens of millions of our fellow citizens completely uncompetitive. Even now they cannot compete in the low-skilled labor market. A Russian citizen cannot and should not have to compete for a job and a poverty wage with a newcomer from Central Asia. Russian citizens are neither prepared nor obliged to live in beastly conditions, 20 people to a room, while receiving a pittance for their work. And our citizens do not want this. But let me stress: that does not mean they do not want to work. They do not want to work for wages that do not allow them to have and raise children, eat properly, and receive medical care. Moreover, according to our research, as many as 18% of our fellow citizens already feel real competition from newcomers from Central Asia. That is overall, but among low-skilled Russian youth and low-skilled older people, nearly 25% already report such competition! These are terrifying figures, Mr. President! What benefits do we get from bringing in tens of millions of low-skilled migrants? I do not see a single one. We are diluting Russian civic culture (I stress: not ethnic Russian culture, but Russian in the broader state/civic sense). Uncontrolled migration creates problems not only in Moscow and other “Russian” megacities—in our “Muslim” regions, too, the influx of cheap labor from abroad creates the same difficulties. Could anyone have imagined ten years ago that Moscow schools would have classes where children speak Russian poorly or do not know the state language at all? Today this is reality. If the flow is not stopped, then before long there will be schools and neighborhoods where it will be difficult to hear Russian speech. Five years ago, the Russian language did not contain the word “Moskvabad” (a derogatory blend implying Moscow had become like a Central Asian city). Today, it is no longer even taken as a joke. And then there is this absolutely marvelous piece about how Promisekin’s promise of a Russian-language exam for migrants is being carried out: Mandatory testing of foreign migrants engaged in unskilled labor for knowledge of the Russian language has turned out to be on the verge of collapse. As Kommersant managed to learn, in the first week after the relevant amendments to the law “On the Legal Status of Foreign Citizens” came into force, out of several million labor immigrants in Russia only about 200 arrivals from neighboring countries decided to take the test. At the same time, representatives of national diasporas told Kommersant that their compatriots do not intend to take the Russian-language exam because of its high cost. ... In the tests reviewed by Kommersant, the emphasis is on the ability to decline words correctly and use prepositions properly. In the “reading” section, there is an announcement: “All workers are going to the medical center by bus.” Those being tested are required to answer: what mode of transport will the workers use? ... Representatives of national diasporas sharply criticized the implementation of the testing law. “So far, it gives the impression that the law was needed only as yet another way to fleece newcomers,” Karomat Sharipov, head of the association “Tajik Labor Migrants,” told Kommersant. “None of the compatriots who come to us intends to take the exam.” They believe that the cost of the exam (3,000 rubles, about US$100 at the time) is too high for people engaged in unskilled labor. It is hard not to agree with Karomat Sharipov. Yet another feeding trough. A migrant’s costs go up, and so, in order to get settled in the “new homeland” and not starve in the first few months, he will bring with him not 200 grams of heroin to sell, but 250.
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