At the Sadovod market, which is near my home, 1,000 migrants were detained. The state media are reporting this so triumphantly, as if the police had caught fascist saboteurs. What a great achievement—you could go there every day and detain that many people.
And of course everyone is interested in one question: where do they take them after they’re detained? Here—my wife took this photo while driving past our local police precinct, "Maryinsky Park":
They simply bus them out to police precincts, check their documents there, collect money from them, and let them go. What did you expect—that they would be deported? In fact, they didn’t even take money from most of them, because they are here legally. We’re used to calling them illegal migrants, but the reality is that they are no more illegal than you or me. Russia officially allows any number of citizens from Central Asia and the South Caucasus to enter the country. If, hypothetically, all the residents of Uzbekistan wanted to come to Moscow tomorrow, they could just come. Entirely legally. And there is only one way to regulate this (this is how it is done all over the world): establish a permit system, introduce visas. Then we decide for ourselves: in 2013, we will issue 100,000 visas. The 100,001st person would be told, "Sorry, the quota has been used up, we’re not issuing any more visas. Come back next year; visas will become available as people who arrived earlier leave Russia." Of course, someone might cross the border on foot and make it to Moscow by hitchhiking. But then that person would be an illegal migrant in the proper sense—he would not be in the visa database. He could be deported. But for now, all one thousand of them safely return to the Sadovod market. Citizens, please support the introduction of a visa regime with the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. We need to establish at least basic order and decide for ourselves how many foreigners we allow to enter our country. I also recommend reading an interesting article:
Maria Snegovaya: Biryulyovo as a Clash of Civilizations Russian xenophobia is not unique, and its causes lie neither in poverty nor in the economy. Read the full article