“And now I will tell you how migrants live”

In Moscow and Moscow region live and work more than one million registered migrants. Those who are in the country illegally, cannot count none statistics. Every day we meet them in the subway, taxi and banks supermarkets, but don’t know anything about their lives. And their life is a fear of deportation, a three-day queue for a quota, which then will not give, hard work, long separation from loved ones, rags on the floor instead of beds and dreams about the Russian citizenship. Today, 18 December – international migrant’s day.

Photo: UNHCR/Socrates Baltagiannis

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  • Bread with mayonnaise, a bed and work seven days a week – who are Russian immigrants

Border

Every three months, the 60-year-old Anzurat (name changed at the request of the heroine) “resets” the duration of stay on the territory of Russia. To remain legal, you need to go for 2 thousand kilometers from Moscow in the direction of the Kazakh town of Uralsk. Had traveled 700 kilometers to the Ukraine, and the road had cost only 2 thousand rubles, but the border was closed. Now taxi drivers, its the same, says Anzurat – Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, take 5 thousand rubles, fill the car with passengers, day and night taking them to the village Ozinki, Saratov region, exactly to the restaurant, “Shakhrisabz”, which is no man’s land. There migrants are waiting for the other taxi drivers, Kurds and Kazakhs. Good sincere people, emphasizes Anzurat, but they also need to earn money to feed my family. For 800 roubles, or fifteen hundred in a matter weekday or weekend, they transport people across the border of Kazakhstan, make a small circle and no man’s land, returned to Russia, to the restaurant “Shakhrisabz”. Thus a migrant in the passport a stamp about leaving and entering the country.

Photo: ria56.ru

To save money, Anzurat tried to get on the train to Saratov, then bus to Osinek. Overall is cheaper, but you never know how long you stand in line at the border, and bus, unlike the taxi will not wait, and then have to spend the night in the cold station, to wander around the empty room in the dark to stay awake and to his feet finally ceased to cramp.

There are two ways to live in Russia legally: every month to buy a patent for four and a half thousand rubles, as does the husband Anzurat, because he loves to walk with her head held high, or to obtain the passport of the citizen of the Russian Federation. To achieve the latter, coveted, for 15 years in Moscow Anzurat and her family and did not work.

Life

Anzurat lives in a rented apartment in near Moscow suburbs together with the thirty-year-old son and “another worker”, as he calls his female lodger. The husband was away in Samarkand – although they are Tajiks, but originally from Uzbekistan, caring for her sick mother and completes the house. The younger son is also at home, serving a five-year deportation.

Three odnushke they can say, even spacious: Anzurat asleep on the couch, which takes up almost the entire hallway, son and a lodger – in a room, both on the floor, only the “master” high mattress dressed with colorful blanket, and the tenant instead of a bed – a thin mountain of rags.

Anzurat long said “your worker”, so he bought a normal mattress, but if you think about it, where did he get the extra money?

Compared to other hotels in Russia to work family Anzurat live well: rent an apartment, not a bed, as her tenant, this monthly leaves 20 thousand rubles on the table no no Yes there is meat. Meat is expensive in principle, but the more Halal, so usually migrants do not buy it. But Anzurat found a good shop close to home and due to its natural ability to negotiate takes pounds for 350 rubles instead of 400, and the migrant worker, like her husband, and 10 rubles – money.

The arrival of the journalist she cooked the pilaf in a large cauldron, put on the table the best that was in the fridge: bright red tomatoes and sweet cucumbers from “Fudsiti” (gave a friend a migrant who works there), dried apricots and almonds from Tajikistan (lodger was recently at home), lettuce (and this is from my son, bought, because he knows how mom loves them), broken biscuits, but a plastic bag – tenant work in the “Auchan”, brought home leftovers unfit for the counter.

Photo: Depositphotos

– Plates clean – as if the offense prevents Anzurat, placing on the table a deep bowl, filled to the brim with hot fragrant pilaf. – Clean and best. My husband specifically picked up in the “Auchan”. We are all clean, you do not think. We garbage not picked up plates.

To settle in Russia, Anzurat and her family spent a number of years. In 2000 I came to work husband, two years later, she Anzurat, a year later, they brought sons 7 and 13 years. The eldest daughter is staying with her grandmother in Uzbekistan, because, the woman says, “we girls must marry virgins, and in Russia, the migrant is no guarantee of security.”

The boys took to school, Anzurat husband worked a lot. He’s basically a taxi driver, she is an illegal as a nanny, and before that salesman, cashier, cleaner, “Auchan”, “Eldorado”, even vahtershey, although they only accept citizens of Russia, but Anzurat paid a little bit one kindly grandmother and worked on her employment record for 6 thousand rubles a month. Then the woman got very sick: ulcers, pneumonia, eye problems, and all this, of course, nerves. Since it wasn’t working in the city, especially in Moscow, travels rarely. What she could be doing? Yes, and once again did not want to interfere with the “wolves”, as he calls Anzurat police in the subway.

– I ask: “What are you doing here, I would sit at home”. And who will be my husband, sons to cook? On the street it is expensive to eat.

Photo by RIA Novosti

Deportation

The eldest son Anzurat expelled from Russia once for a period of three years. He’s a hard worker, even when he studied in the Moscow construction College, worked at the sink, and Uzbekistan could not sit idle, so went to Turkey. Worked at a furniture factory and as a waiter in the restaurant, until the country has suffered political upheaval. By that time, the Statute of deportation, and the man decided to return to Russia. The money for the ticket sent by the father, because $ 800 is all that N. managed to make – he has already sent for the wedding of her sister.

Youngest son Anzurat sent twice. First time to the sink, where he worked without a license, that is illegal, came patrol guards. There’s a vicious circle: you can not work until you pay for the patent, but to pay for the patent if there is no work? Father money do not ask. Father works in a taxi, pays the patent, a car rental, the percentage of “Yandex” daily, and orders cheap, it’s not easy, and in fact need to pay the rent, you need to send money to her daughter.

Anzurat carried to the court: certificate of graduation, certificates of appreciation, diploma of secondary special education. She dreamed that her little brother will become a world-class Turner. But in court, of course, did not listen: five thousand fine and deportation for five years.

– Someone who does not speak the language, high not listening to, – in speech Anzurat suddenly appears quite dialect, southern Russian, even Ukrainian “hi,” my son speaks, let him listen to it. I have blue eyes, similar to Russian. So beautiful boy! To the extent decent! Why break it fate?

Like many in this situation, the younger son Anzurat don’t buy a ticket to Uzbekistan. Then he got caught the second time. Tied at metro, delivered to the detention center immigration center in Sakharov, there was a trial, another five thousand rubles fine, the ticket at the expense of the state and deportation from Vnukovo airport under escort.

– How do you like the word “out,” crying Anzurat, remembering the intransigence of the judge. – And during the war, my mother took the family of Lieutenant from Leningrad.

She bed gave way, and she slept with their children on the mud floor. And you’re destroying the boy’s destiny. He is so good.

Citizenship

Those who have citizenship, Anzurat regardless of nationality calls Russian. She is hoping to become “Russian” goodbye for a long time. Now came old age, she would have to wait until the husband completed the house in Uzbekistan, the son gets married to another he was engaged in farming in rented Moscow apartment. Then Anzurat going home will be a lot to read the Koran, to grind to powder the herbs and tinkering with his grandson, who never saw it, because he flew home four years ago, at my daughter’s wedding. But there was a time when Anzurat bare hands tried to break through the wall of bureaucracy and corruption, which, she thought, are cherished four passports.

– It was necessary to do a residency and then three years later apply for citizenship. To do this, someone from the “Russians” have been temporarily registered. In 2010, I found a family, but they asked for 30 thousand rubles per person. My husband salary is 18 thousand, the eldest son is 15, youngest is studying in College. How would I get the money? – as if agreeing with herself, says Anzurat.

A woman remembers a queue to the doors of the many centers where she got, and often did not receive quotas, certificates, bills. If you open at 9, take the place of need in two hours of the night to stand outside in the winter and summer, but she and the sons somehow always fell out of winter and, as it seemed Anzurat, the cold them days.

Photo: AmurMedia

– Met in the migration one Korean from Tashkent, she only got a passport, I congratulate her passport after all, and she said, “I Have not an ounce of joy. After all the humiliation and insults I’ve endured, why would I now the passport. Do not want to live”. There is some rigmarole, and everywhere need money, Oh-yo-yo-Oh.

History

Now I’m going to tell you how migrants live, is a conspiratorial stretch of the word Anzurat, as if preparing to start the old Eastern parable.

In Uzbekistan there are no jobs. Or starve, or go migrant workers. What to feed the family? There are people smarter than they are buying land, planting apricot trees. But to drive to Russia dried fruits, you have here someone to have. Sometimes, something goes wrong, then people are left with nothing. That’s how we tell if a person is nothing, – Anzurat brings to the nose the two fingers of the right hand, index and ring.

In the next house lives a family. In Uzbekistan, the wife worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist, husband is here for work. Came once a year for a month, she became pregnant, the children without a father. Decided to move in with him, so that children a little bit with his father stayed. The third gave birth here.

Imagine how they live? On the floor cement, things like trash, mattresses of some kind, and the children there sleep, but they are happy because together. When she went to give birth, children were left with the Concierge. My worker brought three bottles of expired milk, boil and carry them too.

Groom my daughter I chose myself. One denied immediately. I was told that I’m crazy because my daughter is already 25, spinster, but I did not like it. I wooed: and teachers and professors. She’s pretty, clever. I chose the hard worker. He is 28, with 19 years he is working as a migrant worker in Korea. There is not in Russia, where the month and worked a month at home. But he is not resting, and carries tourists. When I saw his calloused hands, I realized that even if he is uneducated, but with it my daughter will not be lost.

My son wanted to marry a Russian citizen, in order to remove the backwardation. Met a girl, she loved him, was going to visit him from another city. I said, son, you can assure her that you’re going to be okay? But still nothing happened. Her father had forbidden it, said I would find another.

In a two-room apartment there live two brothers, their wives, and one had two children, the other single and the second a pregnant wife, and their sick mother who is waiting for surgery on my gall bladder, a lodger, he sleeps in the closet. He has Russian citizenship, but to pay rent he still can’t.

The one pregnant, her husband was fired. She went to the Azeris to the warehouse to disassemble the fruit. And you’re preggers, they say, as you lift boxes? Nothing will stand. Such good work, says: a few apples spoiled, tainted peppers can be worn home.

Two guys scored debts, came, worked construction. And the owner threw them, not a penny paid. They often throw. Took the “Yandex” rent a car and work in a taxi.

My eldest son is so good taxi driver, he all in Moscow know where what street and where to go shorter. I wonder to what extent she and her husband became professional. And they are not valued. No benefits, no vacation. One day off a week, and other companies and day was not.

Son’s people to serve well. But the last time a woman sat cash. 172 rubles trip. Pulls 2000, says: go to the store, break without buying anything. Pokes my son, although younger than him.

He went back to the car, he didn’t have 8 cents in change. Apologized. She: where you want, get 8 rubles. He gave her 10 rubles – I told him in a purse left in the morning, I go every day to the drivers of minibuses, change to he always had change.

He then called me and said, mom, I have been so hurt when she poked me; mom, as I then had people to serve, how to fold it; mom, I’m nervous. I told him nothing, now you a good man will fall, I tell you good words and you tell him.

Why mod when you grab the migrants and taken to court, do not know good and bad people? They’re supposed to be good.

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