The Man in Orange

Sergei Sobyanin’s election campaign began with the search for enemies and it turned out that migrants were to blame for the city’s problems. The solution of the “leading candidate” for Mayor of Moscow resonated with the slogan of the infamous Movement Against Illegal Immigration (MAIL – DPNI): Let them work and then leave. However, he had clearly forgotten to ask advice from Peter Biriukov, his deputy. He would have told him why immigrants are now an inseparable part of Moscow.

Late evening, Tishinksaya Square, a streetlight faintly illuminates Zurab Tsereteli’s monument of Eternal Friendship. Around it a group of about five hefty boys are congregating led by a skinny leader plus a film crew from Swedish television and their interpreter and a couple of Russian journalists. The “Holy Russia” movement making a regular raid against illegal migrants living in the basements of buildings in Krasnaya Presnya.

Man Hunt

This initially resembles a game of soldiers: Igor Mangushev, the leader of the movement, goes off to “survey the area,” the boys smoke and make vulgar soldiers’ jokes. They strut around like before an attack, that might be their last, although they know very well that strength is on their side today. The telephone of one of the boys rings. “So, we split up into pairs, go over to the side of Gruzinskaya, we keep our distance from each other, but don’t lose each other. We have to enter the yard without any fuss,” he says.

We all enter the courtyard en masse and then the chase begins. “Go, go, don’t lose him.” The prey is Ali. He is scared to death and dressed in an orange overall with the name “Maxim Group” on it. His timid open-mouthed wife is trying to beat off a man. All this resembles a children’s game, like a group of first graders catching a “spy” from the neighbouring school and trying to extract a terrible secret from him. “So, where do you live? Answer, before it gets worse. Do you live in the basement? Where are the keys?” The woman replies for Ali, she says they live on Lenin Prospekt and that they only work here. They don’t believe her. They find the basement and go down, but they don’t find a trace of life. There is a cardboard box instead of a table and there are remains of an evening meal, but no mattresses or personal belongings.

They go back up to the courtyard to go somewhere else. Ali recounts in very bad Russian that they come from the Osh region of Kyrgyzstan, he swears that he lives on Lenin Prospekt, but that he goes to the basement to “have relations” with his wife, since there are three families in their one-room flat. “Please let me go,” he suddenly asks in tears, turning to the interpreters of the Swedish journalists. The interpreter glances over to the broad-shouldered Holy Russian standing next to him and replies in a guilty tone that there is nothing he can do.

Finally they find another basement where someone is obviously living. A broken padlock is hanging from the door and the door is held by a cable from inside. It’s like mice laying a lair of cotton wool to hide from other mice. The door withstands the battering for a long time, until the cable gives and the whole band rushes in. There are three Kyrgyz couples, sharing the narrow 15m2 basement divided into three tiny rooms. There is a stench of stale air. It is dark in the basement, even though in each tiny room there is a naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. In the bathroom there is a water pipe taken from the building’s water supply. On the table in the entrance lies an open copy of a luxury 1970s edition of War and Peace. “They steal everything like magpies,” one of the boys says. “Hey, where are you going?” He asks a Kyrgyz girl. “To the toilet? Well, be quick about it, if you run away we’ll search the entire region.”

The events develop in the customary way. The Holy Russians call the police. They go to the station, write a statement, but the migrants are normally released after their fingerprints are taken, and in response the police normally issues a statement: “An inspection was carried out and there was no evidence of illegal residents.” “They only deport about ten percent,” says Igor Mangushev, “but after raids like this they look for somewhere else to live.”

Migrants in court

According to modest calculations, up to 100,000 janitors and specialists in other professions, such as carpenters, electricians and fitters are employed in the Moscow infrastructure. More than 90% of them are migrants from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Andrei Egorov, assistant to the municipal councillor for the Izmailovo Region Ludmila Bogacheva and actively involved in the problems of housing and communal services, explaines the situation to The New Times. He adds that about 60% of these migrants live and work illegally in Moscow.

Aziz is a janitor and The New Times meets him in the north of Moscow. He came to Moscow from Buhara one year ago, but he has no official documents. When we ask him what he did about the police, he just waves his hand: “The boss does everything.” Over the past years, Aziz has only once left the region – to go to the centre to see the 9th May parade. Any journey poses a danger and the possibility of having to bribe a policeman, and 1,000 roubles for not having a registration is a lot of money for Aziz. He earns a typical wage for a Moscow janitor, about 24,000 roubles. He receives only 11,000 in cash, the rests goes to the pocket of the same “boss” – the local Repair and Maintenance Company.

“It’s very easy to do this with documents,” says Andrei Egorov, “Even if the migrant has an official job with an official salary, the company has a system of fines. In such cases the entire amount is subtracted from the salary account, and only part of it is paid in cash.” Quite often the managers abuse the illiteracy of their workers: They make them sign two payslips with identical sums. However, the two payslips are actually different, one is for the wages given to the worker, the other payslip remains with the manager.

Aziz speaks Russian badly, but he knows the word “podrabotka” (cash in hand). Somethimes someone needs to have a cooker installed, or rubbish taken out, in general he earns an extra 11 till 12 thousand roubles every month, that he sends home to Buhara. The rest of the money is enough for food and a monthly woman – the local “Moscow” Uzbek women offer themselves for 1,500 roubles. At least he doesn’t have to pay for housing. Aziz and six of his compatriots live in the electrical control room of the nine-storey panelled block of flats. The refuge is provided by the same “boss”. However, Aziz is happy, since the other Uzbeks in the region are not so lucky. Just around the corner, about 90 people live in the basement of another nine-storey block. Most of them pay 8,000 roubles every month for the chance to sleep in the rooms, plus 2,000 to the local policeman so that he doesn’t look too closely at their documents. On the first floor of the same building are a magistrate’s reception office and the Regional Safety Centre, and just opposite is the regional court.

Aziz’s working day begins at 6.00 am. “By 8.00 I need to sweep the pavements of the whole region. At 9.00, I have a meeting with the boss who gives instructions. A lawn needs laying, a fence needs painting… From 12.00 to 14.00 I have a lunch break, then a second round of cleaning, at 17.00 the janitors are free to do cash-in-hand jobs”. However, it also happens that in the winter he has to clear snow until two o’clock at night, and get up again for work at 6.00.

“Moscow will drown without migrants,” Abu Shihaliev said in an interview with The New Times. He is the director of sector No. 6 in the Presnya District. The district is taken care of by the same “Maxim Group,” whose overalls Ali had been wearing when he was caught by the Holy Russians. “Of course, it would be easier for me to work with people who can at least speak Russian. But what kind of Russian would work for a salary like that with such a schedule? Apart from that I can stand over the Uzbeks and get them to work well, while a Russian would just tell me in very clear terms to get off his back.”

In the words of Abu Shihaliev, his sector has been lucky. 20% of his employees are experienced. They are also mainly migrants, but they came from the Soviet provinces in the 1980s. The rest of them are foreigners. Most of them work for a “test period” without a work permit. “How else?” Abu asks. “If we obtain documents for them, they will just run away and get a job on a building site. The migrants have to obtain their own documents. They say it costs about 17,000.”

Moreover, says Andrei Egorov, the practice of probationary periods, even though it is widespread in Moscow, is absolutely illegal. “You can’t employ a foreigner on a probationary period; he has to enter the country knowing in advance where he will be working. He has to have a quota and a work permit.”

“Fly-by-night” cleaning

Andrei Klichko, a deputy of the Moscow State Duma, and leader of a fraction of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, told The New Times, that according to his calculations about 11 billion roubles from the city budget were spent on cleaning the areas around blocks and their maintenance in 2012. Most of this money is sent by the Department of Housing and Communal Services and Maintenance supervised by Petar Biriukov to the prefectures who allocate it to the SE (state enterprises) and ES (engineering services) in the regions, who in their turn allocate it to the SE and ES in the districts. However, if the residents choose the management company to maintain their properties, then annual electronic tenders are held for the cleaning of the territory of the SE and ES regions. The subcontractors who participate in these tenders are obliged not only to offer the lowest possible contract price, but also have to account for the work completed.

However, as Andre Egorov explains to the newspaper, there are two basic schemes according to which the tenders are won: either the tendering companies all belong to the same people represented by different front men – then the tender is won with the minimum reduction in price. Or a “fly-by-night” company offers a dumping price and transfers all the work to subcontracters after signing the state contract. “For example, there may be 50 million rouble for cleaning territories. It is won by a “fly-by-night” company that offers 35 million for the contract. The company that will really do the work will get at most 10 million, most of that money is payed in cash, and there is no control over this money,” says Andrei Egorov. In these cases the subcontractors are frequently local Maintenance and Operation Companies chosen by the residents to service their homes.

What is more, the Maintenance and Operation Companies often do not employ janitors. These companies are not obliged to carry out cleaning work. And so they have to find additional staff from the migrant workers. “Sometimes the MOC refuses to work for the conditions offered and then the “fly-by-night” company sends a bus to Kursk Station and brings in ten migrant workers. They give them somewhere to live in the basement, and by doing this they can show some sort of activity,” explains Andrei Egorov. The role of “fly-by-night” companies, however strange it may sound, may be fulfilled by state companies such as the State Unitary Company – Unified Order Company (GUP DEZ). They are not entitled to employ janitors and fitters and so they have to find subcontractors. The result is that the same migrants are employed to clean underpasses and courtyards, and most of them are illegal.

Even though the fine for employing illegal foreigners can reach up to 800,000 roubles, only a few management companies receive quotas to employ foreigners. In any case, in the absence of a quota, the matter can always be resolved by the Federal Migration Service: The cost of a work permit is 20,000 roubles. “Fines are rarely imposed,” Elena Tkach, municipal deputy of the Presnya District explains to The New Times, “the company management resolves the question directly with the FMS and the police, who just warn them about examinations, if they need to be carried out. Almost all the directors of the district police stations are on their payrolls.”

It is difficult, if not impossible, to campaign against breaches of these laws. A representative of one of the management companies in the Izmailovo District, who wished to remain anonymous, told The New Times that the management of Technology Ltd, who won the lion’s share of the tenders in the district, more than once said in private conversations that they “work directly with Biryukov”. It is, of course, impossible to verify these connections, but it would have been difficult for Technology Ltd to obtain business without powerful supporters, since the company was registered only a couple of months before the tenders, and all the elements of a “fly-by-night” company seemed attributable to it. The company is registered at a mass address, it has a minimum capital fund, the founder, CEO and chief accountant are the same person, and most important of all, the complete absence of employees who are supposed to fulfil the work envisaged in the tender. Andrei Egorov approached the state prosecutors’ office without any result: the prosecutors resigned from the case, and in the meantime Technology Ltd transferred the work to a subcontractor and was suddenly relocated to Nizhnii Novgorod in order to undergo “a reorganisation”.

A kiss for Sobyanin

Everyone whom the newspaper spoke to said in one voice that it would be possible to find a solution for this problem, if there was the political will. Moreover, Andrei Egorov sees the root of the evil in the corrupt system of the SE and ES that allocated the money although they carry out no work and they only carry out very peremptory checks of the work done by others.

Furthermore, it is also possible to find a solution for the staff. “There are thousands of square metres of accommodation available in housing projects in the centre. They are just vacant, and then, through various means, they end up as private property. Then, quite unexpectedly, a fire or collapse occurs; the new owners receive or just buy documents stating an emergency, and then a new development starts on the site,” Elena Tkach explains, adding that some of these buildings could be repaired and turned into hostels. “They would be state-owned apartment buildings, where janitors and other people could be housed.”

The idea has been proposed to Sergei Sobyanin, candidate for Mayor, but there is little hope that it will actually happen. “Luzhkov, for example, was an enemy,” says Elena Tkach, “but that was bad and good at the same time. If he said something, then that would really happen. Sobyanin makes such great statements, that sometimes you could even kiss him. But then when you phone the Mayor’s office and you say that Mr Sobyanin has just said something to the cameras and that you need some sort document and the number of the document…. the document doesn’t exist. There is a system of verbal instructions, that no one accepts as an order to take action.”

So the problem with the migrants will be same as in the ancient Eastern saying about the caravan and the dogs: the Mayor will curse the migrants and they will continue living in the basements, sweeping the Moscow streets and lining the pockets of the Moscow officials. •

Vietnam Town

During the war against criminal elements at Moscow markets, the Moscow police have arrested more than 3 thousand illegal migrants since the end of July, most of whom are Vietnamese. How did these citizens of distant Asian countries end up in the basements of the Ancient Capital – The New Times investigates.

A concrete wall topped with a web of barbed wire extends far into the horizon; iron gates big enough for a wagon to pass through open a couple of metres, just wide enough for journalists in a narrow column to file into the tent camp in Golyanovo. About 513 Vietnamese citizens live here in khaki army tents, awaiting deportation. The press tour resembles a small African safari, where tourists are asked to take photographs only from the vehicle and not to stick their heads outside and remain close to their tour guide. During the “safari,” you occasionally encounter the broad-shouldered silent warriors of the OMON special mobile forces, and if you manage to get close to the “victim” you unsuccessfully try to talk to it. The people huddling on the other side of the metal fences do not understand Russian (or pretend not to). The well-dressed correspondent of TVC television channel on her high heels and with white make-up on her face insistently asks one and the same question: “Do you want to work in Russia?” The migrants nod their heads, until someone finally gives the long-awaited answer, “yes.”

Shower, laundry and fresh air…

“Shower, laundry, field kitchen, fresh air,” Anton Tsvetkov, the human rights activist and deputy chairman of the Public Commission of the State Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior in Russia, constantly praises the camp. He claims that the camp is much better than the temporary custody centre for foreign citizens where they have “no shoelaces, no fridges and all exercise is according to a timetable.”

The Vietnamese do not look unhappy, they are playing cards and badminton, washing their clothes, smoking tobacco from a long metal pipe, clearly meant for something else. The journalists are impatiently waiting for their “military interpreter” in order to speak to the residents of the camp. Not all of them, however. The TVC team filmed the official part and are ready to leave. But then something terrible happens: The press secretary of the State Directorate of the Ministry of Interior, Nataliya Safonova (sunglasses, flower print dress) catches journalists from the online site lenta.ru red handed. They found an interpreter from the Vietnamese embassy working in the camp who politely agreed to help them. Natalya begins to shout hysterically and literally pushes the journalists out of the camp. “The press conference is over for people like you. For you and for the other journalists. Take them away. Give me the contact details of your managers; they’ll explain everything to you.” The TVC camera crew gets involved and starts filming their colleagues from lenta.ru with the commentary: “Just look how the representatives of the so-called Mass Media are infringing the rights of journalists.”

Finally, Pavel, the “right” interpreter, turns up. We were banned from filming him and he spoke bad Vietnamese. He even had to use his dictionary for the word “religion”. When the journalists asked if there were any complaints, the Vietnamese answered in detail in a single voice. Pavel translated calmly: ‘Everything is fine, they have nothing to complain about.’ Perhaps Pasha was not telling the truth; perhaps the Vietnamese really were saying that they were happy with everything in the camp, it was impossible to understand. They answered the other questions as though they were being interrogated. “I came to Moscow as a tourist; I liked it and stayed here. I lost my passport and if I get deported, I’ll come back again…”

The uncatchable

Between 60 thousand and 1 million Vietnamese are living in Moscow according to different assessments. However, it is not an easy matter to find someone ready to talk to the press, even anonymously. Unlike migrants from Central Asia, Vietnamese migrants prefer to keep to each to other and not show themselves in public.

“I don’t see any benefit in talking to you, but I do see a lot of danger,” a Vietnamese businessman told The New Times. He has lived in Russia for a long time and really has nothing to be afraid of. “I don’t understand. Closed,” a Vietnamese guard angrily shouts at us at an industrial zone in the North of Moscow, where one of many sewing factories is situated. “The director’s not here. He doesn’t speak Russian. He’s busy. He’s leaving today,” the sales manager of the same factory who arrived at work that morning lied blatantly. The majority of the traders in the “Moscow” trade centre in Lublino silently nodded their heads when they realised that their visitor was not interested in jeans. The ones who were caught were those who didn’t manage to “forget” Russian in time.

Lio Din Thang who works as a security guard in a business centre not far from the Golyanovo camp told The New Times that even in his small village 400km from Hanoi there was an agency that sent workers to Russia. It was too expensive for most Vietnamese to visit the agency direct from the street; they tried to find friends or relatives to negotiate a reduction. Lio Din Thang was lucky. When he came to Moscow seven years ago, his uncle was already working here. He had found work as a security guard in the hostel where his compatriots from the famous Cherkizovskii Market lived. The market was closed and Russian entrepreneurs came to the business centre. Lio Din Thang remained living in a tiny 2×5 closet with shared facilities. Since his uncle found work for him, Le Din paid only 2000 dollar for a one year student visa and tickets. Now Lio Din earns about 15 thousand roubles per month and sends most of it home. In Vietnam the average salary is $40-50, but that’s just in theory because there isn’t any work there.

“In Vietnam everything is on a conveyor belt,” the chairman of the Society for the Protection of Rights of Migrants, Irina Zisman, explains to The New Times, “When two people are interested in each other, then there will always be a mediator who will help them find the path to each other. If you want to go to Russia to work, you can’t just go to the Russian Embassy. There are people who will sort out your passport, others will wait at the consular department, where they will offer to send you an invitation, others will help you find work. Can you do this yourself? We have a very popular “all inclusive” service. The entire process from getting the passport to the sewing machine can cost up to 5000 dollar. 2000 dollar is paid there, and the rest is paid on arrival.”

The future tailors and traders are met at the airport by representatives of the mediation companies. They help them cross the border and take them to their work place in the industrial zone. The doors are closed behind them and they might spend a year behind them not leaving the confines of the factory. But why? In the Vietnamese towns everything is Vietnamese. You don’t have to speak Russian and you have everything you need in order to live. A canteen, baths, shops with Vietnamese goods, medical facilities, Internet, Vietnamese books and newspapers, there are even karaoke and billiard events.

Of course, 5000 dollars is a fortune for most Vietnamese, so ordinary families can afford to send one or a maximum of two people abroad and they will feed the rest of their family in Vietnam. The money is borrowed, often against a property pledge. The interest rates are high, sometimes up to 20% annually. If the family is not too big and there aren’t any gaps in their salary in Russia, (sewers usually earn $300-$400, and market traders $500-$700), then the debt is paid off in about five years.

“If this had been organised in Russia, then there would have been “scams” at every step,” Irina Zisman says, “But the Vietnamese aren’t like that.” The salary is agreed in advance, most of it is immediately sent to Vietnam, the employer arranges accommodation, the volume and work and timely payment.

People in terms of quota

Tin Vu from the “Moscow” trade centre in Lublino proudly shows off his passport and tells The New Times that the annual extension of his visa and work permit costs him 1300 dollar. “We do it all through a firm,” he explains.

Of course, Tin Vu could have saved money if he had gone directly to the Federal Migration Service: Officially the cost of the quota for each worker is 6000 roubles per year plus the tax for issuing the work permit – 2000 roubles and the cost of the visa – 80 dollar, which amounts to 10 500 roubles. However, it is practically impossible to get the documents issued directly,” says Lin, a compatriot of Tin Vu, the manager of a Vietnamese restaurant. In her words, the FMS previously issued quotas easily but now they have begun to refuse them without any reasons or to issue far fewer than are necessary, forcing businessmen who want to work legitimately to turn to mediators or to force their workers to work illegally. “I know of some examples where the owner of a sewing factory received the necessary quota of 500 workers one year. He brought in the people he needed, then the next year he was given a quota of only 90. What was he to do? He couldn’t send them all back, could he?” Lin said crossly. “That’s why mediators are used to get work permits for everyone, even prostitutes. It’s just a question of paying!” In Lin’s opinion, quotas and all the documents need to be issued for a “minimum of three years, otherwise it’s impossible to plan and conduct business.”

Tin Vu came to Russia 23 years ago, under the rule of Gorbachev, and during that time has witnessed all the stages of development of Vietnamese business.

The first workers from socialist Vietnam started coming to the USSR after the signature of an agreement in 1981 with Hanoi allowing the appointment of Vietnamese to Soviet enterprises and universities. Tin Vu was allocated to a factory in Tver (although he worked there for more than a year, he has forgotten the name of the factory. He says he was employed as an engineer). After the collapse of the USSR, some returned home, but many remained in Russia, getting places in colleges to ensure student visas, but at the same time trading with whatever they could. Tin Vu did not go to college; he started working as a trader on a wholesale market, and he stayed in trade, having worked at almost all the Moscow markets over the past 20 years.

“Vietnamese like to imitate each other,” Lin smiles. “In 1993 the first wholesale market was opened, and a year later there were a number of such markets.” Chinese, Polish and Turkish goods were imported by Vietnamese and Chinese travelling traders and brought to Moscow. The Moscow Vietnamese sold these goods to Vietnamese in the regions. Markets were opened in former hostels or hotels, where the rooms served as both shops and homes.

Two years later in 1995, the first Vietnamese retail markets started sprouting out of the ground like mushrooms, almost half of Moscow bought their clothes from them. “In 2000 they realised: why bring Chinese and Vietnamese clothes here when it’s more profitable to bring the Vietnamese girls who make the clothes here,” says Irina Zisman. In recent years most of the sewing and trading hostels have been closed down, so the Vietnamese now live under ground. “In Moscow there are about twenty semi-underground Vietnamese towns, where about 600,000 people live. Everyone knows where they are,” Irina Zisman continues. “Administrative or manufacturing buildings that are either closed for reconstruction or officially demolished, are easily rented out to Vietnamese businessmen who fill them with thousands of their compatriots.”

They’ll never leave

The peace and calm of the residents of the Vietnam towns depends on the mood of the local police, representatives of the FMS and other services. Raids are a very rare event. They are normally restricted to planned and announced visits by representatives of the authorities, during which for appearance’s sake they check the documents of the exemplary workers and collect a “tribute” from all the others. Depending on the region the cost of peace and calm can cost between 1,000 and 3,000 roubles per person per month. Taking into account that up to 500 people work in the largest factories, this is not an insignificant catch.

“But if someone is picking on you and for some reason of statistic or policy you need to be arrested and deported, like the case in Golyanovo, then there are a load of ways of getting out of it,” says Irina Zisman. When foreigners commit a breach of residence terms in Russia, an expulsion mark should be placed in their passport and for a period of five years they cannot obtain a new visa, which means that all the money paid is simply wasted. Therefore, everything has to be done to avoid such a stamp in the passport. This can be done by leaving the Russian Federation and returning with a new invitation. The companies that acquire visas and work permits can also procure an exit visa without expulsion. It costs 500 dollar, but a ticket needs to be purchased, and then a new Russian visa is obtained in Vietnam. For many people this takes too long and is too troublesome. “You can get a visa and work permit in Russia, and send the passport back with an official of the Vietnamese embassy, who will place a stamp in the passport for crossing the border in Hanoi and Sheremetievo,” says Irina Zisman, “This service costs about 1,000 dollar.”

However, if you don’t have the money, you can just “lose” your passport, like the 513 “prisoners in Golyanovo” did. The Russian authorities cannot by law expel such a migrant, since his citizenship cannot be established. In this case they can obtain a certificate from the embassy allowing them to return home. They use it to return home and get a new passport and come back to Russia the same way as the first time. Or they can get a new passport directly from the Vietnamese embassy, but it costs a little more.

“In Vietnam the importance of a consul in any country is defined by how many clean passport covers he is given to take with him,” says Irina Zisman, “because if you want to obtain a passport in compliance with all the formalities, you will have to wait about three months, while the embassy sends an inquiry to your village and obtains an answer. Or you can pay 300 dollar and get everything done in three days.” The new passport does not contain any stamps relating to arrival, and so there can be no infringement of the period of stay. The holder can leave and come back again.

Actually it seems that the Golyanovo migrants have decided to ask the Vietnamese Embassy not to hurry to issue the certificates to return home. In the words of the human rights lawyer, Anton Tsvetkov, it is difficult even to determine the names of the arrestees since they use invented names. “All assumptions of the Russian officials about when they (the migrants) will be deported carry no weight, since everything depends on the Vietnamese embassy” says Anton Tsvetkov during the press tour of the Golyanovo camp. The Russian authorities once again appear to have overestimated their force when they made such a fuss around the arrestees. The 513 migrants hung around in Golyanovo, until the moment that Edward Snowden, who leaked the NSA documents, got stuck in Sheremetievo airport.

Irina Zisman knows a lot about the world of migrants and she says confidently, “Do you know why the Vietnamese were arrested? You can’t get a lot from the Uzbeks, and the Vietnamese are always willing to pay; either they or their employees always have set aside resources for such purposes. So you see, they will never leave.” •