During the years leading up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and especially after its demise, migration acquired a new relevance for Russia. This new relevance is explained by a number of factors, some of which originated in the late 1980s and early 1990s; others are more specifically related to the post-Soviet context.

First, one of the early perestroika initiatives in the field of human rights was the full liberalisation of the emigration regime, traditionally restricted under Soviet rule. Since 1993, freedom of movement is one of the basic rights guaranteed by the new Russian Constitution,¹ and Russian citizens can now freely decide to emigrate temporarily or permanently in search of better opportunities, something which, for certain groups, means the possibility of ‘repatriating’ to their ‘historical homeland’ (Jews, ethnic Germans, ethnic Greeks, etc.).

Second, the wave of ethnic tensions and open ethnic wars that erupted during and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union produced a large flow of refugees and internally displaced persons within the post-Soviet space, mostly directed to Russia.

Third, the emergence of the Newly Independent States (NISs) entailed a change in the status of their ethnic Russians residents thus contributing, together with other socioeconomic factors, to their desire to repatriate to Russia.

Fourth, Russia’s complete opening to the outside and its full reinsertion into the international community (also in terms of international standards of human rights, such as the ratification in 1992 of the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees), as well as its inability to effectively control its long borders, have made it the destination of a new flow of undocumented transit or permanent immigration from Asian and African countries.

Last but not least, the conditions of widespread socioeconomic crisis in Russia and the rest of the post-Soviet space can and do stimulate emigration to more developed countries outside of the post-Soviet space; on the other hand, they also favour immigration from some of the NISs to Russia since, with the exception of the Baltic states, living conditions in the former have deteriorated more than in the latter. The economic transition and the socioeconomic problems entailed are also responsible for a new trend of internal migration from one part of the Russian Federation to another and, to a lesser degree, between the cities and the countryside.

In dealing with this newly relevant phenomenon, post-Soviet Russia found itself with no legislative and institutional experience. The Soviet Union had never been a country open to refugees (except for political refugees of communist orientation), permanent labour migration from abroad had also been a non-issue, and the right to emigrate had been rigidly restricted and granted exceptionally to certain groups (political dissidents, Jews, ethnic Germans) under strong international diplomatic pressure. Moreover, Soviet internal migrations were mainly channelled by the state in accordance with both political and economic objectives, although to a lesser extent than is usually thought.² Therefore Russia, like all other successor states, not yet having developed the necessary legislation and institutions, faced this broadly defined migratory phenomenon in emergency conditions.

It seems that for all countries migration issues, initially essentially a practical problem of control and accommodation, tend to turn into and be construed as a question of national identity and geopolitics, with a high political and symbolic value. This is particularly true – and further complicates the picture – in Russia, where the ethnic Russians residing in the NISs are an issue not only in terms of the concrete problems of accommodating their inflow but also, if not more importantly, for their symbolic, political and geopolitical implications. Besides that of the Russian diaspora, there are other aspects of new migration flows which have rapidly acquired the status of national problems, such as fear of a steady peaceful ‘invasion’ of the Russian Far East by Chinese immigrants.

Since the end of 1993 and especially early 1994, migration has become a much debated issue in public discourse and, at least officially, a priority on the government agenda. This increasing public and policy importance will be analysed in more detail in the course of the paper, while it will suffice here to give two examples: a public intellectual figure of the calibre of Academician Dmitri Likhachev has argued that the question of immigration will become as important and strategic for Russia in the near future as defence and security.³

In the government’s official 1994 general programme of policies and reforms for 1995–1997, under the chapter on social policy, an entire section was dedicated to the Gosudarstvennaya migratsionnaya politika (state migration policy) – a sign of qualitative change, as this is the first such high level policy document in which migration is officially included along with more pressing problems such as privatisation and financial stabilisation.⁴