When the first wave of internally displaced persons in the Soviet Union fled to Russia as a result of pogroms in Ferghana (1989 Uzbekistan, against Meshketian Turks) and Baku (1990 Azerbaijan, against Armenian), no legislation and institutions existed to regulate and deal with migration and refugees issues. Since 1992, a growing body of laws, decrees, and policy documents on migration have been drafted by the Russian parliament and government. A new bureaucracy, the Federal Migration Service (FMS), has been created specifically to deal with migration and several ministries have been assigned responsibilities in this field. Migration issues have become the object of heated debates in the parliament and the media, and are attracting increasing attention from Russian social scientists. Last but not least, an astonishingly vibrant movement of NGOs assisting and representing the rights of migrants and refugees has developed in the last three years.

Therefore within a short period of time (since 1992) a complex ‘migration field’ has emerged characterised, as in Western European countries, by the presence of competing interests and discourses, a strong interaction between internal and international factors, and, above all, a sort of ‘planning in the dark’ with a series of unintended and unexpected consequences typical of migration policy. A field that is particularly intricate both as a result of the complexity and diversity of migration flows and because they occur during a transitional period in which Russia, besides being afflicted by a deep economic and financial crisis, has to redefine its national identity and its position within the post-Soviet space and more in general in the international arena.

Migration legislation, policy and politics, at least until very recently, have been dominated by issues linked to flows between Russia and the new abroad, and particularly to the question of Russians living there and returning ‘home’, as is natural in the aftermath of the USSR collapse. On the other hand, more general migration questions such as the problem of controlling undocumented flows are also being increasingly tackled in Moscow.

In the last years of its existence, in the absence of any legislative and institutional framework, the Soviet Union dealt with problems arising from migration with ad hoc governmental decrees. In Russia, the first institutional step toward the regulation of migration flows was taken in December 1991, when a ‘Committee for population migration’ was established within the Ministry of Labour; six months later it was transformed into a new ministry level bureaucracy as the Federal Migration Service (Voronina 1997: 33).

The year 1992 marked Russia’s re-entry into the international community as – at least officially – a fully accepted democratic member. In both 1992 and 1993, this process of re-insertion was headed by a Western-oriented Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the direction of Andrey Kozyrev. In this climate, the Russian Federation adhered to many international agreements and conventions in the field of human rights. As already mentioned, the 1951 UN Convention on refugees and the 1967 Protocol entered into force in May 1993. In September 1993, Russia signed an agreement on ‘Assistance to refugees and forced migrants’ with the other former Soviet republics, members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The agreement, besides including the standard definition of refugees on an individual basis, also defined the situation of emergency evacuation in cases of conflict and the obligations of the countries of exit and the countries of arrival. As it turned out, in fact, this agreement concerned Russia’s obligation towards refugees from all other republics.

The new Constitution, approved by popular vote on 12 December 1993, established the primacy of the norms contained in international agreements ratified by Russia over federal laws, and made the general principle of international law and of international agreements a constituent part of the Russian legal system (Art. 15). On the other hand, it is worth noting that Article 72 of the Constitution places the defence of freedom and rights, such as freedom of movement and freedom of choice of residence (Art 27) under the joint jurisdiction of the Russian Federation and its subjects (autonomous republics, provinces, regions, federal level cities, etc.) While no clear guidelines are given on how this joint jurisdiction is to be exercised, Article 76 (parts 4 and 5) grants the subjects of the Federation the right to create their own legislation as long as it does not contrast with federal laws. In fact, this has opened a space for regional legislation not always in line with federal laws; more specifically, in the field of migration, regional authorities, as will be shown in more detail later, have enacted more restrictive migration regimes. So there is a complex interaction between different levels: international, CIS, federal, and regional. A complexity which results in the contrast between the more liberal and progressive norms entailed in international human rights standards and the most restrictive and at times discriminatory behaviour of local administrators.

The legal category and status of forced migrant (vynuzhdennyi pereselenets), as distinct from that of refugee, is a peculiarity of the Russian context linked to the symbolic and political implications of regulating population movements occurring after the collapse of an ‘empire’, and consisting to a large extent in the return of the ‘empire dominant’ nationality (ethnic Russians), whose motivations for returning are naturally the object of wide controversy.

In their first 1993 versions, the laws on forced migrants and on refugees overlapped on many points, the major and only distinction being that the status of forced migrant could be granted to those who hold or are entitled to Russian citizenship, whereas that of refugee was for citizens of all other states, with no distinction between former Soviet republics and other countries, and for stateless persons. The status of forced migrant entailed more rights and benefits both in terms of residence and assistance. On the other hand, there were no extensive provisions in the law on forced migrants for assistance and integration of the type needed for large-scale assisted repatriation.

The reasons for this Russian peculiarity must be sought not only in the lack of experience and competence of the legislators and practical financial concerns, but also in symbolic and geopolitical implications as manifested in the wording. A law on repatriation would have implied that the movement was of a voluntary nature, whereas the law on forced migrants, while recognising Russia's responsibilities toward ethnic Russians in the new abroad, stresses its involuntary nature. Not only does this allow the state to reduce the financial burden by restricting access to the status entitled to assistance, but it also implicitly rejects the idea that repatriation is the natural and inevitable outcome of ‘empire collapse’. If the return to Russia is forced, this means that under normal conditions ethnic Russians would stay in the new abroad – a position which, as I will show later, is at the core of government policy towards Russians in the new abroad. It is interesting to note that the Russian category of ‘forced migrants’ has been criticised by government officials of NISs, particularly Estonia (Filippova 1997b: 123 and 126), the argument being that such terms have a negative connotation towards NIS and hinder intergovernmental co-operation and lead to diplomatic tensions.

In their first 1993 versions, both the law on forced migrants and the law on refugees, besides being in many respects too general and declarative in their content, were quite liberal and did not define the individuals who could be granted either status in a restrictive way. Article 2 of the law on refugees provided for the collective granting of the status of refugee to groups of individuals arriving in Russia as a result of emergency situations, a category known in international law as prima facie refugees whose status is usually defined in special ad hoc legislation but not in the main law on refugees. The general definition of forced migrant was and is quite liberal and not restricted to ethnic Russians. Given that they have been forced to return to Russia or intend to do so as a result of violence or fear of persecution, the status of forced migrant can be granted to all individuals who

• hold Russian citizenship
• are former USSR citizens who, once in Russian territory, acquired Russian citizenship
• were forced to leave their place of residence in the Russian Federation (internally displaced persons), regardless of their citizenship.

The laws on forced migrants and on refugees were amended in a restrictive way in 1995 and 1997, respectively. The new version of the law on forced migrants clearly states several categories of persons who cannot apply for such status (Art. 2), for example, persons convicted of serious crimes, persons who did not apply for it within 12 months of their arrival, and persons who arrived for economic reasons. The status is now only granted temporarily for a period of five years. The obligation upon the state authorities to provide forced migrants with housing set down in the earlier version has been removed and, it must be stressed, there is now no mention of state responsibility during this five year period. The goal was clearly to scale down the burden on the state in terms of supporting forced migrants.

The new law on refugees still meets the general standard of the 1951 UN Convention, but it now very closely resembles the restrictive laws adopted in Western Europe in the early 1990s. It no longer contains the provision for the collective granting of refugee status in case of emergency (Art. 2 of the previous version of the law). In accordance with the new restrictive concept of ‘safe third countries’ which became widespread in Western Europe after 1990, the amended law introduces a new reason to refuse refugee status: transit before entering Russia through a country in which the applicant could have been granted such status (Art. 5, I.5). This is a measure of dubious effectiveness in Russia, since most asylum seekers enter through the Central Asian republics, none of which can at the moment be considered a ‘safe third country’.

The law on citizenship (effective as of 6 February 1992 and amended on 17 June 1993 and 18 January 1995) grants Russian citizenship to all those who resided permanently in the Russian Federation before the laws entered into force (Art. 13) and to all citizens of the former USSR, still residing in the former Soviet republics or who moved permanently to Russia after 6 February 1992, if they apply by the year 2000 (Art. 18, in the new version, pursuant to the amendment of 18 January 1995). So, in principle,²¹ all ethnic Russians in the near abroad are guaranteed the right to acquire Russian citizenship and, thus, to apply for forced migrant status, a right that in principle is also available to members of other former Soviet nationalities.

On 1 October 1993, another important law establishing and protecting the right of Russian citizens to move and chose their place of residence freely became effective, thus abolishing, at least on paper, the system of internal passports based on the institution of the discretionary registration of residence (propiska) – a right further protected by Article 27 of new 1993 Constitution. This right is also explicitly granted by the law on forced migrants to those receiving such status, together with the right to live with their relatives.

Taken at face value, the migration regime created in Russia, especially before the amendments to the two laws, seemed quite liberal. In practice, however, there are bureaucratic shortcomings and open arbitrariness which have made the regime work in a different, less benign, fashion.

First there are procedural difficulties in receiving Russian citizenship by registration for those citizens of the former USSR who arrived in Russia before 6 February 1992 because, paradoxically, the law requires them to return to the country they left in order to get Russian citizenship. To get around this, many returnees opted to apply for the status of refugee instead of forced migrant, as this allowed them to establish their official place of residence and then request citizenship by registration, taking advantage of a regulatory guideline on procedure for granting Russian citizenship set down in Presidential decree No. 2099 of 27 December 1993. For more than two years, until Presidential decree No. 2007 of 24 October 1994 remedied this situation, many had to forsake the provision of assistance offered to forced migrants.

A second and more cogent bureaucratic impediment derives from the persistence with which central and local bureaucrats continue to use the propiska as a way of controlling migration, despite the fact that the discretionary registration of residence has been declared unconstitutional and abolished by a law of 1 October 1993. The lack of a propiska has been used by local officials of the FMS to deny refugee or forced migrant status. The Moscow government, for instance, adopted a decree (No. 2154–RP) on 9 November 1994 on the ‘specification for dealing with refugees and forced migrants’ stating that the status of refugee or forced migrants could be granted in the city of Moscow only to individuals who had previously received the residence permit. In many regions it is difficult to find employment and receive educational opportunities and benefits from what is left of the Soviet welfare state’s services without a residence permit. Numerous cases of returning Russians who have been mistreated and discriminated against by local bureaucracy are reported in Pereselencheskaya gazeta, a monthly newsletter published by an association of forced migrants.²² In January 1995, a Moscow court decided that the local Moscow FMS office had to pay the arrival subsidy to which forced migrants are entitled as well as an extra sum as recognition of moral damage to a woman who, arriving in Moscow from Grozny where the war was in full swing, was refused the status of forced migrants because she did not have a propiska!²³

Such bureaucratic practices have been declared unconstitutional several times by the Federal Constitutional Court. The most recent major sentence of the Constitutional Court was handed down on 2 February 1998 (No. 4–P), declaring points 10, 12 and 21 of governmental decree No. 713 of 17 July 1995 containing rules and instructions concerning the registration of residence as unconstitutional. In fact, the decree contained provisions legitimising the refusal of simple registration of residence in certain cases.

On several occasions regional authorities have not only continued to use the propiska, thus establishing a sort of exclusionary regional citizenship, but have also taken advantage of the weakness of the federal government in enforcing its law and of the powers granted them by the Constitution to draft laws and regulations creating their own immigration regime, usually more restrictive than the federal one (Voronina 1997: 39).²⁴ For example, on 10 March 1995, the Voronezh regional Duma adopted a law on ‘Regulation of migration processes’ and a temporary directive on the ‘Procedure for registration of citizens arriving for permanent or temporary settlement in the territory of Voronezh oblast’ (Filippova 1997a: 83). This regional migration regime requires, among other things, that newcomers register within 24 hours and can stay only up to 45 days for temporary residence; it also sets higher taxes for those wanting to buy housing and lays down a 0.5 per cent of the total population quota for the admission of migrants.