The press quickly became filled with words like "program failure" and "fiasco." However, it would hardly be right to blame the developers and implementers for the unsuccessful start—the program was doomed from the very beginning to such a debut.
First and foremost, Russia is reaping the fruits of the utterly illiterate demographic and migration policies of the 1990s. In this situation, hardly anyone credits the state for finally deciding to gather its people. Moreover, it is time to recall how after the collapse of the Union, about 8–9 million current Russians moved from the former brotherly republics to Russia without any state program, with many losses, often fleeing bloody armed conflicts.
Blaming the FMS, many forget that its current director, Konstantin Romodanovsky, is already the fourth head of the agency since the beginning of 2000, but he is the first to undertake the work of gathering compatriots. It must be taken into account that the times when people from CIS countries were ready to flee anywhere are over, and the motivation to return to Russia has noticeably changed in recent years.
Not for Such Gingerbread
Undoubtedly, there were miscalculations in developing the program. First of all, the expectation of compatriots from far-abroad countries proved unjustified. In Tyumen Oblast, for example, they seriously considered plans to receive settlers from Germany. The administration of Ulyanovsk Oblast expressed hopes for the return of former Russian Germans to the village of Bogdashkino in Cherdaklinsky District. Currently, just over 200 descendants of Germans who moved to the Volga region back in Peter the Great's times live there. Of course, the program developers should have taken into account the opinions of foreign experts and the compatriots themselves who are foreigners. For instance, Friedrich Pfaff, a deputy from the German town of Bussek-Oppenrod, who emigrated from the Volga region in 1993, cannot even imagine that Germans who left Russia in the 1990s would be attracted to today's Russia by anything.
The discussions about granting mortgage loans to settlers, not backed by guarantees of high salaries, turned out to be illusory. Most compatriots are frightened by the mandatory two-year work obligation, which may take place in such remote areas where qualified specialists cannot be attracted except with big money. It is obvious that this harsh condition will continue to hinder the implementation of the program.
Only a few dozen applications for resettlement were accepted in half a year by the Russian consulate in Western Ukraine. Most compatriots in the eastern part of the country, as well as in Belarus, are also unlikely to take their children to Siberia and the Far East, preferring seasonal earnings in central Russia to moving.
A second powerful wave of settlers from Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia—like the one observed in the 1990s—can no longer be expected. According to Arseny Nikitin, head of the Russian Old Believer community in Lithuania, not only the descendants of Old Believers who fled Russia 300 years ago, but also a significant part of the Russians who remained in the Baltics after the collapse of the USSR have already adapted quite successfully to the changes. After the Baltic states joined the European Union and the Schengen Area, the choice of countries for living and working for the Russian diaspora (primarily for the young people who know languages) has become much wider.
In the Transcaucasian CIS countries, especially in Armenia, there are no large Russian diasporas, and we should not hope for a noticeable inflow of compatriots from these states either.
To Resettle or to Stay
Only in Central Asia is the situation completely different, and in each country it is unique. There is resettlement potential in Tajikistan, but after the civil war of the 1990s, it is extremely low. According to Viktor Dubovitsky, head of the Council of Russian Compatriots in Tajikistan, people should have been resettled 15 years ago, when the Russian diaspora in the republic numbered half a million. Now there are no more than 50,000 ethnic Russians in Tajikistan, and most of them are pensioners unable to leave on their own. So whether these people, many of whom came to Tajikistan in the 1950s–1960s on work assignments, will be resettled to Russia is more of an ethical question than an economic one.
From Uzbekistan, which lost part of its Russian diaspora in the 1990s, the departure of potential Russians occurs without any program, but it is not massive either. Rural areas have already lost specialists, but in large cities the number of Russian compatriots is much higher than in Tajikistan.
Information about migration sentiments in semi-closed Turkmenistan is still limited, and it is impossible to give a professional forecast of the prospects for moving from that country based only on the assessments of a few settlers. However, there is no doubt that a mass exodus of highly qualified specialists is not beneficial to Turkmenistan, and President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov understands this well.
But the strongest fear of losing tens of thousands of specialists was caused by Vladimir Putin's decree in Kyrgyzstan. There, the Russian program was discussed officially and publicly, especially after the leader of the Semirechye Cossacks, Mikhail Demchenko, stated that if Moscow offers a reasonable program, all Cossacks would move to Russia. At the same time, he noted that no one would move to a boozing backwater. So, judging by the unpacked suitcases, the resettlement program has not yet aroused much interest in the Russian diaspora of Kyrgyzstan.
In Kazakhstan, from where more than 2 million people have moved to Russia since the 1990s, the picture is different. The leaders of the large Russian diaspora are divided into supporters and opponents of resettlement. There was no panic in the leadership of Kazakhstan, but the Kazakh press came out on the side of the opponents in an organized and reasoned manner. Judging by today's results, quite successfully. Most importantly, the development of the oil and gas complex in the country is increasingly inclining people toward the decision not to leave Kazakhstan. In 2007, nearly 60,000 specialists came to Kazakhstan (five times more than in 2002).
Today, between an individual citizen living abroad and an employer in Russia, there is a whole chain of officials, and not everyone who thinks about moving decides to go through it. So why not allow Russian employers and leaders of Russian diasporas in CIS countries, by establishing direct links among themselves, to conduct organized group resettlement with funding from the program budget?
Perhaps it is worth listening to the Cossacks of Semirechye and building compact villages for large groups of resettlers who want to leave as a whole community. The Russian government already has such experience. Let us recall the resettlement of the Doukhobors from Georgia to the Tambov region.
It is worth looking at the potential of public organizations. Surprisingly, but a fact: not every regional administration that received budget funds can compare in the effectiveness of resettlement work with the public organization "Ural House" from the city of Zarechny. Public activists have already resettled four dozen teachers and medical workers from Central Asian countries to rural areas of Sverdlovsk Oblast and are successfully continuing their work. So why not legalize the participation of the "Forum of Resettlement Organizations," which has dozens of offices and qualified experts in Russian regions, in the state resettlement program? Foreign experience shows that public organizations receiving state grants do an excellent job with socially significant programs.
The demographic situation in Russia, even with the emergence of the first positive trends in the birth rate, is very serious. The launch of the compatriots resettlement program revealed not only its weak points but also a number of factors that could not be foreseen during its development. It is encouraging that the political will of the country's leadership to overcome depopulation has already been demonstrated, the legal framework is ready, and budgetary resources have even been allocated for effective work.
Andrey ZAKHVATOV. 