High fees for legalizing migrant workers in Russia open a wide field for corruption
Deutsche Welle investigated what the situation with Ukrainian labor migration in Russia actually looks like.
A loophole for 10,000 rubles
Galina from Ivano-Frankivsk has been working as a caregiver in Moscow since 2013. For all four years, she has been illegally staying in Russia without returning to her homeland, despite the law requiring her to cross the border every three months if she has no other grounds for staying in Russia. "My mother fell ill at home, so it became clear that I would have to go to Ukraine in December. But at the border, they will see that I haven't left for four years and may ban me from re-entering, and I can't afford to lose my job," Galina told DW.
Through a friend, she learned that there are ways to legalize her stay in Russia. She just needs to get a migration card showing that the border was crossed less than 90 days before departure. "A friend put me in touch with a man who has connections at the Russian-Ukrainian border. Every Saturday, he takes Ukrainians there in his minibus," says Galina. She took advantage of this opportunity.
"It was very scary. First, they asked me where my migration card was. I said I lost it – I couldn't show an expired one. Then they took my passport and told me to get back on the bus," the woman recounted. Before that, she had given the driver 10,000 rubles. "He said he would distribute the money to the right people. After a while, he returned with my passport and a new migration card. Now I can show proper documents when entering Ukraine," Galina said.
Legalization costs much more
Yulia Florinskaya, a leading researcher at the Laboratory for Living Standards and Social Protection Studies of the Institute for Social Analysis and Forecasting of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), notes that this kind of business was more developed in previous years. Currently, under the law, a Ukrainian citizen can stay in Russia on a private visit for only 90 days out of 180, meaning they must live in Ukraine for three months out of six. However, this law is not observed.
"My daughter works as a caregiver in one of the Moscow hospitals. She lives there for two months at a time and goes to Ivano-Frankivsk for only a month," Galina claims. "The law doesn't work. Everything is resolved individually for money through the right people." Galina and her daughter prefer to take risks because official legalization of a labor migrant in Russia costs much more. For example, to obtain a patent granting the right to work for a year, one must pay a state fee of 15,000 rubles and an additional 4,200 rubles monthly. Obtaining a patent also involves a lot of bureaucratic procedures – in particular, passing a Russian language exam, undergoing a medical examination, and fingerprinting.
Finding themselves in an unfamiliar city, not every foreigner can navigate all the nuances of the procedure. Largely for this reason, a whole layer of intermediaries has emerged in the migration sphere, making money from it. "For 10,900 rubles, we will help with all the documents. All you need is your passport and migration card," an agency employee told a journalist. Then, switching to a confidential tone, they offered a more advantageous option: obtaining a temporary residence permit (TRP). "This is an excellent alternative to a patent. A TRP gives you the right to live in Russia for three years without leaving and without paying monthly for a patent," the agency employee stated. According to her, obtaining a TRP through them would cost from 50,000 rubles.
Room for corruption, or "easier to bribe"
"This is corruption," Yulia Florinskaya states. "Migration officials indeed sell temporary residence permits." According to her, the cost of obtaining a TRP can reach 100,000 rubles. The system, which assumes that each region has a certain annual quota for issuing TRPs to foreigners, opens up room for trade. "In some regions, the quota is exhausted as early as January. What should a person who arrives, for example, in March do? Go to a separate office where their problem will be solved for money," the expert says.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs statistics, currently 211,400 Ukrainians live in Russia on TRPs, and almost 70,000 people received such permits from January to September of this year. "I think it's worth getting a TRP if you know for sure that you will live here for more than a year," says Galina. "If not, you can get by with a patent. It comes out about the same in terms of money." However, she herself is in no hurry to part with almost a thousand euros a year (fee plus monthly payments): "It's easier, if anything, to bribe."
Yulia Florinskaya notes that the statistics on issuing patents to foreigners in Russia indeed do not reflect the actual number of people working in the country. "It's clear that many do not obtain them," she says. However, according to the expert's observation, the flow of labor migrants from Ukraine to Russia has been decreasing recently. "Labor migration from this country is gradually reorienting toward Europe," the expert concludes.