Special conditions for entry into Russia will only be granted to highly qualified specialists from abroad
The period of temporary stay for such valuable personnel may be repeatedly extended up to three years. An employer, to hire a highly qualified specialist, will not be required to obtain a permit for this. Additionally, the employer will not be restricted by a quota for attracting a valuable employee from abroad.
Determining who is a "highly qualified specialist" under the new law is easy and simple: someone whose employer pays at least 2 million rubles per year. At the same time, the Russian government receives the right to lower the salary requirements for such foreign citizens.
Under the law, the employer independently determines the competence of the highly qualified specialist, submits a petition for issuing them a work permit, as well as for obtaining permission to enter Russia. The foreigner will also have the right to declare themselves as a highly qualified specialist.
Furthermore, mandatory medical insurance is introduced for such employees. Finally, valuable foreign specialists will be exempt from the fingerprinting procedure, which will become mandatory for "ordinary" migrants, as well as from the obligation to be photographed when registering with the Federal Migration Service.
The Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation immediately welcomed the adoption of this law. According to the official representative of the agency, Konstantin Poltoranin, "this will finally allow us to regulate migration flows into the Russian Federation." He explained that these flows will now consist of three categories of migrants.
"First, there are qualified foreign workers in whom Russia is interested. It is important to encourage them to obtain residency permits so that they can live in Russia with their families and later decide on obtaining Russian citizenship. The second category includes ordinary temporary migrants arriving on the basis of a quota allocated by the Russian government. And the third category is those who will work on the basis of a patent in the private sector, that is, those who do not bring financial benefit to their employer," said Poltoranin.
After which he mysteriously stated that the new version of the migration law "will stabilize the domestic labor market and free up qualified workers from among the native residents." What qualified workers from among the native residents are currently doing and what prevents them from demonstrating their qualifications remains unclear.
But if you look at the problem of labor migration to Russia in essence, it turns out that there are no three or thirty categories of migrants. There is only one: people come to Russia solely to earn more money than at home. In this regard, unfortunate guest workers from impoverished post-Soviet Asian republics are no different, for example, from average professional football players (more accurately, footballers) from Brazil or top managers from Western countries whom some of the largest Russian oil and gas companies like to buy out.
People come to Russia mainly for temporary earnings, not to settle down there or, even more so, to develop innovations. Either out of desperation, or when specific Russian employers are willing to pay a specific foreigner crazy money that they do not deserve or cannot get in their own country.
Here is a concrete example of how the new law will work. This summer, forward Kevin Kuranyi of the German Bundesliga club Schalke 04 (where, by the way, Gazprom is the general sponsor) is supposed to move to Moscow's Dynamo football club. He will clearly be paid more than 2 million rubles a year – the German press mentions a sum of 6 million euros. So he will become, under the newly modernized migration law, that very valuable foreign specialist.
As for talented, established, and wealthy scientists or engineers, even if they have Russian or Soviet roots, they have absolutely no reason to come to Russia: the creative environment and freedom of expression, as well as living conditions, where they live are definitely better.
It is impossible to make a country attractive to smart and talented foreigners if smart and talented compatriots live poorly in it. The atmosphere of rat race, scams, suppression of private initiative, intelligence, talent, and professionalism in almost all spheres, created in Putin's Russia, is diametrically opposite to what highly qualified personnel usually want from life. For many of them, democracy and personal freedom are valuable in themselves. But even for those who prefer simple comfort, decent pay, and the opportunity for self-realization, Russia is clearly not a dream destination. It is no coincidence that even Russian oligarchs and top officials, seemingly the most settled people in the country, try to move capital out of Russia at the first opportunity. And they arrange their own lives and the lives of their children with backup airfields in the free countries of the West, understanding firsthand how these countries differ from Russia.
In a country where elites have long and consciously been essentially evacuating their children and capital to the West, people who have found themselves in the free world have absolutely no reason to go. In a global world, a person whose work involves science, high technology, or creativity generally becomes cosmopolitan and can live in several countries. But high technology itself is only possible in a free environment – political sharashkas in the modern world do not produce innovative effects. In Russia, however, this environment is not yet in sight: Skolkovo in the current all-Russian context will rather resemble a modernized sharashka.
That is exactly why no migration legislation by itself will attract any noticeable number of highly qualified foreign specialists here: first, Russia must become a free country. A country where independent thinking and professionalism are valued at all levels, not loyalty to superiors and connections in law enforcement agencies.
Semen NOVOPRUDSKY.
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