Each day an average of three Tajiks return from Russia in simple wooden coffins. They are the victims of racist attacks, police brutality, dangerous working conditions and unsafe housing.
Kanybek Bekmurzaev, 32, has a goal this winter. Home from Moscow to visit his elderly mother in southern Kyrgyzstan, he’s using the time to memorize irregular Russian verbs.
Like most residents of her children’s home in Osh, Nargiza is a part-time orphan. Her father disappeared when she was born and her mother works long spells in Russia. Nargiza has no siblings and doesn’t know her grandparents. But she does see her mother from time to time.
Armenia is pressing to terminate a Russian government program that encourages legal labor migration to Russia. But the Russian Federal Migration Service shows no sign of abandoning the initiative.
Four years ago, Farida Hajimova’s husband left Tajikistan to work in Russia. After a time, he stopped calling. Ultimately, he never returned. She was left at home in Dushanbe with two daughters and not a lot of options. Now she says she has no choice but to follow in her ex-husband's footsteps -- not to find him, but to find work herself.
Seven years ago, like thousands of other Armenians, 58-year-old Anahit opted to overlook the age-old hostility between Armenia and Turkey and move to Istanbul from her hometown of Gyumri. One simple factor guided her decision -- she needed a job, and Turkey offered the best place to find one.
For decades, Turkey was known for being a source of guest workers, especially those headed to Germany. Now, Ankara is grappling with a migrant-labor issue of its own.
MOSCOW -- From police harassment to labor exploitation to skinhead attacks, Karomat Sharipov knows better than most the problems ethnic Tajiks face in Russia.
As the head of a Moscow-based support group that assists them with everything from finding a job to battling fabricated criminal cases, he hears their tales of woe on a daily basis.
