Provincial Moscow

Unfortunately people in this country are sharply divided into two categories: Muscovites and provincials
It is officially declared that there are no illegal provincials in Moscow. And if such people are officially registered, it is said there are just few of them. At least, this is what the authorities usually say. In other words, they insist there is no problem of this kind at all. We mean that illegal provincials in Moscow are people who have come to Moscow from Russia's provincial cities in search of a job.
These people leave their native places to escape from poverty. What chances do these people have in Moscow?

What is the present-day labor situation in Moscow? The Labor and Employment Departments claims they are ready to place everybody in jobs. They can offer different variants of employment. But in fact the chances of non-Muscovites to get official employment are not really very high. People living in the Moscow Region may get official employment in Moscow easily. The problem is that in order to employ workers from remote parts of Russia and provide these people with necessary official guarantees employees have to officially register a great number of documents and permits in the governmental authorities.

There are many residents of the Moscow Region who have to travel to Moscow every day for work. In fact, people from the Moscow Region are welcome employees in Moscow; as a rule they don't ask for official registration at workplaces and ask for lower wages than Muscovites. Non-Muscovites get fixed in jobs where wages are rather low according to the Moscow standard, while the same money is considered to be rather good for the Moscow Region. Many people from the Moscow Region are working at fire companies of Moscow.

People coming to Moscow from remote provinces of the country will hardly get official wages in the capital that is why non-Muscovites seek any kind of jobs. At that, if non-Muscovites agree to work on an unofficial basis at Moscow companies, they must be ready that their civil rights won't be observed at all and they will hardly meet compassion there. Bosses may turn out to be rather whimsical people and even cruel: they often demand much of non-Moscow workers and at the same time may oppress such people with wages. In this respect, non-Muscovite workers have no chance for getting legal help as they often have no official registration in Moscow.

Newcomers from remote parts of the country use assistance of their relatives and acquaintances to get employment in small private construction firms of Moscow. In fact, bosses of such private companies like workers from provincial towns and from the CIS. Indeed, the situation in the former Soviet republics is rather hard; people from the CIS coming to Moscow in search of a job are more compliant as compared with Muscovites. Non-Moscow workers of such construction companies often don't have to rent apartments as they may live immediately in those rooms where they do repair works.

Every spring thousands of provincial school graduates come to Moscow to enter Moscow institutions of higher education. Before that, schoolchildren spend much time, sometimes even years to get ready for entrance examinations. When provincial students prove to be a success at entrance examinations and become students of Moscow institutes, they are given rooms in student hostels and an official registration in Moscow. For the years of further studies the people from the Russian province will have no problem of accommodation and registration. When provincial students graduate higher institutions in Moscow, they often become illegal workers in Moscow then. If such people are a success, they manage to rent apartments in Moscow or even marry a Muscovite, and then they get fixed up in permanent jobs. However, these people permanently understand the danger to lose their jobs and get back to the places from where they had escaped to Moscow several years ago. That is why they try and do any kind of job much better than their rivals among Muscovites.

This approach to problem solution is good for young people having no families and cherish wonderful prospects. Unfortunately, even middle-aged people have to leave their families and homes to get to Moscow in search of a job because they have no opportunity to earn at least some money in their native places. Life in Moscow becomes really very hard for such people.

This is strange but when journalists asked the Moscow Migration Service and the Labor and Employment Department if there are social programs or norms for protection of the interests of people coming to Moscow from provinces in search of jobs, they were told that the departments took care only about problems of migrants from the CIS, they have nothing to do with working migrants from the Russian province. Is this possible that Moscow authorities don't care about problems of Russian people? Probably this particular care about migrants from the CIS is explained with the fact that such people are more often suspected of committing acts of terrorism and other crimes.

There is still some hope that life in the country may change some day and people will live better in all parts of Russia. If people in all cities and towns of Russia are given chances of work comparable to those that people in Moscow have they will rather prefer to stay in their native places then escape to Moscow where they have to face a great number of problems. But while the situation is like this in Russia, people have to seek their own methods for solution of their money problems.

Maria Dombrovskaya