[lg policy] Kyrgyzstan: Labor Migrants Grapple with Russian-Language Requirement

Thu Mar 28 19:40:11 UTC 2013

Kyrgyzstan: Labor Migrants Grapple with Russian-Language Requirement
February 1, 2013 - 12:05pm

Hundreds of thousands of labor migrants from Kyrgyzstan work in Russia
and Kazakhstan. (Photo: David Trilling)
A man boards a Kazakhstan-bound train in Kyrgyzstan's capital,
Bishkek, in November 2011. Many believe at least 800,000 people, or 30
percent of Kyrgyzstan’s able-bodied population, work abroad, mostly in
Russia, where a grasp of the language is often a problem. (Photo:
David Trilling)

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.

New legislation requiring the millions of Central Asian migrant
laborers in Russia to speak Russian is worrying Bekmurzaev. As his
family’s main breadwinner – for three years, he’s worked as a bus
driver in Moscow – he knows he had better learn the language.

It’s a task that’s not so easy to accomplish. As a young man growing
up in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, he never had the opportunity to learn
the language properly, unlike members of his mother’s generation. “My
boss told me and other drivers who don’t speak Russian well that
without good Russian we might lose our jobs,” said Bekmurzaev, who
returns to his hamlet of Karatai, near Osh, each December for a month
or two.

Under Kyrgyzstan’s Constitution, both Russian and Kyrgyz enjoy the
status of official languages. But the use of Russian is fading. Since
independence in 1991, the quality of education has fallen
dramatically. In the post-Soviet era, schools no longer place as much
emphasis on the language. In addition, over half a million native
Russian speakers – ethnic Russians, Kyrgyz and others, among them the
country’s most educated – have left.

All the while, Kyrgyzstan’s economy has been in free-fall. No one
knows for sure, but perhaps 800,000 people, or 30 percent of
Kyrgyzstan’s able-bodied population, work abroad. Many are seasonal
workers like Bekmurzaev; most go to Russia. Their remittances,
according to the World Bank, total the equivalent of 30 percent of
Kyrgyzstan’s GDP.

But when migrants arrive in cities like Moscow, Novosibirsk and St.
Petersburg, they realize that Kyrgyzstan’s dilapidated schools have
failed to deliver a needed skill: the ability to speak Russian.
Bekmurzaev, who has three children and a wife in Karatai, says that in
Kyrgyzstan “it is difficult to find a job good enough to feed my
family.” Bekmurzaev hopes one day to move his family permanently to
Moscow.

On December 1, the Russian Federation began requiring labor migrants
working in service industries – shopkeepers, plumbers, and street
cleaners, for example – to pass a Russian language test to receive
work permits.

“Several factors affect migration [out of Kyrgyzstan], including the …
political situation, and people’s desire to provide a better education
and future for their children,” Victor Kharchenko, the first secretary
at the Russian Embassy in Bishkek, told EurasiaNet.org. “The number of
people wishing to leave for the Russian Federation fluctuates
depending on the season and political events in this country.”

With poverty increasing about 3 percent a year, ongoing political
turbulence, and little hope for Kyrgyzstan’s moribund economy, few
believe the exodus will slow. Meanwhile, the Kyrgyz parliament’s
efforts to enforce the use of the Kyrgyz language at the expense of
Russian are viewed by many as counterproductive because it does not
equip young Kyrgyz for potentially working in Russia.

In recent years, for example, Russian-speaking ethnic Kyrgyz MPs have
been harassed and publicly shamed by their colleagues for not speaking
Kyrgyz. Russian speakers, ethnic Kyrgyz and Russians alike, say the
efforts to discourage the use of Russian threatens to leave Kyrgyzstan
isolated.

“The Russian Federation needs our migrants, but its authorities
require knowledge of the Russian language,” Irina Karamushkina, an
ethnic Russian MP who has long advocated for the rights of
Kyrgyzstan’s dwindling Russian-speaking community, told
EurasiaNet.org. “So, there is nothing surprising that many citizens of
Kyrgyzstan have started attending Russian language courses.”

Across the country, from remote Batken Province to Bishkek, demand for
those classes is increasing. “These days in Batken, more people who
want to migrate to Russia have begun learning Russian,” Berdi Sadikov,
the executive director of the Batken Adult Training Center, an NGO,
told EurasiaNet.org. “Our migrants need Russian language skills.”

Sadikov says that students pay 3,000 soms (about $63) for a
three-month course. “Our customers have three lessons a week, and they
learn not only to speak, but also to read and write in Russian. Their
main motivation is to find employment in Russia,” he said.

Even on the streets of Bishkek, once a predominantly Russian-speaking
city, Russian is heard far less today than it was even three years
ago. Migrants from rural areas often do not speak the language at all.
“One of the reasons why use of the Russian language has declined is
mass migration, when Russian speakers started leaving the country at
the beginning of the ‘90s,” Igor Shestakov, an analyst in Bishkek,
told EurasiaNet.org.

According to government statistics, there were 916,500 ethnic Russians
in the country in 1989, comprising 21.5 percent of the population at
the time. By 2012, the number had fallen to 381,561, or 6.9 percent of
the population. “Another factor is reduction in Russian language
teaching at schools and universities, lack of qualified teachers,
teaching materials and books,” Shestakov said.

The trend is prompting resentment in the ethnic Russian community,
encouraging yet more migration. “Though the Constitution defines
Russian as an official language, in reality, Kyrgyz and Russian are
not treated equally,” Svetlana Sharova, the vice chairperson of Union
of Russian Compatriots in Kyrgyzstan, a lobbying group, told
EurasiaNet.org. “Ethnic Russians have been leaving the country, and I
am pretty sure they will keep leaving due to the lack of jobs, a
difficult economic situation, and discrimination against the Russian
language.”

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66491

Originally published in Eurasianet.org

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