INTRODUCTION

Russian-speaking ex-Soviet immigrants constitute one of the most numerous immigrant communities in Turkey. According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, in 2019 the total number of foreign citizens living in Turkey with a residence permit was 1,531,180, and 258,588 out of this number were foreigners from the former Soviet countries (TÜİK 2019). These numbers do not include foreigners having Turkish citizenship. According to TÜİK's Place of Birth Statistics, 531,430 citizens of the Turkish Republic were born in former Soviet countries (TÜİK 2020b). Therefore, according to official statistics, the total number of Russian-speaking ex-Soviet immigrants in Turkey amounts to 790,018. It can be considered among the largest Russian-speaking immigrant communities in the world.

The most important feature of this community is the predominance of women. Turkey's case is a good illustration of the observed fact that migration movements have feminised with the intensification of glo-balisation processes. In Turkey, Russian-speaking immigration definitely has a female face. This has been mostly related to the so-called ‘marriage migration’, which remains the most important reason for Russian-speaking women's immigration to Turkey.

There is a long tradition of identifying the woman/mother with the house/home. Women are seen as the ‘pivots of home’ (Chapman 1999), as those who are responsible for its construction and representation. It is not simply the house itself which is coded as feminine, but also the realm of tradition, culture, community and nation are often understood as women's business (Morley 2000 in Bozkurt 2009: 69). Women are seen as ‘ethnic actors’ (Anthias 2000) who are responsible for preserving values, guarding traditions, transmitting the language to the young, and retaining/communicating nationhood and belongingness (Yuval-Davis 1997 in Bozkurt 2009: 69). However, conventional understandings of ‘home’ as a stable and fixed location have long been problematised. People's relationship with places has changed with growing mobility. Unfixed, plural and multi-referential understandings of home have emerged, especially in the context of migration and everyday practices of homemaking abroad (Bozkurt 2009: 31).

How do migrant women and in particular those who migrate because of marriage with a foreigner make their homes in an unfamiliar environment and how do they find their way between two value systems and between two different ethnic/cultural ‘homes’? Do communication technologies help or hinder the onset of immigrants’ feeling at home in the new country? This chapter attempts to deepen our understanding of migrant women's perceptions of ‘home’ and ‘homeland’ using Turkey as an example.