Introduction

A new migratory system has emerged since the end of the Cold War with post-Soviet Russia at its core. There were over eleven million international migrants in the country as of 2013, making it the second-largest destination in the world, after the United States (UN, 2013). The majority of immigrants come from former Soviet Union countries, which have been reorganized into a more loosely structured Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that cis migrants accounted for 53 per cent of all international migrants in Russia in 2006 (IOM, 2008, p. 26). Although migration within the cis has been subjected to tighter control since the early 1990s, it is still relatively easy for migrants to circulate within the bloc because of visa-free regimes and bilateral trade agreements, as well as the extensive transportation networks, Russian language proficiency, and cultural affinity developed during the Soviet era. In a context where demographic decline is estimated to be about 750,000 per annum and considered as a major threat to national security (Herd and Sargsyan, 2007, p. 51), further growth in immigration is both imperative and inevitable.

Official statistics, however, do not capture irregular migrants. It is estimated that up to 70–80 per cent of population movement to Russia is of an irregular nature (Ivakhnyuk, 2009; Zayonchkovskaya, 1999). While cis citizens, particularly those from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Ukraine, account for more than two thirds of irregular migrants (Ryazantsev, 2010), Chinese and Vietnamese populations are believed to have a higher ratio of irregular migrants (IOM, 2008, p. 55).