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Soviet “Blacks” and Place Making in Leningrad and Moscow
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
Abstract
Movement from the USSR's margins to Leningrad and Moscow, among groups ranging from traders to professionals, intensified in the late Soviet period. Using oral histories, Jeff Sahadeo analyzes the migration and place-making experiences of migrants from Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Asian RSFSR, all of whom were often referred to then as well as now by the Soviet host population as “Blacks.” Sahadeo argues that the “two capitals,” despite being closed cities, became critical to advancement strategies for citizens unionwide, inextricably binding Soviet periphery and center. Sahadeo explores how race emerged as an important factor in place making but argues that this can only be understood through its interplay with class, gender, professional status, and other categories of identity. Soviet “Blacks” externalized experiences of difference as they sought incorporation into host societies while maintaining links between their adopted and native homes. Place-making strategies led them to see Leningrad and Moscow, not as Russian-dominated cities, but as modern spaces of Soviet progress.
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References
A grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada assisted in research for this article. Allison Keating, Altynay Teshebaeva, Shakhnoza Matnazarova, Rauf Garagozov, Gulmira Churokova and Akmaral Arzybaeva conducted a number of interviews. I also thank Mark D. Steinberg, Jane T. Hedges, Madeleine Reeves, Adrienne Edgar, Adeeb Khalid, Bruce Grant, Slavic Review's two anonymous reviewers, and die members of the Spring 2009 Midwest Russian History Workshop. All names of migrants used in diis article are pseudonyms.
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59. Karpenko, “Byt’ ‘natsional'nym,'” 53.
60. Gulnara Alieva, interview, St. Petersburg, 5 May 2007.
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75. Marat Tursunbaev, phone interview, Tashkent, 15 May 2007.
76. Hazi Begirov, interview, Lenkoran, 25 June 2009.
77. Damira Nogoibaeva, interview, Bishkek, 6 August 2008.
78. Aryan Shirinov, interview, St. Petersburg, 12 November 2007.
79. Lali Utiashvili, interview, Moscow, 29 November 2007.
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82. Aliya Nurtaeva, phone interview, Washington, D.C., 25 October 2006.
83. Said Nabiev, interview, Moscow, 28 November 2007.
84. On marriage as a path for limitchiky to gain permanent status, see Zaslavsky, Neo- Stalinist State, 144; Colton, Moscow, 463.
85. The issuing of these spravky began in the late 1930s, as part of the Soviet regime's decision to allow peasants to sell goods that they produced on private plots. Draitser reports that the regime saw the value in bringing fruits and vegetables through private trade to the capital from the 1970s onwards. As James R. Millar notes, the scope for this and other private trade was expanding across the Brezhnev-era USSR as part of what he calls the “little deal” between the state and citizens. Millar, “The Little Deal: Brezhnev's Contribution to Acquisitive Socialism,” Slavic Review 44, no. 4 (Winter 1985): 694-706. For results of this on Moscow's streets, see Sahadeo, “Accidental Traders.“
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90. Foner, In a New Land, 120; Chiswick and Miller, “Immigrant Enclaves,” 90.
91. Saule Iskakova, interview, Moscow, lO July 2007.
92. Aryan Shirinov, interview, St. Petersburg, 12 November 2007.
93. Murad Imamaliev, interview, St. Petersburg, 8 February 2007; Farshad Hajiev, interview, St. Petersburg, 11 November 2007.
94. Aryuna Khamagova, phone interview, Ulan-Ude, 12 February 2007.
95. Tolkunbek Kudubaev, phone interview, Osh, 15 November 2008.
96. Farshad Hajiev, interview, St. Petersburg, 11 November 2007.
97. Narynbek Temirkulov, interview, St. Petersburg, 11 July 2007.
98. Vendina, “Social Polarization,” 225. See also Raleigh, ed. and trans., Russia's Sputnik Generation, 45.
99. Jyldyz Nuriaeva, phone interview, Bishkek, 9 July 2007.
100. Ulinich, Anya, Petropolis (London, 2007), 281.Google Scholar
101. Elnur Asadov, interview, Baku, 5 June 2009.
102. Aryuna Khamagova, phone interview, Ulan-Ude, 12 February 2007.
103. Ibid.
104. Asylbek Albiev, interview, Bishkek, 8 July 2009.
105. Ashram Bagramov, interview, Lenkoran, 25 July 2009.
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109. Karpenko, “Byt’ ‘natsional'nym,'” 57-58.
110. Ibid., 58.
111. Ol'ga Brednikova and Elena Chikadze, “Armiane St. Peterburga: Kar'ery etnichnosti,” in Vornokov and Osval'd, eds., Konstruirovanie etnichnosti, 249.
112. Ibid.
113. Johnson, Robert Eugene, Peasant and Proletarian: The Working Class of Moscoiv in the Late Nineteenth Century (New Brunswick, 1979).Google Scholar It is beyond the scope of this paper to link zemliaky to the contested definitions and meanings of diasporas but, on diaspora, see Brubaker, Rogers, “The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28, no. 1 (January 2005): 1-19 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Clifford, James, “Diasporas,” Cultural Anthropology 9, no. 3 (August 1994): 302-38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
114. All of die twelve traders in our survey were conscious of the ethnic or regional basis of their trading networks. See Draitser, , Taking Penguins, 35-55 Google Scholar, on how this was perceived by Russians. See also Mars, Gerald and Altman, Yochanan, “The Cultural Bases of Georgia's Second Economy,” Soviet Studies 35, no. 4 (October 1983): 546-60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
115. For example, eje would decide month-to-monfh who would sell particular goods (i.e., cherries or watermelons) in particular markets. See Sahadeo, “Accidental Traders.“
116. Eljan Jusubov, interview, Baku, 5 June 2009.
117. Aryan Shirinov, interview, St. Petersburg, 12 November 2007.
118. Gulnara Alieva, interview, St. Petersburg, 5 May 2007.
119. Ibid.
120. Another conscript, Aibek Botoev, claimed the brutality of army service led to ethnic protection associations; yet he saw soldiers at similar levels sharing close bonds regardless of ethnicity. Aibek Botoev, interview, Moscow, 8 December 2007.
121. On the role of intersecting trajectories, I borrow from David Lambert and Alan Lester, eds., Colonial Lives across the British Empire: Imperial Careering in the Long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 2006), 26.
122. Angermiuller, “Ot natsional'nogo patriotizma,” 277.
123. Aisulu Baisalbekova, interview, Osh, 26 August 2009.
124. Farshad Hajiev, interview, St. Petersburg, 11 November 2007.
125. Karklins, Ethnic Relations, 120. Much work remains to be done on the system's nature and extent.
126. Some Soviet sociologists criticized “closed city” policies for the aging of vital Soviet cities: see B. S. Khorev and N. P. Matveev, eds., Rasselenie i dinamika naseleniia Moskvy i Moskovskoi oblasti: Sbornik statei (Moscow, 1981). On Moscow's perpetual labor shortages, see Colton, Moscow, 66. Ruble notes that Leningrad purposefully sought skilled workers from other regions in order to raise its prestige following World War II. Ruble, Leningrad, 59.
127. Lewin, , Gorbachev Phenomenon, 66.Google Scholar
128. Ashwin, Sarah, Russian Workers: The Anatomy of Patience (Manchester, Eng., 1999), 11.Google Scholar
129. Karklins has noted the importance that Soviets placed on the multiethnic basis of Soviet work collectives. Karklins, , Ethnic Relations, 129.Google Scholar
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132. Lali Utiashvili, interview, Moscow, 29 November 2007.
133. Rafael Voskanian, phone interview, 20 December 2006.
134. Dea Kochladze, interview, St. Petersburg, 26 November 2007.
135. Levan Rukhadze, interview, St. Petersburg, 25 November 2007.
136. Jumaboi Esoev, interview, St. Petersburg, 17 November 2007.
137. Shuhrat Kazbekov, interview, Moscow, 13 November 2007.
138. Eljanjusubov, interview, Baku, 5 June 2009. Millar notes the importance of these and other types of non-state-regulated trade to Soviet cities. Millar, “Little Deal.“
139. Shuhrat Ikramov, interview, Moscow, 12 March 2007.
140. Lali Utiashvili, interview, Moscow, 29 November 2007.
141. Dea Kochladze, interview, St. Petersburg, 26 November 2007.
142. Levan Rukhadze, interview, St. Petersburg, 25 November 2007.
143. Torgun Mammadov, interview, Baku, 6 June 2009.
144. The national myth of the hard-working migrant in the United States applies more to Europeans who came at the turn of the twentieth century, however, than to the non-white migrants who have since predominated. Foner, In a Nexv Land, 207. Dorothy Louise Zinn has noted that Senegalese migrants to Italy constructed an image of themselves as more worldly and knowledgeable than the local population. Zinn, , “The Senegalese Immigrants in Bari: What Happens When the Africans Peer Back,” in Benmayor, and Skotnes, , eds., Migration and Identity, 53-68.Google Scholar
145. Lonkila and Salmi, “Russian Work Collective and Migration,” 688.
146. Tolkunbek Kudubaev, phone interview, Osh, 15 November 2008.
147. Buckley notes massive fraud in the Moscow passport office during the late Soviet period. Buckley, “Myth of Managed Migration,” 908.
148. Elnur Asadov, interview, Baku, 7 June 2009.
149. Jamila Toktogulova, interview, St. Petersburg, 11 July 2007.
150. Jyldyz Nuriaeva, phone interview, Bishkek, 9 July 2007.
151. Ibid.
152. Shuhrat Ikramov, interview, Moscow, 12 March 2007. On academic freedom in the capitals, see Yurchak, , Everything Was Forever, 139.Google Scholar
153. Farshad Hajiev, interview, St. Petersburg, 11 November 2007. Africans themselves reported a far more complicated picture of “friendship,” particularly regarding Slavic students. On prejudice faced by African students, see Hessler, “Death of an African Student in Moscow,” 33; Matusevich, Maxim, “Probing the Limits of Internationalism: African Students Confront Soviet Ritual,” Anthropology ojf East Europe Review 27, no. 2 (2009): 19-39.Google Scholar
154. Farshad Hajiev, interview, St. Petersburg, 11 November 2007.
155. Yurchak, , Everything Was Forever, 85.Google Scholar
156. Elmira Nasirova, interview, St. Petersburg, 11 July 2007.
157. Damira Nogoibaeva, interview, Bishkek, 6 August 2008.
158. Alieva connected this incident to the 1986 riots in Almaty after Mikhail Gorbachev replaced the ethnic Kazakh First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR with a Russian. Gulnara Alieva, interview, St. Petersburg, 5 May 2007.
159. Eljan Jusubov, interview, Baku, 5 June 2009.
160. Jyldyz Nuriaeva, phone interview, Bishkek, 9 July 2007.
161. Ahmed, , Castaneda, , Fortier, , and Sheller, , Uprootings/Regroundings, 6.Google Scholar On the broader Soviet phenomenon of holding separate national and Soviet values, see Khalid, Adeeb, Islam after Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia (Berkeley, 2007), chap. 1.Google Scholar
162. On die law of rising recollections, see Ritchie, , Doing Oral History, 35.Google Scholar
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