Thread: The life of a illegal immigrant in Russia

14,000,000 illegal immigrants live in Russia, mainly from the -stans of former Soviet Central Asia (primarily three of them: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan), but also from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova, China, North Korea, and Vietnam.

They live in conditions a civilized person would find horrifying. The luckier ones live underground




This is from a recently discovered "underground city" in a 1940s bomb shelter where 500 Uzbeks were found living, including some women and (not shown) children. These are the well-off ones, actually, by gastarbaiter standards.

Some live in tent cities, like these near Volgograd

Others yet, especially those who work at urban street markets, often live in old shipping containers remade into dwellings




They take all the worst, dirtiest, most demeaning jobs in Russia.

Gastarbaiters unloading newly arrived bags of vegetables for sale at a Moscow street market

Gastarbaiters clean a street, Moscow


Gastarbaiters work at a garbage processing plant also near Moscow

Their job here is to man the conveyor, sort the garbage by hand, and pick out anything recyclable (plastic, glass, metal) and put that into nearby bins.

Gastarbaiters at a construction site in Moscow


A gastarbaiter sleeping at the same site

A gastarbaiter's family and their dwelling

Note the elite high-rise apartment complexes in the background. Chances are, the father of this family helped build those...

As local children prepare to go swimming on the other side; a gastarbaiter washes his clothes in the Yauza river, near Moscow


A gastarbaiter shaves in the morning before work


Gastarbaiters assemble at the entrance to the employment center, looking for work

Gastarbaiters at a Russian language class


Federal Migration Service agent (in red vest) checks documents of gastarbaiters in a freshly discovered "underground city" of illegals in the basement of a Moscow apartment building



Illegal immigrants detained by police are placed into holding cells to await deportation


I thank God, every day, that I do not have to live like these people. Every time I want to whine and complain about my life, I think about what their life is like, and I realize I am damn lucky to have what I have and live as I live...

Originally Posted by bonncaruso

14 million? Wow.

Yes, 14 million. Greedy corpate bosses and government officials, who all want a near-payless labor force, bring them in by trainfull, promising them a better life... This is the life they get.

Originally Posted by bonncaruso

The pictures of the one family in Tadzhikistan, I have seen them before, on a documentary in ARTE here in Germany.

Probably. It is a much-discussed topic. Very similar to the US situation with illegal immigration, I suppose.