Migrants and Muscovites: the Boundaries of Belonging in Moscow, 1971-2002

MIGRANTS AND MUSCOVITES: THE BOUNDARIES OF BELONGING IN MOSCOW, 1971-2002 By Emily Joan Elliott A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of History – Doctor of Philosophy 2019 ABSTRACT MIGRANTS AND MUSCOVITES: THE BOUNDARIES OF BELONGING IN MOSCOW, 1971-2002 By Emily Joan Elliott This dissertation examines Soviet and post-Soviet Russian attempts to control temporary labor migration to Moscow from 1971 to 2002. Under both the Soviet command economy and the Russian capitalist one, Moscow faced a chronic shortage of workers to fill unskilled, physically demanding positions in the industrial, construction, and transportation sectors. By analyzing how the Office for the Use of Labor Resources in Moscow regulated migration to the capital, I elucidate how the boundaries of belongings in Moscow shifted in conjunction with larger economic and demographic concerns. Soviet policy required that all residents of Moscow (as well as other cities) apply for a residency permit and provide proof of a job before relocating. Russian authorities adapted this policy, requiring all residents – including visitors – to announce their presence with the policy. Contrary to what might be expected, the registration became a much more repressive tool of exclusion in the post-Soviet period. In the 1970s, Soviet social support, particularly in workers’ dormitories, was crucial for the social integration of these temporary labor migrants, known as limitchiki. These programs correlated with reduced labor turnover and increased productivity. Moreover, this dissertation argues that the economic uncertainty that began under perestroika unleashed anti-migrant sentiment. Muscovites held the limitchiki responsible for the capital’s untamed population growth and blamed them for taxing the city’s infrastructure – the very infrastructure that the limitchiki had been hired to build and maintain. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Office for the Use of Labor Resources worked with the newly established Federal Migration Service to govern migration and attempted to restrict all forms of in-migration to Moscow. While unemployment was pervasive, labor vacancies remained in the transportation and construction sectors, rendering temporary labor migration necessary. However, migrants lacked the social support of the dormitory, and the Office was reluctant to issue temporary registration to labor migrants, refugees, and forced migrants, whom they lumped together as foreigners. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Federal Migration Service (FMS) ascribed the same problems to new arrivals that it had to limitchiki, except now these complaints were overtly xenophobic in their nature. Copyright by EMILY JOAN ELLIOTT 2019 In loving memory: John R. Elliott, 1924-2012 Eleanor T. Elliott, 1928-2013 Joan P. Elliott, 1959-2014 Anthony M. McSorley, 1943-2016 Eleanor P. Kelly, 1937-2016 You live on in my thoughts and now in my words. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It has been a long journey completing this dissertation, and it would not be possible without the help and support of others. I would like to express my gratitude to my dissertation advisor, Dr. Lewis Siegelbaum for his seven years of guidance. He not only oversaw my progression through coursework, comprehensive exams, dissertation research, and writing, but also contributed to my growth as a scholar and intellectual. I would also like to thank Dr. Siegelbaum and Dr. Leslie Page Moch for first introducing me to the limitchiki in 2012 through their draft of Broad Is My Native Land. This dissertation has grown out of their larger project. I also extend my thanks to Dr. Matthew Pauly and Dr. Karrin Hanshew for their continued support throughout my graduate school career. Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the help and assistance of the faculty and graduate students of the Modern European History Colloquium at Michigan State University, who have kindly provided me with feedback on multiple chapters of this dissertation. I have also received a great deal of institutional support that has made my research and writing possible. Multiple grants and fellowships from the Michigan State University Department of History, College of Social Science, and Graduate School; the Jack and Margaret Sweet Endowed Professorship; and American Councils for International Education funded my language training and research trips to Moscow. While based in Moscow, American Councils for International Education provided me with an institutional home at Moscow International University. I express my thanks to Jon Smith, Aleksandr Vladimirovich Arkhipov, Galina Mikhailovna Shmeiakina, Vladimir Alekseevich Supik, and Andrei Dmitrievich Gorbunov for their assistance. vi The love and support of my family and friends has been invaluable to me throughout this process. I thank my parents, Brian and Mary Ellen Elliott, and my sister, Tara Elliott for believing in me and visiting me in both Michigan and Moscow. I am forever indebted to Kathryn Lankford and Heather Brothers for their friendship and for providing me with house and home. Jess Cruz was always willing to Skype me from New York when I questioned my work. In Moscow, my host families helped me create a home away from home. Thank you to Ksenia Mikhailovna Gerasimova, Nina Yurievna Parkova, and Anya Ustivitskaya for all that you have done for me. Last, thank you to Ben Greyerbiehl, the last person to join me on my graduate school career, for all the kindness, support, and laughter. vii PREFACE Sections of Chapters One and Three appeared in a peer-reviewed article, “Soviet Socialist Stars and Neoliberal Losers: Young Labour Migrants in Moscow, 1971-1991,” in the Journal of Migration History Vol. 3, No. 2 (2017): 274-299. A brief section of Chapter Two was published in a collection of conference proceedings as “An Olympic Undertaking: Temporary Labor Migration to Moscow and the 1980 Summer Olympics” in Konstruiruia “Sovetskaia”? Politicheskoe Soznanie, povsednevnye praktiki, novye identichnosti: Materialy, odinatsatoi mezhdunarodnoi konferentsii studentov i aspirantov 20-21 aprelia 2018 goda, Sankt-Peterburg. St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Evropeiskogo Universiteta v Sankt Peterburge, 2018. 157-163. This research was in part funded under the auspices of the American Councils Title VIII Research Scholar Program, administered by American Councils for International Education on behalf of the U.S. Department of State, Title VIII Program for Research and Training on Eastern Europe and Eurasia (Independent States of the former Soviet Union). viii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES xi LIST OF FIGURES xii INTRODUCTION 1 Tools of Governance 11 The Great Divide: Interventions in Migration History 20 The Grand Bargain: Soviet and Post-Soviet History 33 On Sources 39 Outline of Chapters 42 CHAPTER ONE Soviet Socialist Stars: Negotiating Temporary Labor Migration to Moscow, 1971-1977 44 The Great Debate 51 Repertoires and Regimes Legitimizing Each Other 56 State and Society in the Dormitories 65 Path to Becoming a Muscovite 78 Conclusion 84 CHAPTER TWO Soviet Bureaucracy with a Human Face: Temporary Labor Migration as Stagnation and Stability, 1978-1985 87 Migration and the Looming Demographic Crisis 94 Policing the Collective 106 Procuring Housing in Shortage 115 Conclusion 130 CHAPTER THREE Neoliberal Losers: Temporary Labor Migration in the Age of Perestroika and Glasnost. 1986- 1991 134 Problems on the Eve of Reform 142 New Solutions to Old Problems? 150 The Outcomes 158 Connotations and Uses of the Word Limitchiki 163 Conclusion: Was the Soviet System Reformable? 172 CHAPTER FOUR ‘Semi-Legal Limitchiki’: Reforming Repertoires and Regimes of Temporary Labor Migration, 1992-1998 174 Motivations for Moving 181 Demographic Decline as a Public Health Crisis 194 Registration Regime 202 ix Conclusion 211 CHAPTER FIVE Moscow: A European Capital in the Age of Global Migration 217 Securitization Regime 223 Gastarbaitery: Unwelcome Guests of the City 233 The Forced Migrant Question 247 Conclusion: The Ambiguity of Being Russian 253 CONCLUSION Moscow: Potemkin Village or Global City? 257 APPENDICES 266 APPENDIX A: Glossary 267 APPENDIX B: Timeline of the Office for the Use of Labor Resources in Moscow 272 APPENDIX C: Timeline of Five Year Plans 273 APPENDIX D: Map of the Neighborhoods of Moscow 274 APPENDIX E: Map of the Moscow Region 270 BIBLIOGRAPHY 276 x LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Total Temporary Labor Migrant Arrivals to Moscow 190 Table 5.1: Total Arrivals to Moscow in 1999 236 Table 5.2: Foreign Labor Power Without Registration in Moscow, 2000 244 xi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Map of Select Dormitories (created by author) 67 Figure 1.2: Limitchik woman hangs her laundry 68 Figure 1.3: Dormitory Corridor 69 Figure 1.4: “Entrance for men until 10:00 in the evening” 69 Figure 2.1: Street sign with address: “Michurinskii Prospekt Olympic Village Street 3” 131 Figure 4.1: Births and Deaths in Moscow 199 Figure 4.2: Population Growth in Moscow 200 xii INTRODUCTION The small apartment basement room turned auditorium in Moscow was filled with about 30 spectators to see the premier of Teatr.doc’s Shpatel’ (Putty Knife) in February 2016. Aman Karamatdinov, the sole actor in this one man show, billed as a “migrant ballet,” sang and danced as he told viewers the story of his adult life. A native of Karakalpakiia in Uzbekistan, he trained in Tashkent and danced with the Nukus Music and Drama Theater. The chaos of perestroika destroyed his dreams of advancing

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