"We have, in fact, put an end to immigration. A mere three thousand and a half came to Russia the last six months, while the economy requires an annual million workforce inflow. The situation threatens our national security," he pointed out to a roundtable on nationalities policies Novosti was hosting today.
The alarmed expert gathering doubted the federal government having any explicit concept of immigration policies-that with the indigenous population shrinking by an annual average 800,000.
"We Russians may be finding fault with aliens but racism and chauvinism are not rooted in our ethnic mentality. Our government, however, appears to have no clear idea of nationalities policy," said Mikhail Tarusin, socio-political research manager of ROMIR Monitoring Co.-and went on to cite impressive statistics. A mere 2 to 3 per cent of Russians think interethnic antagonisms are a burning problem, while an overwhelming majority put the ethnic issue into the background of problems they deem worthy of public concern.
Analysts regard other post-Soviet countries as a principal source of workforce inflow into Russia as post-Soviet people have a working command of the Russian language to bring them together, and share historical and cultural traditions to this day.
Russian laws are lagging behind current developments. Legislators are to proceed from the present-day situation to cure the matter. "Putting it figuratively, guest workers are beating paths to Russia. We ought to pave those paths-and we come and block them, instead. We shall not gain anything but merely get broke if we go on that way," said Andrei Klimov, subcommittee head for regional policies and interregional contacts.
