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Putin highlights chaos on Russian food and clothes markets

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MOSCOW, October 5 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that chaos and lawlessness reigned at clothes and food markets in the country.

"What often happens in market places can well be described with one word: lawlessness," Putin said, tasking the government with bringing order to markets, which are said to be largely controlled by criminal groups.

Many traders in markets across Russia are from former Soviet republics in the Caucasus region and former Central Asian Soviet states, as well as China and Vietnam, and many are in the country illegally.

Putin touched on the problem while discussing a national program to support the agricultural sector and farmers.

The president said criminal groups control markets, whereas market administrations, agricultural producers and police play a secondary role there, adding that this has naturally outraged Russians.

"This is a key to the problems we have encountered recently," Putin said, referring to a series of violent attacks on dark-skinned people in Russia and the two latest race-hate cases in a Moscow market and a northern town.

An explosive device was detonated at the Cherkizovsky market in northeastern Moscow August 21, killing 11 people and injuring at least 49, mostly Asians.

And two Russians were killed in a restaurant brawl with Chechen immigrants in the northern town of Kondopoga in early September, sparking racial mob violence in the community and a wave of anti-immigration protests elsewhere in the country.

Putin also urged the government to toughen visa regulations for foreigners who break the law, and to introduce quotas on the foreign labor force by November 15.

"I instruct the government to make immediate decisions regulating trade at retail and wholesale markets," the president told the council in charge of national welfare projects.

The quotas will depend on the profession and qualification of foreign employees, their native countries and other economic and social criteria, and will aim to ensure national security and making the employment of Russian citizens a priority.

At the same time, Russia, which is facing an acute demographic crisis, has been mulling streamlining registration proceedings for guest workers and improving their conditions in the country - a popular destination for labor migrants from many struggling post-Soviet states.

The president's immigration demands came amid an acute crisis with Georgia, its former Soviet ally in the South Caucasus. Since a spying scandal involving Russian army officers in Georgia last week, Russia has suspended travel and postal links with the country, shut down at least three casinos in Moscow allegedly owned by the Georgian mafia, and arrested Georgian crime bosses.

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