Immigrants in Russia
俄罗斯外来移民

Market forces

市场的力量 （陈继龙 编译）

Russia's sensible and less sensible migration policies

俄罗斯移民政策，有的合理，有的则不尽然

“THEY are throwing us all out,” says Makhmoud from Tajikistan mournfully, as he stands in front of a row of dead dangling[1] piglets at Dorogomilovsky market in Moscow. Under new rules that came into force this week, only 40% of workers at Russia's retail markets are supposed to be foreign, and none should be by April 1st.

来自塔吉克斯坦的马赫默德站在莫斯科多罗戈米洛夫斯基（Dorogomilovsky）市场一排悬挂着的死猪崽前，伤心地说：“他们要撵走我们了。”本周生效的新法规规定，在俄罗斯市场上从事零售工作的外国商贩数量不应该超过40%，而从4月1日起外国商贩的数量将降低到零。

（1）Russia's markets offer useful insights into the erratic nature of the country's development. Though bits of Russia are booming, inequality is grotesquely wide, and even in glitzy[2] Moscow many Russians rely on cheap market stalls for their daily needs. Yet because many are staffed by immigrants—mostly from the ex-Soviet states of the Caucasus and Central Asia—they have also become a focus for Russia's increasingly visible ethnic nationalism. A deadly bomb at a Moscow market last August, and a riot soon afterwards in the northern Russian town of Kondopoga, where shops and markets were trashed, have been among the worst eruptions of this anger.

透过俄罗斯的市场，我们就能看出俄罗斯发展的不平衡性。虽然俄罗斯有些地方发展迅猛，可奇怪的是贫富差距却越拉越大，就算是在富丽堂皇的莫斯科，许多俄罗斯人也喜欢到廉价市场货摊上购买日常用品。但是由于市场充斥着许多外来移民（大部分来自高加索和中亚地区的前苏联国家），俄罗斯甚嚣尘上的民族主义者开始盯上了他们，为了发泄心中的愤怒而不断肇事，其中最严重的一次要算是去年八月莫斯科某市场发生的一次炸弹伤亡事件，另一次则是之后不久在俄罗斯北部城镇孔达波哥发生的暴乱，不少商店和集市被毁坏。

Vladimir Putin's response to Kondopoga vindicated those who think the Kremlin has been too accommodating towards extremism. （2）He denounced the “semi-gangs, some of them ethnic” that controlled Russia's markets, and called for regulation to protect “the native Russian population”. Hence the new rules, which are officially supposed to help Russian farmers get better prices for their produce. But since they affect only the market dogsbodies[3], rather than the middlemen, they actually seem designed to remove non-Slavic faces from the stalls.

弗拉基米尔•普金对孔达波哥事件的反应证明，克里姆林宫一直以来的确太过纵容极端主义了。他对那些控制俄罗斯市场，“黑帮性质的（其中有些是由少数族裔组成）”的组织予以了谴责，并呼吁采取管制措施保护“土生土长的俄罗斯人”，新法规遂得以出台。按照官方的设想，新法规将帮助俄罗斯农民，让他们的产品卖个好价钱，而事实上对于那些中间批发商而言，几乎没产生任何影响，受影响的不过是那些小商贩，所以新法规的出台看来只不过是为将非斯拉夫人赶走。

Still, if xenophobia is one influence on Russia's migration policy (and racist murders are running at roughly one a week), there is another contradictory pressure that the Kremlin cannot ignore. Beneath its petrorouble prosperity, Russia is not only angry, but dying: the population is shrinking by around 750,000 per year, a drop mostly driven by the catastrophic rate of death—by violence, heart disease, tuberculosis and, increasingly, AIDS—among working-age men.

此外，假如俄罗斯的移民政策还受到了仇外情绪（xenophobia）的影响（而且大约每周发生一次种族主义分子谋杀事件），那么克里姆林宫就面临着又一个不容忽视的压力并为之感到心情矛盾。在“石油卢布”繁荣的掩盖下，俄罗斯不单单是处境险恶，甚至还面临存亡威胁——由于受适龄工作人群高死亡率（暴力、心脏病、结核病以及日益猖獗的艾滋病所致）的影响，俄罗斯人口正在以每年75万的速度减少。

If the economy is to diversify beyond its natural-resources core, that is alarming. In response, President Putin has mostly talked about attracting more ethnic Russians back from the other ex-Soviet states, and of boosting the birth rate. （3）But some in the government evidently understand that these measures will not suffice—because this week, sensible new rules that will make it easier for foreigners to work legally in Russia everywhere but in markets were also introduced.

如果俄罗斯不以自然资源为本而欲谋求经济多样化发展，就不能不让人为之捏把汗了。对此，普金总统常常都说要吸引更多的俄罗斯族人从其它前苏联国家返回俄罗斯，还说要提高出生率，可有些政府内部人士显然很清楚这些措施是不够的——因为本周有关方面还出台了新法规，这些比较合理的法规将有助于外国人在俄罗斯除了市场以外的所有场所合法工作。

Up to 6m work permits are to be available this year for migrants from the poor ex-Soviet republics. That may be far fewer than the 8m-12m people that the federal migration service estimates are working in Russia illegally, but it amounts to far more than have been handed out before. Moreover, a simpler process should mean less official extortion.

今年，来自贫穷的前苏联共和国的移民将能获得多达600万个工作许可证。相比俄联邦移民局所估计的在俄罗斯非法从业的800~1200万人而言，这要少得多，但发证数量还是远远多于从前。而且，由于办理程序简化，官员敲诈勒索现象也应该有所减少。

As Elena Tyuryukanova, a migration expert, says, （4）the “right hand of government is liberalising the law, and the left hand is doing the opposite.”

正如移民专家伊莲娜•蒂乌尤卡诺娃所说，“政府的‘右手’放开了移民政策，‘左手’却反其道而行之。”

The left hand, however, may yet have to reconsider. This week, as foreign workers—in Siberia and the Far East, mostly Chinese—packed up their market pitches[4], the government was insisting that the markets stay open, and that prices must not rise.

这“左手”可能还得重新掂量一下。本周，当西伯利亚和远东地区的外国从业人员（大部分是中国人）纷纷收拾行囊准备打道回国的时候，俄罗斯政府坚决要求市场必须继续保持开放，价格不得上涨。

[NOTES](OXFORD)

1. dangle v. 1 (a) [I] hang or swing loosely 悬吊着或摆动不定: a bunch of keys dangling at the end of a chain 在链子一端悬吊着的一串钥匙. (b) [Tn] hold (sth) so that it swings loosely 拿着（某物）使其摆动: He dangled his watch in front of the baby. 他在婴儿面前摇晃着表.  2 (phr v) dangle sth before/in front of sb offer sth temptingly to sb 以某事物招引某人: The prospect of promotion was dangled before him. 晋升的希望在吸引着他.
2. glitzy adj. 堂皇的The film star's wedding was a glitzy affair. 那位影星的婚礼是堂皇的盛事.
3. dogsbody n. (Brit) person who does boring or unpleasant jobs for others 勤杂工.
4. pitch n. [C] (esp Brit) place where a street trader usu does business or a street entertainer usu performs （街头的）商贩摊位, 艺人表演场地.