Astana, Russians in their sister-land

According to data from the Ministry of Migration, 7,000 a day arrive in Kazakhstan to escape the war. For almost all of them it is a transitory passage. The story of those who, like the young historian Ivan Sokolovsky, try to integrate into Kazakh society.

Astana (AsiaNews) - Kazakhstan continues to be one of the destinations of choice for Russians who have no intention of going to fight in Ukraine, and who risk being persecuted for their anti-war positions.

For most of them, fleeing from mobilisation, Central Asia is mostly a stepping stone to countries in Europe, America, or where family members are. But there are also those who try to integrate, like the young Russian historian Ivan Sokolovsky, interviewed by Currentime.tv.

Ivan is a native Muscovite, a graduate of the Institute of Asian and African Studies, and his specialisation is the history of Kazakhstan. He had studied Kazakh during university, researching the subject of deportations of Poles, on which he then wrote his thesis.

The examination committee, however, considered his dissertation to be an expression of 'Russophobia', and when Putin announced the invasion of Ukraine, Ivan stood in solitary protest picket in front of the Foreign Ministry building at the beginning of Moscow's central Arbat Street. As a result he was arrested, then fined, and several times the police went to his flat to check on him.

He claimed to be 'opposed to colonial war, and to the Kremlin's colonial policy, under which everyone suffers, both those in the invaded territories and the population of the Russian Federation, even Russian capitalists'. Ivan quickly realised that he could not stay in his homeland, and moved to Almaty, where he works as a graphic designer at a Kazakh-speaking media agency, with a temporary residence permit. At the same time, he is preparing a thesis and trying to enrol at the University of Kazakhstan.

Sokolovsky explains that as a historian, he is very attracted to the chronicles of persecution in northern Kazakhstan, which Russian propaganda tries to sell as oppression against Russians living there.

In his opinion, this is a mystification, which the Kremlin tries to pass off to support its colonial and imperial idea: 'In northern Kazakhstan, people have always lived on herding and nomadism, no one has ever asked to build anything and settle somewhere, and the towns that exist in this area are precisely the result of a colonial project to control the territory,' the young historian explains. 'It was not a gesture of benevolence by the Romanovs or the Soviets, or anyone else'.

According to data from the Migration Commission of the Kazakh Ministry of Labour and Social Defence, about 7,000 Russians arrive in Kazakhstan every day, and almost all of them leave within a few days.

After two strong waves of immigration - one immediately after the invasion of Ukraine, and one after the announcement of the autumn mobilisation - the situation has relatively stabilised, and not even the 'electronic mobilisation' of the past few days has significantly increased the entry of Russians into Central Asia.

The Kazakh authorities do not expect any further large waves of emigrants from the neighbouring country, not least because of the changes to the legislation regulating residency rules in Kazakhstan: the abolition of visa-run, the extension of legal stay in the country depending on the time of transfer between neighbouring territories, and the consequent tightening of border-run, the forced repatriation of a citizen without valid reasons for residence.

One of the problems of Russian immigrants in Kazakhstan and the other countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus, apart from economic and political factors, concerns precisely the ability to integrate and not create disruption to social harmony.

This is what Sokolovsky, who is undoubtedly an exception in terms of his specific skills, is trying to do, but in part also a desire shared by many Russians: to live in peace in the sister-country, without appearing to be an intruder or a conqueror.

• Kazakhstan
• Russia
• war
• Putin
• migration