February 12, 2020

Moscow's calling: "Soul hunters" for Russia's émigrés

topic:	Migration
located:	Russia
editor:	Igor Serebryany

On Monday, Russia launched a global campaign aimed at the repatriation of its citizens from abroad. For that purpose, the Foreign and Interior ministries set up special units, which will be combing the foreign cities in search of Russian-speakers, the government's Parlamentskaya Gazeta daily reported. 

The task of the "special units" will be to "inform the prospective repatriates on the benefits guaranteed for them by the government", the newspaper said.

Head of the projects in the "Sputnik" multimedia portal (Kremlin's voice for the international outreach) Olga Kosheleva declined to answer questions on why the Kremlin might need to hunt for the would-be settlers using a face-to-face approach, while Moscow runs one of the world's largest propaganda machines. 

"I don't understand why you may want to ask such questions," she said before hanging up. Contacted via WhatsApp in Jackson, MS, Natalia Trachenko told FairPlanet that she has been "mentally ready" to come back to Russia for twenty years, "but this is an emotional attachment rather than a rational decision", said the 50-year-old graduate of the Moscow State University.

Still, there are good chances that even people like Natalia could be allured back to Russia, emigration expert Arkady Beinenson believes.

"My personal experience of working with the Russian diaspora proves that many people have been refraining from repatriation due to a lack of information. No TV programs or websites can compete with the face-to-face sessions with the professional 'soul hunters'," he says.

Beinenson adds that the immediate task of the "information units" is a sort of "mental therapy" for the people who failed to find their place in the foreign society: "These units will explain their vis-a-vis that coming back is not a defeat. On the opposite, those people would return having a priceless experience which would be instrumental for their re-entry to Russia".

"I've been in the business for a long time, so I know it first-hand that those people shouldn't be reasoned into repatriation. Many of them are eager to return but don't know what their first step must be. Not everyone in such a huge country, such as, say Canada, are able to visit Russian consulates in person to obtain the information necessary. So the information units will visit them in their backwaters", he says.

The target audience of the "information units" has been unclear, head of the Moscow office of the Urus Advisory legal firm (U.K.) Alexei Panin disagrees. 

"Have a look at how many Russians obtain so-called golden visas in exchange for certain investments. Russians are a majority among the bearers of the 'protection passports'. Any Russian entrepreneur invests in the golden visas for himself and his family as soon as he earns the sum required", Panin says.

Meanwhile, the UN ranks Russia as having the third largest number of people living outside its borders after India and Mexico. Still, the actual number must be much bigger as the majority of those leaving Russia have never registered themselves in the Russian diplomatic missions, nor did they inform the Russian Interior ministry about their move.

Image:  Pexels / Pixabay