Timur Bulgakov has a black belt in karate, two university degrees, a
powerful SUV and a small yet thriving construction company. The
28-year-old's success is impressive for a Muslim migrant from Uzbekistan
whose first job in Moscow 10 years ago was as a delivery boy. But his story is no longer that unusual. The
old Moscow, populated largely by Slavs, is rapidly giving way to a
multi-ethnic city where Muslims from Central Asia are the fastest
growing sector of the population. And they are changing the face of
Moscow as their numbers rise and they move up the career ladder, taking
on more visible roles in society. Muslim women wearing hijabs are a
growing sight on the capital's shopping streets.
Bearded men sport
Muslim skullcaps and hang trinkets with Koranic verses in their cars.
Many more are non-practicing Muslims who blend in with secular attire,
although their darker skin, accented speech and foreign customs often
provoke frowns from native Muscovites. Meanwhile, their children — some
born and raised in the capital — throng kindergartens and schools. Russia's
Federal Migration Service estimates that about 9.1 million foreigners
arrived in Russia to work in 2011.
More than a third came from three
impoverished Central Asian countries that were once part of the Soviet
Union: About 2 million from Uzbekistan, 1 million from Tajikistan and
more than 500,000 from Kyrgyzstan. Local experts say the number of
Central Asian arrivals is at least twice as high. And hundreds of
thousands of Central Asians have already acquired Russian passports and
are off the migration services' radar. The Central Asian migration
has been the driving force in boosting Russia's Muslim population to
more than 20 million, from some 14 million 10 years ago — a phenomenon
experts call one of the most radical demographic makeovers Russia has
ever seen.
"Today, we're standing on the verge of a powerful
demographic explosion, a great migration period equal to the one that
took place in the first centuries A.D.," said Vyacheslav Mikhailov, a
former minister for ethnic issues and a presidential adviser on ethnic
policies. Muslims are expected to account for 19 percent of
Russia's population by 2030, up from 14 percent of the current
population of 142 million, according to the U.S. government's National
Intelligence Council report on global trends published this month. "Russia's
greatest demographic challenge could well be integrating its rapidly
growing ethnic Muslim population in the face of a shrinking ethnic
Russian population," the report said.
The changing ethnic mix "already
appears to be a source of growing social tensions." By the most conservative estimates, 2 million Muslims now live in Moscow, a city of nearly 12 million. Polls
show that nearly half of Russians dislike migrants from Central Asia
and Russia's Caucasus — another source of Muslim migration. They have
become the bogeymen of Russian nationalists, accused of stealing jobs,
forming ethnic gangs and disrespecting Russian customs. "If you
build a mosque in downtown Moscow, slaughter sheep on your holiday and
impose your traditions on us, no one will want you as a neighbor," said
Dmitry Demushkin, a veteran Russian neo-Nazi skinhead who heads a
nationalist party.
Central Asian labor migrants for years have
filled the lowest paying jobs, working as janitors, street cleaners,
construction workers, vendors at outdoor markets and unlicensed cab
drivers whose run-down cars are popularly known as "jihad taxis." Many
live in trailers on construction sites, in squalid basements and
overcrowded flophouses or sleep inside their cars. The uncertain legal
status of many of the migrant workers has left them vulnerable to abuse
and exploitation from employers. They also have fallen victim to
xenophobic attacks. But in recent years, they are increasingly
becoming more established members of the work force.
And a significant
minority, like Bulgakov, now run their own successful businesses. The
undisputed star among Russia's Central Asian business figures is ethnic
Uzbek Alisher Usmanov: His interests in mining, telecoms and Internet
startups have made him one of Russia's richest men, with a fortune
estimated at $18.1 billion, and he is the co-owner of British soccer
club Arsenal. Filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, who was born in
Kazakhstan and educated in Uzbekistan, has directed some of Russia's
most top grossing movies. Recently he moved to Hollywood, directing this
year's "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" and before that "Wanted," a
2008 action flick with Angelina Jolie.
Uzbek native Mirzakarim
Norbekov has penned half a dozen bestsellers based on the medical
teachings of Muslim medieval scholar Avicenna, who was born in what is
now Uzbekistan. His medical training center in Moscow charges hundreds
of dollars for short healing courses. And while the Central Asian
influx has caused frictions, there are also abundant signs of non-Muslim
Muscovites embracing things seen as quintessentially Central Asian.
Uzbek restaurants, fast-food joints and clay-oven bakeries that churn
out round flat-cakes and meat pies have become ubiquitous; fashionistas
sport oriental silk scarves and pashminas that resemble hijabs; and many
ethnic Russian housewives buy halal meat believing it to be healthy and
devoid of chemical preservatives.
The trend may have deep roots
in Russian history: Unlike most West European capitals, Moscow has
absorbed Muslims into its population for centuries. The
principality of Moscow emerged as a regional power some 700 years ago,
when the Golden Horde, a state dominated by Mongols and Muslim Tatars,
controlled parts of what is now southern Russia, the Caucasus and
Central Asia. As Moscow took over the Horde's territories and invaded
lands that once had been conquered by Arabs, Persians and Turks, Muslim
nobles became part of the Russian elite and Muslims were free to
practice their faith under the czars.
Novelist Vladimir Nabokov
proudly wrote that his aristocratic family descended from Nabak, an
illegitimate son of Genghis Khan. Composer Sergei Rachmaninoff and
writer Mikhail Bulgakov were the offspring of Tatar nobles. "Muslims
are not newcomers here, and all the current problems are temporary,"
said Vladilen Bokov, a devout Muslim and member of the Public Chamber,
which advises the Kremlin on social issues. The Central Asians are
far from a homogeneous group: Kyrgyz are proud of their militant
nomadic heritage, while Uzbeks and Tajiks extol their cultures that
produced poets and scholars who contributed to medieval Muslim
civilization.
Czarist armies finished the conquest of Central Asia
by early 20th century and Stalinist purges decimated their elites. The
Soviet era reshaped their economies and agriculture and made
"Russification" a key to success for several generations of their best
and brightest. In the 1980s, Central Asian conscripts became a majority
in the Soviet Army as birth rates among ethnic Russians plummeted. Communist
Moscow tried to win sympathies of Central Asians — and uproot their
Muslim traditions — by building schools and universities.
Their
graduates are still qualified to work as bank clerks, computer
engineers, artists and medical doctors in Russia. Employers often praise
them for their hard work, career ambitions and indifference to alcohol —
Russia's proverbial scourge. The 1991 Soviet collapse was
followed in their overpopulated republics by ineffective economic
reforms, political unrest a resurgence of Islamic traditions and a
gradual loss of Soviet mentality. But the number of Russian speakers
remains high. They visit Russia visa-free and can stay here for up to
three months, or longer if they get work or residence permits.
Construction company owner Bulgakov has faced his share of hardships. Square-jawed
and burly, he recalled over a cup of steaming tea how he stole some
undercooked buckwheat from a dormitory kitchen several days after losing
a job. He lost another job after beating up his supervisor for calling
him a "churka," a pejorative term for Central Asians. Bulgakov said that
during a hospital visit he heard a doctor reproaching his ethnic
Russian wife for failing to "find a decent Russian man." After several years of selling construction paint, Bulgakov started his own company.
Now
his company renovates apartments of affluent Muscovites and works on
occasional contracts with the Defense Ministry. He also has joined
Kremlin's United Russia party and wants to run for office in the Moscow
suburb of Ivanteevka where he lives with his wife and two children. Bulgakov,
who sports a white-gold ring with a sparkling diamond, has this advice
for fellow Central Asians seeking a better life in Moscow. "If you
want to work, just work," he said, "If you don't, you'll find a
thousand excuses — 'I am being oppressed, abused, beaten.'"
source : the jakarta post
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