Russia

“Migration in the Russian Federation: A Country Profile 2008” is part of a series of migration profiles produced by IOM Budapest within the “Black Sea Consultative Process on Migration Management” project, funded from IOM’s 1035 Facility. The profile reveals that after the end of the Soviet Union, the first half of the 1990s was characterized by the so-called forced migration or forced resettlement towards the Russian Federation, basically from countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Baltic States, the sharp reduction of emigration streams to these states, and the booming emigration to “far abroad” or outside of the former Soviet Union. However, during the second half of the 1990s more and more migrants started to move into Russia for social and economic reasons. Russia is a transit and residence area for large numbers of irregular migrants but in recent years, Russian authorities have launched numerous proactive migration policy initiatives, in their attempts to increase the recruitment of highly skilled professionals from abroad, as well as to encourage Russian expatriates to return and to diminish irregular migration.