Immigration to Russia

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Immigration to Russia involves foreign citizens (or people without any citizenship) seeking permanent residence in the territory of the Russian Federation. Historically, Russian empire was one of the World's leading destination for immigrants starting with the reign of Peter I in ca. 1700, and especially after the ascension of Catherine II to the Russian throne in 1762, until the October Revolution in 1917. Some regions, such as Novorossiya, Slavo-Serbia, Volga Germans' territory and Bessarabia were specifically designated for resettlement of immigrants.

Immigration to Russia was relatively low during the Soviet period (1922–1991) and during early post-Soviet years (1992- 2005). In fact, Russia experienced a considerable population decline during the latter period due to a decreased birthrate, lowered life expectancy and growing emigration. To combat these demographic problems, the Russian government adopted in 2006 "Program for the return of compatriots to Russia", which was made into a permament law in 2012.^[1] According to the law, "compatriots" are individuals, who are direct descendants (in either mother's or father's line) of people, who lived in the past within the current territory of Russia.^[2] In February 2024, in order to expedite and to simplify the immigration process the requirement for conversational ability in Russian was waived.^[3]

Due to these policy changes Russia has experienced an overall population increase starting in 2012.^[4][5] According to Rosstat^[6] and United Nations,^[7] the number of legal immigrants in Russia during the 2000-2015 period fluctuated between 11 and 12 mln., or ca. 8% of Russia's population. In 2020 Russia held the 4th place among countries with the largest absolute numbers of immigrants in their population after the USA, Germany and Saudi Arabia.^[8] At the same time, Russia also scored high (3rd place wordwide) among countries with a high number of emigrants, after India and Mexico.^[9]

The majority of recent immigrants to Russia come from the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.^[10] Although the Russian government actively encourages emigration of ethnic Russians, most immigrants from the former Soviet republics in recent years were not ethnic Russians.^[11]

Another notable statistics is an increased number of immigrants from Ukraine since 2014:^[12] by 2018 this number exceeded 1 mln. people.^[13] In April 2023, i.e. one year after Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia hosted 5.5 mln. refugees from Ukraine, which is more than all European countries together.^[14]

Both legal (according to the laws of the country) and illegal (in violation of Russian laws) immigration are widespread currently. Legal immigrants in Russia receive both grant money and repayable low-interest loans, that are issued by Rossotrudnichestvo.