Asian migrant workers were left without work at the beginning of the summer season: “Everyone is afraid”

Russians no longer hire workers from Central Asia for traditional work on the site for the opening of the summer season – they themselves complain about this. And we found out what summer residents are afraid of, from them themselves.

Before the May holidays, summer residents are always full of things to do. And this spring, due to early warming, summer residents in the middle zone are opening the season earlier, many even spend the night in their summer houses on weekends. SNT come to life, the traditional late-April “clean-up work” is in full swing in the plots to clear plots, open insulated dacha buildings for the winter and general cleaning. Work in the dacha plots is in full swing, but many migrant workers from Central Asia, usually involved in it, are out of work this time.

“I’ve been living with this SNT for the 4th year now,” Khabibullo, a 38-year-old labor migrant from Tajikistan, who lives and works in the near Moscow region, tells about himself. – Everyone knows me, I’m in good standing. In winter, when everyone is in the city, I guard the plots, I have my own house here, a guardhouse. Summer residents chip in to pay me for protection in winter. And in the spring I start working in sections, helping everyone who calls me. I take on everything – cleaning, repairs, laying the blind area. I can build a house too, I have a team, all hands of gold. But this year no one is calling. Even good friends for whom I worked every year.

– How do they explain it?

– I don’t feel comfortable asking. But our others also say that they won’t take us anymore, they are afraid because of the terrorist attack. And not only us, but also the Uzbeks and Kyrgyz. Everyone here from Asia is now sitting without money. I didn’t want to leave, I thought nothing would change at the dachas, everyone knows me, but it affected me too. I’ll collect enough money for a ticket and go home, and you sit down yourself.

Other workers from the ex-Soviet Central Asian republics, “specializing” in helping Russians in their country life, from cleaning houses and planting gardens to construction and laying communications, agree with Khabibullo: many have no seasonal work at all, others have significantly less than a year ago.

“Of our people, only those in rich houses with accommodation remained at work,” says Ainura from Uzbekistan. – And then mostly women. For example, my distant relative was left alone by her Russian owner, and her husband sent her home. They worked in his house as a live-in married couple, she at cleaning and cooking, her husband at the site. And after “Crocus” the owner said that he would leave Muhabbatka because his children had become attached to her, and let Hamza, her husband, fly home. However, I bought the ticket myself. But he issued all the work permits for Muhabbate, as expected, and did not spare any money. Now she can at least go shopping calmly and not be afraid of raids on migrants, as before.

– So what, your relative’s husband left her alone?!

– Well, what to do, they have old children and parents, they all need to be fed, and the owner promised Muhabbatka a double salary if she could work for her husband too.

Let’s go to Russian summer residents to see how they manage their own households without the usual migrant hands?

“As my husband died, I’m alone at the dacha, my children don’t need this “picking,” as they call work in the garden,” shares Inna Ilyinichna, a 67-year-old dacha resident near Moscow. – Actually, they wanted to sell it, but I didn’t let it, my late husband and I put so much soul into our dacha, I’m only here in the summer. But I have to hire help to do the housework, I usually call Tajiks, they live here right in SNT, everyone knows them. But this time I’m poking around without them. Hard.

– Why without them? Are you afraid?

– Why should I be afraid, there’s nothing to steal from me, and I know them all. But we held a meeting here that whoever hires a migrant with incorrect documents will pay the fine for him. And in all this I don’t understand what’s right and what’s wrong, so I don’t take risks. And everyone is afraid. But everyone feels sorry for the Tajiks. And them, and themselves, who were left without their hands.

– Can’t the summer residents cope on their own?

– Not really. We still have this old type of SNT, young people don’t want to come here, children almost don’t help anyone. My neighbors, a husband and wife, tried to hire Russian men; they had to remove the soil from the site, construction waste, and they couldn’t clear it without help. But our unskilled workers went on a drinking binge after the first money in their hands.

Some summer residents complain that the “surviving” Central Asian migrants (the survivors of Russian work are mainly those whose work documents are in perfect order, which is not cheap) “charge unprecedented prices” for their services. A Tajik announced 15 thousand rubles to one granny for “manual excavation work” (uprooting stumps, roots, etc. on the site for planting). for 6 acres. And a Russian citizen who is just being built was billed 150 thousand rubles by a team of guest workers for digging trenches to lay communications under his house. Although this was not in a luxury village, but in an ordinary holiday village. So Russian summer residents do have a fear of Asian migrant workers, but there is nothing national about it: it is the fear of going broke on the simplest “manual excavation work” and on other people’s fines.