Druzhba Narodovor second-class citizenship? Soviet Asian migrants in a post-colonial world

World War II Rhetoric in the Context of Kyrgyzstani Labor Migration: Nation‐Building and Emotional Investment in Kyrgyzstan

“…Jeff Sahadeo argues that even during the Soviet era, Central Asian migrants were ethnically discriminated against by the "white" Russian population who manifested dominant attitudes towards migrants from "southern" regions. 19 Despite the fact that Soviet ideology considered all nations as equal, and the conception of "race" was prohibited in all territories of the Soviet Union, this did not prevent people from engaging in ethnic discrimination.…”

Legality, Racialization, and Immigrants’ Experience of Ethnoracial Harassment in Russia

“…As Panarin (2003) observed, a subjective sense of common geographical space and historical destiny is still widespread among residents of the countries that emerged from the rubble of the USSR. Cemented by the earlier mobility of ethnic Russians and other European-origin groups throughout the Russian and Soviet empires and the spread of the Russian language and Russian-Soviet culture, this sense of symbolic unity, however imperfect and unequal its actual functioning might have been historically (see Sahadeo 2007), plays an important role in shaping Central Asians’ motivation for migration and in the expectations that migrants have when they arrive in Russia.…”

“… 10 Popular stereotypes of Central Asians’ racial, cultural, and intellectual inferiority were not uncommon during the Soviet period (e.g., Sahadeo 2007). However, the spread of such negative stereotypes, not to mention their overt public expression, was contained by the Communist state ideology of “peoples’ friendship.”…”

‘Only by learning how to live together differently can we live together at all’: readability and legibility of Central Asian migrants’ presence in urban Russia

“…Yet, the general tendency in these reports is to promote the idea of a shared culture, which is expected to unite people of different ethnic groups. In many ways, this idea is reminiscent of the Soviet idea of druzhba narodov (Friendship of Peoples), where one supranational identity overarches ethnic differences (Sahadeo 2007). However, as Sahadeo shows, during Soviet times, in spite of people's friendship, Central Asian workers in Moscow and Leningrad were perceived as chernye (blacks) and faced discrimination.…”