As ruble weakens, Central Asian migrants head back home

Almost half of St Petersburg’s migrant workers who do the city’s manual labour have returned home in a mass exodus that is leaving streets uncleared and cabs empty. Migrants from the ex-Soviet states in Central Asia used to flock to Russia to work as street sweepers, gypsy cab drivers or restaurant cleaners. Even the low wages seemed better than conditions back home. But the Russian economy is now choked by crippling Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis and plunging oil prices. That has caused the ruble to lose half its value against the dollar, hitting migrants’ paychecks hard.

Almost 30 percent of the workers who left to spend New Year’s as usual with their families in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan have not come back.

Head of a street cleaning company, who asked not to be named.

Galloping inflation in Russia is also eating into how much Central Asian workers can send home, and once the weaker rubles are converted into local currency their remittances are now worth much less. Almost three million people from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan live legally in Russia, while many more are there below the radar of the authorities. They are mostly unskilled workers who are paid off the books. The money they send to their families back home accounts for up to half their countries’ gross domestic product.

I can’t remember such a hard time. But I don’t plan to leave. It’s worse back home.

Mukhabbad Asseyeva, 50, a migrant worker who is a cleaner in a cafe

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