(Read full article on ozodi.org)

Since February 24, when Russia attacked Ukraine, Russian citizenship has ceased to be a dream of Tajik labor migrants. This is stated both by the workers themselves from the Central Asian countries who are in Russia or want to go there, and by Tajik political scientists. Before the war, the situation was exactly the opposite. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, among the countries whose citizens most often received Russian passports, Tajikistan was in second place – after Ukraine: only in the past, 2021, more than 103,000 Tajiks received a Russian passport. And over the past five years, about 300,000 natives of Tajikistan have acquired Russian citizenship.

The vast majority of Tajiks needed Russian citizenship to solve bureaucratic issues and not pay for paperwork to work in Russia. Many Tajiks were in no hurry to move to a permanent place of residence in Russia, and even more so to take their families to Russia.

We asked Dushanbe residents if they had a Russian passport or if they wanted to get one, and why they needed one. And this is what they answered: