When I started to shoot this story I saw the following scene: two women arguing about a dog belonging to one of them that was swimming with children in a river one hot July day. In the same place migrants from Tajikistan were swimming, they were about half of the bathers present. The women were shouting and arguing for a long time about the hygiene of the dog. Bystanders became involved and eventually sided with the dog owner, arguing that it was permissible since there were already several “darkies” swimming in the same place, so the water could hardly be considered clean. The darkies, deeply tanned only on their necks and forearms, listened silently and continued swimming and didn’t pay any attention to what was happening. Everybody is used to it, but I felt deeply ashamed.
That’s what I wanted to photograph, but it seemed impossible. The unpleasantness of locals to the immigrants is an intangible, a mentality ingrained as part of the status quo, easy to seem unremarkable and by its nature unnoticed. However there are so many aspects to this relationship that reflect a multitude of issues confronting Russia at the beginning of the 21st century.
Those who work with migrants think there is somewhere between 2 and 3 million central Asians working in and around Moscow. The Russian authorities put the figure at just under a million. The discrepancy in figures may be a problem of paperwork; most citizens of the former CIS don’t need a visa to come to the Russian capital. They do need a work permit, but these can be obtained by one means or another and so become currency on the shady side of Russia’s balance sheet. Working without the correct paperwork can be expensive in bribes. Being uncountable is both profitable and helps to conceal the scale involved. A huge hole in the demographic curve of Russia, a result of the shock tactics of conversion to a free market in the 1990’s, means there is a shortage of young adults coming into the working age bracket. Russia’s hydrocarbon driven economy needs diversification, but the labor resources for development projects is lacking. The migrants come, to fill the gap.
The majority of migrants I talked with want to, at some point, leave Russia and in general only see Russia as a way to make money. There is a regular flow at the train stations for the three day ride to central Asia, those who have made enough, or had enough, passing the new replacements arriving. Belongings are loaded onto the passenger seats, the herds of checkered bags offering little safety from border guards who prey on the returnees, knowing they will have to pass through, their documents doubtfully in order.
Aside from the general background level hostility from the man in the street, there is a worrying growth in nationalist extremism. 2010’s riot in central Moscow brought unexpected focus to these racial tensions. Race related homicide is not uncommon. The central Asians make easy targets due to their appearance and Muslim faith. Islamic separatists from the Caucasus have given an obvious argument to those wishing to single out Muslims, in this country of renewed Orthodox faith, remembered and encouraged since the atheist Soviet era. Maintaining an out-group is politically expedient in times of crisis or election, but it requires a fine balance to keep it in check given the necessity of this labor source.
Religious differences make more personal tragedies for those from countries with conservative values untenable in Moscow. Maintaining a traditional central Asian family structure is difficult for the constantly moving migrants. For the many women migrants a child born in Moscow can mean the end of employment. To return home risks being an outcast since the children are often born out of wedlock, unforgivable in local custom, so abandonment is frequent. I visited a hospice for single migrant mothers, in a partially finished commercial building on the outskirts of the capital. Even in this rare outpost of charity there is resentment – the well-educated doctors of the clinic asked me “why should we look after them, teach them and their children, when we often refuse other residents of the same suburb.”
Keeping this source of labor flowing over the coming years is imperative for Russia, but for the present authorities it is not convenient to address, or convenient to not address the problem of rights. Despite the problems the trains keep on arriving, filled with “them”.

The story on Reuters photographers blog
My special thanks for idea, help and support to our editor and photographer Will Webster