Moscow Diary: Unwanted workers

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Russia's economic boom attracted thousands of workers from former Soviet republics. But as the global economic downturn bites deeper, those same migrant workers are bearing the brunt of it, the BBC's James Rodgers discovers.

His diary is published fortnightly.

CHANGING SEATS

It is the only reason for empty seats in the Moscow metro at rush hour - a homeless person or two has fallen asleep on one of the benches.

The smell of their unwashed bodies has driven their fellow passengers to the other end of the carriage. Scented secretaries cover their noses with their scarves.Some passengers on the Moscow metro are more welcome than others

The sleeping faces of the two men I saw that evening looked like they came from Central Asia, just some of the thousands who have made their way to Moscow from impoverished former Soviet republics.

As Russia gobbled up the benefits of its recent boom, these people gathered up the crumbs which fell to the floor: jobs. They may have been low-paid, difficult, dirty, and sometimes dangerous jobs, but jobs they were.

I have visited some of the places where they live - shacks and makeshift houses on the edge of the city that are cold in winter, hot in summer and fire hazards for all seasons.

However harsh the conditions, they could usually find work of one sort or another. They cleaned the streets of the Russian capital.

They toiled to build the new flats and offices which towered above.

Like millions of others - and not just in Russia, of course - these migrant workers are now much worse off. Even their previously unwanted jobs are scarcer.

CHANGING TIMES

Walking around Moscow I get the feeling that I am seeing the end of an era.

A huge historical upheaval? No. There may be street protests in the months to come, but no revolution.Russians have been anxiously watching the rouble's decline again

It is more subtle than that. Moscow's traffic jams are thinning. It feels like there are fewer people commuting to the capital. Shops are closing and being sold, although - like the hard times - that is not unique to Russia.

It is the Putin era which is ending.

I do not mean that Mr Putin's political career is over, or his influence spent. I mean that the good times which Russia came to associate with his name are finished, for now at least, and will never return in quite the same way.

The change is affecting many elements of the Russia which he led - the businesses which boomed on rising oil prices, the retailers who couldn't sell designer clothes and digital devices fast enough, the migrant workers who came to look for work.

The cracks are not confined to the economy. Political alliances may be starting to feel the strain.

"We are working very slowly, unacceptably slowly for a crisis," President Dmitry Medvedev says of the Russian government. That government is headed by Mr Putin.

The Russian financial crisis of 1998 created the ruins from which Putin's Russia rose.

2008-2009 could come to be seen as just such a starting point for what is to follow.

GREENHOUSES, BLACK PALMS, RED-HANDED?

Thanks to those people who commented on my account of being detained in Northern Russia.

My intentions in writing about it were to try to give a fuller picture of what it can be like to work as a journalist in Russia, and to start a discussion.

Those people who posted comments about what would I expect if I were caught wandering around an RAF base or around Norfolk, Virginia, seem to have misunderstood what I was trying to say.

My point was that I was nowhere near any military installations. I was well outside the built-up area of the town where they are based even if, as I discovered, within its administrative boundary.

Do you think I would have been released after three hours if the investigators doubted the truth of my story?

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