Abstract
This chapter summarizes the issues of emigration from the countries that formed the Commonwealth of Independent States immediately after the breakup of the USSR some 25 years ago, to non-CIS countries. It is based on various statistical sources from host countries and migration databases of international organizations (Eurostat, OECD, UN Population Division, UNESCO, UNHCR). The scale of emigration from the former Soviet republics was massive. There were two emigration periods, each having its own geography, intensity, and reasons. The emigration outflow was strongest in the 1990s. Its size and geography were largely determined by the repatriation movement of Germans, Jews, Greeks, and economic and political consequences of the breakup of the USSR. In the 2000s, the geography of emigration from the CIS expanded and become in-line with global mobility trends. As a result, new migrant communities emerged in many countries. Permanent residents from post-Soviet countries are especially numerous in Germany, Israel, the USA, and Italy.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
Buying options




Notes
- 1.
Georgia joined the CIS in 1993 but withdrew its membership in 2008. Ukraine ended its participation in the CIS statutory body in 2018. In this chapter, we consider all 12 former Soviet republics which initially formed the CIS. In this context, the New Independent States are a synonym of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
- 2.
Emigration from the Baltic countries is not considered here. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have never been a part of the CIS, and in 2004 they joined the European Union and the Schengen Agreement. Emigration from these countries was formed in economic and political conditions different from the CIS countries.
- 3.
In the Russian language literature, the countries of the “near abroad” include the former Soviet republics; all other countries are referred to as the “far abroad” countries. After their accession to the EU, the Baltic countries were often referred to as the “far abroad” countries.
- 4.
We are speaking about permanent migration, i.e., when people move from one country to another to change their permanent place of residence. In the case of countries of origin, we are talking about emigrants and emigration, and in the case of destination countries we are talking about immigrants and immigration.
- 5.
The study used electronically available data from statistical offices of all the mentioned countries. They are numerous, so we do not specify them in detail. Other sources used in the study are noted in the text.
- 6.
In the pre-Gorbachev era, the practice of denying exit permission to those who applied for emigration was very common. Such people were called “denied persons.” In the late 1980s the number of denied persons was insignificant. In 1990, 870 USSR citizens were denied travel abroad due to false information about themselves or for security reasons.
- 7.
Komsomol—the Young Communist League.
- 8.
Evangelical Christians, and members of the Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches.
- 9.
Parole allows an individual, who may be inadmissible or otherwise ineligible for admission into the USA, to be paroled into the USA for a temporary period. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allows the secretary of Homeland Security to use their discretion to parole any foreign national applying for admission into the USA temporarily for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.
- 10.
Excluding Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
- 11.
Available fragmentary information from the reports of real estate agencies indicate that the richest part of the Russian society and, obviously, other CIS countries preferred to buy property in the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and France. A few years ago, Russians accounted for 20% of all purchases in the real estate market in London and Paris, with an average value of 5.5 million dollars Algarve Daily News 2014. Fifty-eight percent of ultrarich people in Russia have second/dual citizenship (Knight Frank 2018). The Russian middle class also began to buy real estate, but gave preference to other countries, such as Bulgaria, Spain, Greece, and Montenegro (Faley 2017). Most transactions were concentrated in the range from 100 to 200 thousand euros.
- 12.
This assumption is for purposes of comparison with the USA data from Table 6.
- 13.
These figures do not include the data for Ukraine. As you can see below, labor migration from Ukraine to Poland has dramatically grown recently.
- 14.
We allocated those people who indicated their country of origin as “the former USSR” to different CIS countries in proportion of each country’s contribution to the total out-migration.
- 15.
Ultrashort employment-related trips for a period of less than 3 months, as already noted, are not subjects of our study, since they are not related to migration according to the United Nations (1998).
- 16.
But even more of them came for a period of less than 3 months. Thus, according to Ukrainian statistics, the majority of Ukrainian migrants work abroad (including Russia) from 1 to 3 months (Ukrstat 2017).
- 17.
We are talking about visas H1A, H1B, H1C, H2A, H2B, H3, L1, O1, O2, P1, P2, P3, Q. Family members of holders of these visa categories are not included in the estimates.
- 18.
The estimates in the table and the total estimate by countries differ from the respective estimates of the United Nations Population Division for 2017 (United Nations 2018). The reason for the differences is that we used the national estimates for 2017. In addition, we have taken into account the migrants from the “Former Soviet Union” who are not identified as a separate group of migrants in the database of the Population Division.
- 19.
For purposes of this section, we used the Database on Immigrants in OECD Countries (DIOC), which contains information on demographic characteristics (age and gender), duration of stay, labor market outcomes (labor market status, occupations, sectors of activity), fields of study, educational attainment, and the place of birth for the population censuses of rounds 2000/2001, 2005/2006 and 2010/2011 (OECD 2019).
- 20.
Gender balance is observed only with children. In older ages, women prevail due to higher mortality rates in men and due to prevalence of mothers among the parents who migrated with their children.
References
Algarve Daily News. (2014). Russian property investment in Europe – The facts. Accessed December 11, 2018, from https://algarvedailynews.com/property-news/1944-russian-property-investment-in-europe-the-facts
Aron, L. (1991, August). The Russians are coming. Policy Review, 58, 44–49.
BAMF, Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge. (2005). Migration Asyl und integration in Zahlen. Bonn: Das Druckhaus Bernd Brümmer.
Bilsborrow, R., Hugo, G., Obérai, A., & Zlotnik, H. (1997). International migration statistics: Guidelines for improving data collection systems. Geneva: International Labor office.
Bolashak. (2018). Center for international programs. https://www.bolashak.gov.kz/en/
Borjas, G., & Doran, K. (2012). The collapse of the Soviet Union and the productivity of American mathematicians. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 127(3), 1143–1203.
BVA, Bundesverwaltungsamt. (2008–2018). Spätaussiedler: Jahresstatistik. Accessed March 15, 2019, from https://www.bva.bund.de/DE/Services/Buerger/Migration-Integration/Spaetaussiedler/Statistik/Jahresstatistiken/Jahrestatistik_Liste.html
Byford, A. (2009). The last Soviet Generation’ in Britain. In J. Fernandez (Ed.), Diasporas: Critical and inter-disciplinary perspectives (pp. 53–64). Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press.
Council of Ministers of the USSR. (1989). Postanovlenie ot 16 avgusta 1989, No 661 “O sovershenstvovanii poriadka vyezda za granitsy po sluzhebnym delam” [Resolution of August 16, 1989 No 661 “On improvement of the order of departure abroad on official Affairs”]. http://www.libussr.ru/doc_ussr/usr_15835.htm
De Tinguy, A. (2004). La grande migration. In La Russie et les Russes depuis l’ouverture du Rideau de Fer. Paris: PLON.
Demoscope-Weekly. (2019). Vsesoyuznaya perepis naseleniya 1989 [All-Union population census 1989]. Accessed May 2, 2019, from http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/census.php?cy=6
Denisenko, M. B. (2003). Emigratsiya iz Rossii po dannym zarubezhnoi statistiki [Emigration from Russia according to foreign statistics]. Mir Rossii [Universe of Russia], 3, 157–169.
Dezhina, I. (2014). The brain drain – What is it really about? In Russia 2014. Insights of the French-Russian observatory (pp. 197–199). Paris: Le cherche midi.
DHS, United States Department of Home Security. (1996–2017). Yearbook of immigration statistics (various years). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics. https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook.
Diamanti-Karanou, P. (2003). Migration of ethnic Greeks from the Former Soviet Union to Greece, 1990–2000: Policy decisions and implications. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 3(1), 25–45.
Dietz, B. (2000). German and Jewish migration from the former Soviet Union to Germany: Background, trends and implications. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 26(4), 635–652.
Dietz, B., Lebok, U., & Polian, P. (2002). The Jewish Emigration from the Former Soviet Union to Germany. International Migration, 40(2), 29–48.
Eurostat. (2019). Database. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database
Faley, A. (2017). Top-30 stran dlya pokupki nedvizhimosti za granitsei [Top-30 Countries to Buy Real Estate Abroad]. Prian. https://prian.ru/pub/33843.html
Fedyuk, O., & Kindler, M. (Eds.). (2016). Lessons from migration studies. In Ukrainian migration to the European Union. Springer Open.
Fink, C., & Miguelez, E. (Eds.). (2017). The International mobility of talent and innovation. New evidence and policy implications. Cambridge University Press.
Fonseca, M., & Pereira, S. (2016). Migration of Ukrainian nationals to Portugal: The visibility of a new migration landscape. In O. Fedyuk & M. Kindler (Eds.), Ukrainian migration to the European Union. Lessons from migration studies (pp. 179–192). Springer Open.
Ganguli, I. (2014). Immigration & ideas: What did Russian scientists ‘bring’ to the US? Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics. Working paper, 30.
Goskomstat of Russia, Russian Federation State Committee on Statistics. (1994). Chislennost i migratsiya naselenniya Rossiiskoy Federatsii 1993 (Statisticheskii byulleten) [Size and migration of the Russian population 1993 (statistical bulletin)]. Мoscow: Goskomstat.
Goskomstat of Russia, Russian Federation State Committee on Statistics. (1998). Chislennost i migratsiya naselenniya Rossiiskoy Federatsii 1997 (Statisticheskii byulleten) [Size and migration of the Russian population 1997 (statistical bulletin)]. Мoscow: Goskomstat.
Goskomstat of Russia, Russian Federation State Committee on Statistics. (2003). Chislennost i migratsiya naselenniya Rossiiskoy Federatsii 2002 (Statisticheskii byulleten) [Size and migration of the Russian population 2002 (statistical bulletin)]. Мoscow: Goskomstat.
Goskomstat SSSR. (1989, 1990, 1991). Narodnoie Khozaistvo SSSR (Statisticheskiy ezhegodnik 1988, 1989, 1990) [National economy of USSR. A statistical yearbook]. Moscow: Finansy i Statistika.
Haug, S. (2007). Soziodemographische Merkmale, Berufsstruktur und Verwandtschaftsnetzwerke jüdischer Zuwanderer working papers 8 der Forschungsgruppe für Migration und Integration. Nürnberg: Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge.
Hawthorne, L. (2008). The growing global demand for students as skilled migrants. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.
Heitman, S. (1987). The Third Soviet Emigration: Jewish, German and Armenian Emigration from the USSR since World War II. Berichte des Bundesinsituts fur ostwissenschaftliche und international Studien [Reports from the Federal Institute for East European and International Studies]. No, 21, 1–24.
Heitman, S. (1991). Soviet emigration in 1990: A new ‘fourth wave'? East European Jewish Affairs, 21(2), 11–21.
IOM, International Organization for Migration. (2010). World migration report 2010. Ceneva: International Organization for Migration.
Kireev, M. (2010). Marode Forschung in Russland: Exodus des Wissens. Spiegel Online. Freitag, 08.10.2010. Accessed December 10, 2018, from https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/marode-forschung-in-russland-exodus-des-wissens-a-721745.html
Klusmeyer, D., & Papademetriou, D. (2009). Immigration policy in the federal Republic of Germany: Negotiating membership and remaking the nation. New York: Berghahn Books.
Knight Frank. (2018). The wealth report. https://www.knightfrank.com/wealthreport
Kolb, H. (2005) The German “Green Card”. Focus migration, Policy brief no 3, November.
Kopnina, H. (2005). East to west migration: Russian migrants in Western Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate.
KOSIS, Korean Statistical Information Service. (2019). Summary of economically active population by nationality. Accessed December 12, 2018, from http://kosis.kr/eng/statisticsList/statisticsListIndex.do?menuId=M_01_01&vwcd=MT_ETITLE&parmTabId=M_01_01&statId=2012012&themaId=#SelectStatsBoxDiv
Kozhaev, Yu. (1988). V SSSR obuchayutsia 120 tys. Inostrannykh grazhdan iz 149 stran mira [120,000 Foreign Nationals from 149 Countries Study in the USSR]. Argumenty i facty [Arguments and facts] 30, 23/07/1988.
Kulisher, E. M. (1948). Europe on the move. War and population changes 1917–1947. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ledeneva, L., & Tyuryukanova, E. (2002). Rossiyskie studenty za rebiezhom. Perspektivy vozvrascheniya v Rossiyu [Russian students abroad. Prospects for return to Russia]. Moscow: Strakhovoie review.
Lemaitre, G. (2005). The comparability of international migration statistics – Problems and prospects. OECD statistics briefs, July 2005, No. 9. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Lemaitre, G., Liebig, T., Thoreau, C., & Fron, P. (2007, June). Standardised statistics on immigrant inflows results, sources and methods. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Mansoor, A., & Quillin, B. (2006). Migration and remittances: Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Europe and Central Asia reports. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Maryański, A. (1966). Sovremennye migratsii naseleniya [Contemporary human migration]. Moscow: Statistika.
Mikhailovskiy, V. G. (1921). Vvedenie. [Introduction] Predvaritelnye itogi perepisi 28 avgusta 1920 [Preliminary Census Results of August 28, 1920]. Trudy Tsentral’nogo Statisticheskogo Upravlienia [Works of the Central Statistical Office], 11(3), (pp. 3–5). Moscow: Gosudarstvennoie Izdatelstvo.
Mitchell, L. (2012). The color revolutions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
NAS, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Institute for Demography and Social Studies of M. Ptukha. (2018). Ukrajins’ke suspilstvo: migratsijnyj vymir. Natsional’na dopovid’ [Ukrainian community: Migration measure. National Report.]. Кyiv.
Nowok, B., Kupiszewska, D., & Poulan, M. (2006). Statistics on international migration flows. In M. Poulan, N. Perrin, & A. Singleton (Eds.), THESIM. Towards harmonised European statistics on international migration (pp. 203–232). Louvain-la-Neuve: UCL Presses Universitaires.
Öberg, S., & Boubnova, H. (1993). Poverty, ethnicity and migration potentials in Eastern Europe. In R. King (Ed.), Mass migration in Europe: The legacy and the future (pp. 234–256). London: Belhaven.
OECD. (2009). International migration outlook 2009. Paris: OECD Publishing.
OECD. (2017). International migration outlook 2017. Paris: OECD Publishing.
OECD. (2019). Database on immigrants in OECD countries (DIOC). https://www.oecd.org/els/mig/dioc.htm
Oezcan, V. (2004, February). Fewer ethnic Germans immigrating to ancestral homeland. Migration Policy Institute.
Özgür, E., Deniz, A., Hasta, D., Yüceşahin, M., & Yavuz, S. (2014). The immigration of Russians and Azerbaijanis to Turkey: Who are they? Why are they here? Insight Turkey, 16(4), 105–121.
Papadementriou, D., & Terrazas, A. (2009). Immigrants and the current economic crisis: Research evidence, policy challenges, and implications. Migration Policy Institute: Washington, DC.
Polyan, P. (2005). Emigratsiya: kto i kogda v XX veke pokidal Rossiyu [Emigration; who and when left Russia in XX century]. In O. Gelzer & P. Polyan (Eds.), Rossiya i ee regiony v XX veke: territoriya – rasseleniye – migratsii [Russia and its Regions in XX century: Territory – settlements – migration (pp. 493–519)]. Moscow: OGI.
Potapov, M. (2016). Kak vernut v Rossiyu mozgi? [How to Reverse Russian Brain Drain?]. Expert, 8(976), February 22, 81–82.
Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Interior, Directorate General of Migration Management. (2019). Accessed May 22, 2019, from http://www.goc.gov.tr/icerik6/residence-permits_915_1024_4745_icerik
Rosenberg, V. (2015). Refugee Status for Soviet Jewish Immigrants to the United States. Touro Law Review, 19(2), 419–450.
Rosstat, Federal State Statistics Service. (2016). Chislennost i migratsiya naselenniya Rossiiskoy Federatsii v 2015 gody (Statistical byulleten) [Size and Migration of the Russian population in 2015 (statistical bulletin)]. Мoscow: Rosstat. Accessed June 20, 2019, from http://www.gks.ru/wps/wcm/connect/rosstat_main/rosstat/ru/statistics/publications/catalog/doc_1140096034906.
Shevtsova, L. (1992). Post-Soviet Emigration today and tomorrow. International Migration Review, 26(2), 241–257.
Snoj, J. (2017). Population of Qatar by nationality − 2017 report. In Our perspective, our expertise. Priya DSouza Communication. February 7. http://priyadsouza.com/population-of-qatar-by-nationality-in-2017/
Sofer, A. (2008). The Russians are not leaving Israel more than any other immigrant group. The Israel Democracy Institute. March 18. Accessed April 12, 2019, from https://en.idi.org.il/articles/6832
Stalker, P. (2000). Workers without frontiers: The impact of globalization on international migration. Lynne Rienner Publishers: ILO.
Statcommittee of the CIS, Interstate Statistical Committee of Commonwealth of Independent States. (2011). 20 years of the Commonwealth of Independent States 1991–2010: Statistical abstract. Moscow: Statcommittee of the CIS.
Tabak, T. (2018). Emigratsiya iz Respubliki Moldova v postsovietskiy period [Emigration from Republic of Moldova in the post-soviet period]. In M. B. Denisenko, R. V. Dmitriev, & V. V. Elizarov (Eds.), Demograficheskoie razvitie postsovetskogo prostranstva [Demographic development on the post-soviet space] (pp. 275–296). Moscow: Economic Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University.
Thierry, X., & Wielki, A. (2008). Statistiques des flux d’immigration en France. Année 2008. Paris: INED.
Tolts, M. (2007). Postsovetskie evrei v sovremennom mire [The Post-Soviet Jewish Population in the contemporary World]. Demoscope-Weekly, 303–304. Accessed November 18, 2018, from http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/2007/0303/tema01.php
UIS, UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2018). UIS. Stat. Accessed November 22, 2018, from http://data.uis.unesco.org/
Ukrstat, State Statistical Service of Ukraine. (2017). Zovnishnja trudova migratsija naselennja (za rezul’tatami modulnogo vybirkovogo obstezhennja) [External labor migration (based on the results of a modular sample survey)]. Kyiv: Ukrstat.
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. (2018). Trends in international migrant stock: The 2017 revision (United Nations database, POP/DB/MIG/Stock/Rev. 2017). Accessed October 31, 2018, from https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/estimates2/estimates17.asp
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Statistical Division. (1998). Recommendations on statistics of international migration – Revision 1. New York: United Nations.
Vorobieva, O. D., & Grebenuk, A. A. (2016). Emigratsia iz Rossii v kontse XX – nachale XXI veka [Emigration from Russia in the end of XX – beginning of XXI centuries] Analytical report. Moscow: Komitet grazhdanskikh initsiativ.
Voutira, E. (2004). Ethnic Greeks from the Former Soviet Union as “Privileged Return Migrants”. Espace, Populations, Societes, 3, 533–544.
Yildirim, O. (2018). Turkey gives work permits to 87,000+ foreigners in 2017. Anadolu Agency, 14.02.2018. Accessed February 22, 2019, from https://www.aa.com.tr/en/turkey/turkey-gives-work-permits-to-87-000-foreigners-in-2017/1063134
Zaionchkovskaya, Z. A. (2005). Chetvertaya volna: migratsionnyi obmen Rossii so stranami dalnego zarubezhya [The Fourth Wave: Migrational Exchange of Russia with Foreign Countries]. In O. Gelzer & P. Polyan (Eds.), Rossiya i ee regiony v XX veke: territoriya – rasseleniye – migratsii [Russia and its Regions in XX century: Territory – settlements – migration] (pp. 545–551). Moscow: OGI.
Zemskov, V. N. (1991). Rozdenie vtoroi emigratsii 1944–1952 [The Rise of the Second Emigration Wave 1944–1952]. Sotsiologicheskiye issedovaniya [Sociological Studies], 4, 3–24.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Denisenko, M. (2020). Emigration from the CIS Countries: Old Intentions—New Regularities. In: Denisenko, M., Strozza, S., Light, M. (eds) Migration from the Newly Independent States. Societies and Political Orders in Transition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36075-7_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36075-7_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-36074-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-36075-7
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)