Saint Petersburg---When heavy snowfall hit Russia's second city of Saint Petersburg last month it was nothing unusual, but city officials were overwhelmed and scrambled to find anyone to clear the streets.
As pedestrians slipped and suffered bruises and fractures, exasperated city officials ended up telling residents to go out and shovel the snow themselves.
The city was unable to clear the snowdrifts because of an exodus of migrants from Central Asia who normally do such backbreaking work in Russia's largest cities. They have headed back home after Russia's ruble currency plunged in value.
"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," said the head of a street cleaning company, who asked not to be named.
The deputy governor of Saint Petersburg, Igor Albin, said recently that the city had lost half the migrant workers who do this type of manual labour.
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 many are returning to their countries as the Russian economy is 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.
- 'No choice but to leave' -
Wielding a shovel in a snowy courtyard, Shavkat Mirzoyev, 47, said he wants to stay on in Saint Petersburg but admitted: "It's getting hard. If the situation gets worse, we'll have no choice but to leave."
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.
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 remittance s are now worth much less.
"For a few months now, I've hardly been able to send anything back to my family," said Sukhrab Turakhonov from Tajikistan, who works as a pizza delivery man.
"I have four children, my eldest daughter is about to get married. We need the money."
The 43-year-old said he will wait another month or two and if nothing changes for the better, he will leave Russia.
"There's no point in working here if that means they can't send money back to their families," said Marina Melnik, who works for an association that helps migrant workers.
She said that out of the current average monthly wage of 30,000 rubles ($460), migrant workers are no longer able to send more than $200 home each month.
"It's not worth living a very harsh life in Saint Petersburg for such a meagre sum."
Russia has also increased the burden of red tape and fees, recently introducing a compulsory test on Russian language and history as well as new permits from the migration service.
The exodus has also affected the construction industry in the city, including a major project to build a stadium that will be used for football matches in the 2018 World Cup hosted by Russia, the Zenith Arena.
AFP
