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Protests against labor immigrants that have been accompanied with riots and mass disturbances in Moscow in recent days have raised concerns in Armenia considering the fact that a lot of citizens and natives of this South Caucasus country live and work in Russia.
Disturbances erupted in the Western Biryulevo district in the Russian capital over the weekend after the murder of a young Russian allegedly committed by a Caucasus native staying in Moscow as a migrant worker.

A few hundred angry people staged what began as a peaceful protest in Biryulevo on Sunday, demanding a full investigation of the murder case, but the protest quickly grew into disturbances and clashes with police accompanied with nationalist calls against “Khaches” (a derivative from the Armenian name “Khachik” used as a general name for Caucasus natives in Moscow).

More than a thousand people were reportedly arrested as a result. A criminal investigation into the disturbances was launched.

Protests and riots on ethnic grounds have become more frequent in Russia in recent years. The main resentment is directed at immigrants from Russia’s North Caucasus as well as the former Soviet republics of the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Calls for restricting entry to citizens of these countries to Russia have also been voiced on a regular basis.

Armenians heard a xenophobic rant in Russia after a heavy truck driven by an Armenian citizen plowed into a bus near Podolsk last July killing 18 passengers and injuring many more. Mass detentions of ‘illegal’ labor migrants and their placement in ‘migrant camps’ began shortly afterwards, with many Armenians also suffering because of the actions of Russian law-enforcement agencies.

Earlier, in December 2010, Moscow saw a big scuffle on ethnic grounds later dubbed Manezhnaya Unrest after Russian nationalists were angered by an allegedly biased investigation of an ethnic Russian soccer fan’s murder by a Caucasus native.

Talking to ArmeniaNow Yerevan-based Caucasus Institute director, political analyst Sergey Minasyan expressed the opinion that the campaign against illegal labor migrants was a domestic political issue in Russia and that the process that has deep roots will probably continue deep into the future. At the same time, he insisted that it had no link to any particular country.

Still, what is viewed by many as ‘domestic policies’ sends shockwaves across the entire former Soviet space.

Alexei Navalniy, who finished second in Moscow’s mayoral elections last month and has ambitions to become the new opposition leader in Russia, wrote on his blog on Monday that he had initiated a campaign to collect signatures in support of establishing a visa regime for citizens of Central Asian and Caucasian republics.

A few days ago a similar appeal was issued by Russian ombudsman Vladimir Lukin. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not welcome such calls, insisting that preventing citizens of former Soviet countries from entering Russia without visas did not meet the interests of Russia which, on the contrary, should attract the former Soviet republics and not repel them.

Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor office head Artur Sakunts, who on Monday announced that he would appeal the decision by the Armenian government to join the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in a court of law, said that the authorities in Yerevan have done nothing to safeguard Armenian citizens in Russia from such treatment despite the fact that campaigns against labor migrants in Moscow and other major Russian cities have been conducted regularly.

“I don’t think that the Armenian government can demonstrate the will to help Armenian migrants there. The Armenian-Russian relations are such that Yerevan does not dare to say a single word against it,” Sakunts claimed.