RUSSIA OPENS MOSCOW DETENTION CAMP TO ADDRESS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

Site is surrounded by 26-foot fence

By Ilya Arkhipov & Stepan Kravchenko
Bloomberg News
12:01 a.m.Aug. 16, 2013Updated7:26 p.m.Aug. 15, 2013

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin has opened Moscow’s first detention camp for immigrants who have entered the country illegally as migrants become the main concern among voters preparing for the city’s first mayoral election since 2003.

The tarpaulin tents for 600 people, surrounded by a 26-foot fence, signal the campaign for the Sept. 8 vote heating up as Putin seeks to show that he’s in control of Europe’s largest city, the center of Russia’s opposition. His protégé, acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, is pulling out all the stops to beat challengers including protest leader Alexei Navalny and show the world the Kremlin’s dominance.

As the Russian economy grows at the slowest pace since a 2009 recession, Moscow has become the main battlefield between Putin, who last year returned to the Kremlin for a third term as president, and his opponents. Tens of thousands turned out for anti-government rallies, the biggest against the Russian leader’s 13-year rule, with Navalny among the organizers.

“The Kremlin needs a rematch here in order to strengthen its power,” said Valery Fedorov, head of the state-run VTsIOM research center in Moscow. “Muscovites see migrants as a threat. Politicians make use of that.”

While the city upgraded Moscow’s highways, rebuilt major parks and introduced a rent-a-bike network, the focus has shifted to migrants as the campaign enters its stretch run. That’s the biggest concern for 44 percent of Muscovites, according to a poll by the Public Opinion Foundation.

Officers have detained at least 5,750 migrant workers from the Caucasus, central Asia and nations including Vietnam since the end of July in what Sobyanin says is a drive to clean up markets and rid the city of criminal gangs. More than 2,000 migrants have been rounded up in the rest of the country, according to the Interior Ministry. The government is drafting a plan to create a network of 83 detention centers across Russia.

Sobyanin, 55, is a rising star in Russian politics, and running Moscow can serve as a catapult to the highest echelons of power, said Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Kremlin adviser who heads the Effective Policy Foundation in Moscow.

Illegal immigration gives Sobyanin “low-hanging fruit” to showcase his populist credentials, said Alexander Verkhovsky who studies xenophobia in Russia at the SOVA center in Moscow. Sobyanin has 53 percent backing, compared with 9 percent for Navalny, according to a survey conducted by VTsIOM.

Moscow, the biggest city in the former Soviet Union, is a magnet for all Russian speakers seeking a better life and improved job prospects, which leads to tension with Muscovites. While Russian citizens from the North Caucasus to Kamchatka are legally able to stay as long as they want, police go after those arriving from other former Soviet republics.

The city attracts most of the 11 million immigrants in Russia, 3.5 million of them probably illegal, said Konstantin Romodanovsky, head of the Federal Migration Service.

Migrants were responsible for more than half of the crimes committed in the Russian capital last year, according to Moscow police chief Anatoly Yakunin.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/aug/16/tp-russia-opens-moscow-detention-camp-to-address/