Mufti Albir Krganov, Head of the Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia, say religious leaders of Central Asia’s nations should work more actively with migrants working both in Russia and before their arrival in the country in order to prevent any wrongdoing, “now such interaction is not built,” writes TASS.  

“Countries of origin must be more proactive in reaching out to migrants,” said the mufti.  “When elections are held in Central Asian countries, their religious leaders come here and gather migrants in every city to campaign among them.”  

“Okay, the elections are over, but in general why don’t you reach out to migrants?  This is a question for our colleagues – muftis of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan,” Krqanov was quoted as saying.  

Also, according to him, the embassies of those countries, from which there is a large flow of migrants to Russia, “should be more attentive to the problems associated with these people.” 

Otherwise, the mufti stated, the authorities and power-wielding structures in Russia as well as local Muslim citizens, onto whom “this problem is also projected” will have to answer for everything. 

Recall, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia stated at a meeting with clergy of the Moscow Diocese on December 20 that Russia may lose its cultural identity if the culture of labor migrants attracted from abroad begins to dominate.  

If the number of migrants, who don’t speak Russian and don’t respect the country’s culture, increase, Russia may be “lost”. 

According to him, the situation with “ethnocultural” migrants, who are making no efforts to integrate into Russian society, has worsened in recent year. 

Patriarch Kirill, in particular, called the situation in Moscow “unbearable” for the indigenous population: the number of evidence of formation of criminal and extremist groups among migrants has been increasing as well as the emergence of conflicts threatening interreligious and interethnic peace has been observed.     

He called on the authorities to remember that if this trend continues, “we will lose ourselves, we will lose Russia -- a multinational state, the core of which is the Russian Orthodox people

In mid-April, scientists from the Institute of Demography named after. A. G. Vishnevsky National Research University Higher School of Economics Valery Yumaguzin and Maria Vinnik presented their forecast for the population of Russia by 2100.  According to their information, if the downward trend in population will continue, by the mid-2070s this figure will drop to 131 million people.  In the absence of an influx of labor migrants, the population of Russia could decline to 67.4 million people by 2100.  To maintain the population at the level of 146 million people, it is necessary to attract from 0.39 to 1.1 million migrants every year until the end of the century.

At the end of July, Vedomosti, citing data from the subordinate All-Russian Research Institute of Labor Protection and Economics (VNII Labor), wrote that the number of labor migrants in Russia by 2030 will be 3.5 million people, which is 400,000 more people than in 2022