Migrant Workers and the Sochi Olympics

Author(s): Sufian Zhemukhov
Editor(s): Stephen Aris, Matthias Neumann, Robert Orttung, Jeronim Perovic, Heiko Pleines, Hans-Henning Schröder, Aglaya Snetkov
Series: Russian Analytical Digest (RAD)
Issue: 143
Pages: 8-12
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich; Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen; Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, George Washington University
Publication Year: 2014

When Sochi was awarded the 2014 Winter Olympics in 2007, the Kremlin proclaimed its intention to use this mega-project to create new jobs and attract new migrants to the region in and around Sochi. However, the seven year experience of constructing the Olympic infrastructure has not seen this intention effectively realized, and has seen a change in approach from the Kremlin, reflecting a generalized increase in xenophobia within Russian society during this period. Both official and unofficial means were used to restrict the number of foreign migrant workers, and cases in which both foreign and domestic workers were exploited were numerous, culminating in a campaign by the Krasnodar authorities to deport migrant workers before the games begun. The Sochi Olympics, thus, suggest that the Russian authorities remain unable to manage both large-scale projects and the sensitive issue of migrant workers, often resorting to solutions based on brute force, rather than the coherent implementation of an appropriate legal framework.

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