The National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER) is a non-profit organization created in 1978 to develop and sustain long-term, high-quality programs for post-doctoral research on the social, political, economic, environmental, and historical development of Eurasia and Central and Eastern Europe.   More

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New Working Papers Released

Immigration to Russia: Why it is Inevitable, and How Large it May Have to Be in Order to Provide the Workforce Russia Needs

Grigory Ioffe and Zhanna Zayonchkovskaya, Radford University and Institute for Economic Forecasting, Russian Academy of Sciences

Between 1992 and 2008, Russia's population shrank by 6.6 million people, a result of deaths exceeding births by 12.6 million and immigration exceeding emigration by 6.0 million. Having reached a peak of almost 1 million people in 1994, net immigration subsided to 119,000 in 2004, but "negative natural increase" continued and is not likely to be reversed any time soon. Since the early nineties, many social scientists and journalists have commented on different aspects of Russia's demographic situation. Of recent analyses, the most informative are by Murray Feshbach (2008) and Timothy Heleniak (2009).

This paper addresses four questions: What causes and sustains the demand for immigration to Russia? What are the legal, illegal, and semi-legal segments of current immigration? What are the possible scenarios of immigration to Russia until 2026, the year for which the Russian Federal Bureau of Statistics (Rosstat) is currently making its own projections? What is the likely interplay of immigration and domestic migration, and what is the likely distribution of domestic and international migrants between Russia's Federal Districts (Okrugs) in 2026?

The Gates of Belgrade: Safety, Privacy, and New Housing Patterns in the Post-Communist City

Sonia Hirt, Virginia State Polytechnic Institute and State University

Compared to the prolific literature on the political and economic aspects of the post-communist transition, literature on post-1989 urban changes, including changes in housing and neighborhood patterns and changes in the quality of life of urban residents, has been relatively limited. Yet the post-communist world stretching from the heart of Europe to the Far East corner of Asia is highly urbanized: out of the nearly half a billion inhabitants of Central-East Europe and the former Soviet Union, about two-thirds reside in cities and towns. Cities were the engines of economic growth during the communist period. They were also at the forefront of radical socio-economic experimentation and restructuring during the transition period.

This paper focuses on urban changes in the Serbian capital of Belgrade: specifically, on the new trend of constructing explicitly private, gated and securitized housing. This type of housing barely existed during communism but established itself as a popular alternative in the 1990s, particularly among the "winners" in the post-communist transition. This new housing pattern, which can now be observed in many other large East European cities as well as cities around the world, reflects deepening social stratification and growing concerns about urban crime. It also suggests an increasing appreciation of privacy and semi-secluded family lifestyles that contrast sharply with the type of urban collectivism communist regimes sought to impose.

Legal Consciousness in Post-Soviet Russia: A Preliminary Study

Kathryn Hendley, University of Wisconsin, Madison

How do Russians solve problems in their daily lives and what does their behavior reveal about their legal consciousness? I pursue these questions by examining how Russians interact with those who are physically closest to them, namely those who live in the same building and who share the same entryway (pod'ezd). Reasoning that the essence of relationships emerges through conflict, I focus on the problem-solving strategies employed when one neighbor leaks water into another neighbor's apartment. By listening to Russians in focus groups and follow-up interviews, three basic strategies emerged: avoidance, self-help, and third-party intervention.