“Of approximately 50-54 million families at least 10-15, maybe 20 million families live by seasonal work”1.
seasonal workers – who at the time went from the family to feed her, earning on the side, and returns, like a pendulum, every week, through the month or even in six months.
Third of all families in the province lives off seasonal work and crafts. Main motion – to Moscow, around her. There are 80% of migrant workers from European Russia, 10% – in St. Petersburg. One-third of the “able-bodied” in Moscow are not Muscovites2. “In small towns and rural areas of Russia is now from 10-15 to 50-80 percent of the population (mostly male, but somewhere is large and the proportion of women) find a job on the side”3.
Why? What is this strange rationality? To go from a living, warm family life in the dormitory in cabins, in an almost slavish existence of the big city?
Answers – ordinary. Somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, you can get your hands 3-4 times more. And where live, not enough work. Do not eat, do not line up, not to learn.
All this – not for the first time.
after 100 years we repeat those who came before us, who also roamed the Russian land. All the XIX and beginning of XX century the surplus population in non-Chernozem center of Russia spilled for the sake of sustenance in Petersburg (as the capital), Moscow; dispersed by cooperatives and alone – at the provincial centres, at lease dozens of professions and hundreds kinds of products, their special. Life was in full swing everywhere, maybe in contrast to the current seeking the most in the city of Moscow.
“the limits of European Russia seasonal work captured in 1880-x years in any event not less than 5 million people annually,”4. This is approximately 6-7% of the population of European Russia. A quarter of the income of farms in the non-Chernozem zones of European Russia – due to seasonal work5. Here is the report of the Governor for the 1898: “In St. Petersburg province, a woman almost universally leads to the farm and pays taxes, while the male part of the population, mainly absorbed by the outhouse crafts”6.
is it fixed people? Is it little freedom and risk? There are lots of descriptions – what did you do, what are the edges and where I was going to fish from underfeeding, excess of population, from the poverty and smallness of the earth.
But after all who are they? Is it only the poor, orphaned and miserable?
No – for them and the dignity, the dream of future prosperity. Here is the testimony of philosopher Alexander Zinoviev:
“I was born in the most that neither is a dense Russian wilderness in “the bear corner”7 … Although the land there was barren, although it was a bit, although agriculture was quite primitive and unproductive, our district was one of the most cultured and wealthy in Russia. And this was a result of his bednoti. The fact is that in our area it was impossible to feed themselves at the expense of the agricultural labour and men for centuries have gone to work in the city – in Moscow, Kostroma, Yaroslavl, Ivanov, Vologda. There they became artisans… They worked individually or formed cooperative… most men who worked in the cities, considered the city’s life only help in the maintenance of the families remaining in the villages… the old men were permanently returned to their villages. The land could not feed, but in cities with such families to live was impossible. When in the villages was the most stressful time, men were returning home. All that they earn in the cities, they are used to village life: they built houses, bought expensive clothes, utensils, jewelry… Along with the money and things in the village were brought and culture – urban language, urban clothing, jewelry, books. The village houses were built under the influence of city apartments … heralded urban type furnishings. I have been to many parts of Russia, but nowhere seen such large and beautiful homes in our area,”8.
But, of course, life is harder and easier.
seasonal workers and laborers, and servants, and factory, with the most severe working conditions. And malnourished, and ill, and begging, and to break the law, and to return with nothing. To be millions of such seekers, roaming the roads, the cities and villages of the vast country.
That’s a different point of view, not touching, with the statistics of the heights of Petersburg:
“…Care workers to work hardly sensitive brings benefits to the population … making the rather bleak and painful place in his life, as for the reasons causing these seasonal work, and the consequences of their, very often, instead of income, bringing complete ruin, a breakdown of the family and demoralization”9.
Another portrait of migrant workers: 1905, Olonets governorate (Petrozavodsk), winter, 6 months – for crafts.
80% of the craftsmen and artisans – farmers, from the poor to the wealthy;
77% – those who are from 18 to 55 years;
82% were men, and among them educated – 40%, and among women 7%;
only 27% – “healthy home”;
others – poverty, low-income10.
a faint hope – “crushed now the village will have the opportunity to breathe freely and unhindered, with free access to her scientific and intellectual forces…”11.
But we still should remember that seasonal work is not only the suffering and forced departure from home for a piece of bread. But Providence, not God, but human, the ability to take risks, free search honest attempt thinking person to escape from the most difficult circumstances and to preserve the family. To increase its assets to squeeze water from a stone. Not only attached to people – but also a seeker, a wandering, riscoby.
“In the Central non-Chernozem belt … peasants … have more money, although we are not from agriculture, and fisheries”12.
This remark, 1892. More money!
write what sociologists now? We are the heirs.
“seasonal workers – well-socialized, highly motivated to work, unpretentious in life and steadfast in difficulties is usually a middle-aged man and good health. Sociable, mentally developed, has a sense of humor, a little drink and looks at life positively. He is married, has several children, appreciates and loves his wife. Independently provide himself and his family.
– Short-term earnings goal is to satisfy the needs of the family, home improvement and robust economy, the long-term goal is “output” children into the world. The standard of living of migrant workers above the level of life of his neighbor, a man, not going to work.
– the house of the migrant workers is usually a factor and signs borrowed urban fashion, also reminiscent of previous seasonal workers.
– Distinguish seasonal workers and vehicles are usually of better quality than the neighbors. A small farm; the farmstead is reduced to a vegetable garden. Cattle do not hold. Economy and financial issues, knows wife. Seasonal workers themselves from the local community but does not support all kinship and experience, ready to help.
– well respected in the local community. In the public life of the city, as in political, almost not involved”13.
Who are they?
3-5 million truckers
2-3 million guards
5-7 million Amateur – salaried or businessmen.
In Moscow of migrant workers – 5.6 million people (including seasonal workers from abroad). Two thirds of them considered statistics14. What is called “informal employment”. All estimates are approximate.
most of them are in the construction, repair, trade, agricultural sector, in the “food industry”, housing and communal services, in services. Wherever we need the mass of cheap labour, where large resource flows and, most importantly, where people can live on the move, restless.
And they are – in the digital economy, when people can work together, but thousands of miles away from each other. “Drop card”, “throw” money for e-wallet and no worries. Why would they seek in the capital? The first reason is the multiple of the difference in income. According to statistics, the salary in Moscow 2.4 times more salary in the Tula region, 2.7 times, Ryazan, 3.2 times – Kostroma.
they need to add at least 2 million people with the “Redskins passports” for border. About 3% of the workforce, and often the best, most educated. Some of them migrant workers, live in airplanes.
it’s Amazing how after 100 years, after 60 years of restrictions on the movement of people, the people responsible for the destruction of the economy, the starvation – freedom and takes off nicelionni people, sometimes even on old routes, seeking not only for bread, warmth and milk, but also for the well-being, arranged for the house, education for children.
This is the salt of the earth Russian.
More than 100 million people live in Russia in small and medium settlements. Those who are able to work, 55-60 million people. Of these, 20% are seasonal workers (called and larger numbers). Most of them – “the people themselves”. Those whom Zinoviev called “I am the state.” “Among the Russians this type of people … quite often. These people live as if the whole … the world is only the natural environment of their existence. They are in this environment produce the means of life, and live mostly in their own little closed world”15.
We are adults, we understand that seasonal work is not the norm. Yes, there is always insatiable, those who seek to be in the way, but the vast majority of the best years would be happy to find work at home. Why do we admire – Oh, what a living people, as it responds to the challenges? It is better to rejoice in the fact that people in the family, together, not spend life trying to exist in isolation – mental and physical. Don’t live in army, on the removal of a dozen people.
Adults – salt of the earth Russian does not have to be closed only for himself, surviving. Our interest is in the fact that they as a society were responsible for what is happening on the ground in their villages.
In 1917, the migrant workers replied to the General confusion with the same anger that wage workers are urban residents. In the 1920-ies they returned home – to be on the ground. They got it. 1920s- probably the best time in a rural province, when life was in full swing. In the 1930-ies they were deprived of the land and will. Since the 1990s they are back on the road, leaving not only from villages but from towns, from small and medium – sized cities- to Moscow, to Petersburg, in cities, in the commodity area, causing monstrous swelling of Moscow.
seasonal work is one of the foundations of human desertification in the regions of Russia in 1990 – 2010 years. Not counting the largest cities throughout Russia: declining population, “dries”, as the sand. In 1990 in the far East lived 8 million people today – same 6.1 million, 2 million, the human decline in Siberia. Only Novosibirsk, Omsk, Tyumen, Irkutsk cropnet, pulling the population.
a Huge space shallow people.
Empties the Urals. Now there are only 0.4 million people by 1990. Only big cities – Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Ufa added residents. There is work, there is family income.
And Central Russia? If you subtract the Moscow region, the population of the Central Federal district decreased from 22.4 million in 1990 to 19.2 million people. Or 3.3 million people – a failure in the heart of Russia. But in Moscow and in the Moscow region now live over 20 million people, 5 million more than in 1990. They’re fed. And – at least 5-6 million migrant workers.
North-West – there is also a minus of the population, especially if you subtract the St. Petersburg and Leningrad oblast. The decline in 1990-2019 years – 1.9 million people. In the Volga the reduction of the population of 2.4 million, Even in the Nizhny Novgorod people less than it was.
And prosperous village Patino Chuhlomskogo County, homeland of the philosopher Zinoviev, who lived in seasonal work, no longer exists.
There’s a place where she was, but she is no more. The house of Zinoviev – a few trees. Around dozens of villages, where residents are officially zero. Or unit, or, if lucky, five people. Once they were in. When you see this, ask yourself – when will it end? How to turn back to man the termination of Russia?
it has the answers. A return to the land. Your home, low-rise Russia as a national idea as the main way of existence. To do to equalize the quality and duration of life throughout the country – modernization of housing, roads, infrastructure of every kind, real fiscal federalism, the wide and cheap access to land and credit, and inevitably the great mass of new jobs universally, instead of beating them in the vertical and the largest urban agglomeration of16.
Most important of all is the earth, there are lots of unused, inhabitable land is now emptying17. And it is well known how to do that is not a dream. Go to any village in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland. They boil local Handicrafts, small industrial zones, generating income and welfare of local communities. When boiling around Moscow will spread all over the country, this will be another cost – the country, with a lot of people living where they want, on their land. Modern communications technology and transportation allow it to do.
Return to the earth, the millions of migrant workers return home – only is the norm.
1. Plyusnin Yu., Zausaeva Y., Rodkevich N., Pozanenko A. Migrant Workers. – M.: New Chronograph, 2013. P. 88.
2. Ibid. P. 64, 89, 91.
3. Ibid. P. 88.
4. Encyclopedic dictionary Brockhaus and Efron. Volume XXII. – St. Petersburg: Tipo-Lithography Of I. A. Efron,1897. C. 472.
5. Ibid. P. 472.
6. Report of the Governor of S. A. Roofing in 1898 as Cited in the article: Nikulin V. non-agricultural seasonal work of the peasants of St. Petersburg province in the post-reform years // Proceedings of the faculty of history of Saint-Petersburg University, 2010. P. 281.
7. “Village” Patino, Chukhloma district of Kostroma region, 200 km away from Kostroma. No longer exists.
8. * L Zinoviev A. A. Russian fate. Confessions of a renegade. M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 1999. C. 13.
9. Korolenko S. A. Civilian labor in the farms of the owners ‘ and the movement of workers in connection with the stat��of STIKO-economic overview of European Russia in the agricultural and industrial relations / Department of agriculture and rural industry. – SPb: Type. V. Kirshbaum, 1892. Page 85.
10Кустарные crafts and artisan work of the peasants of the Olonets province. – Petrozavodsk: North Scolopacina, 1905. C. 15, 19, 24, 101.
11. Ibid. P. 105.
12. Vorontsov V. P. Progressive trends in the peasant economy / Vladimir – Sankt-Petersburg: Typ. I. N. Skorokhodova, 1892. P. 255.
13. Plyusnin Yu., Zausaeva Y., Rodkevich N., Pozanenko A. Migrant Workers. – M.: New Chronograph, 2013. P. 206.
14. Plyusnin Yu. a New way of life after cities. The article is based on lectures 01.04.2015 at the Institute of demography, migration and regional development. Lecture posted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=077-_bn-Y1c.
15. * L Zinoviev A. A. the Confession of a renegade. M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 1999. C. 13.
16. Mirkin Y. the national idea. “RG”, 20.04.2020; Mirkin Ya. Time to change. “RG”, 05.05.2019; Krivov A., Krupnov Yu House in Russia. M.: OLMA-Press, 2004.
17. Mirkin Ya. the View from the 40th floor. “RG”, 15.04.2019.
