Why Russia Still Attracts Immigrants

Russia isn't often thought of as a country of immigration. Yet the country's enormous territory and shrinking indigenous population invite a striking number of immigrants: Last year, despite the collapse of oil prices and the Ukraine crisis, Russia was the biggest originator of migrant workers' remittances in Europe.

When President Barack Obama said in an interview last year that "immigrants aren’t rushing to Moscow in search of opportunity," commentators with a less gloomy view, and perhaps a bit more knowledge, rushed to point out that, according to a 2013 United Nations report, Russia had the world's second biggest migrant population after the U.S. I wouldn't put much stock in that statement, and not just because the U.S., with more than twice Russia's population, had four times as many immigrants. The UN report also showed Russia's migrant stock barely increased from 1990 to 2013, even though the collapse of the Soviet Union caused many ethnic Russians to leave breakaway republics.