http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/27/europe/28tajik.php
For migrants in Russia, fear swells after a killing By Sabrina Tavernise Saturday, December 27, 2008 KHODZHA-DURBOD, Tajikistan: The men from this village who went to Russia to work all knew the rule: always stay together on the walk home. As Tajiks in an aggressive Russian city, getting caught could mean getting hurt. But on the eve of the Muslim holiday of sacrifice this month, Salohiddin Azizov broke the rule. It was a fatal mistake. He was caught, killed and beheaded on Dec. 5, not far from where he worked at the Pokrovskaya vegetable warehouse south of Moscow, his brothers said. A Russian nationalist group claimed responsibility, calling Azizov, 20, part of a "non-Russian occupation." One of his brothers identified his body by the shape of his toes. "If we are Tajik, does it mean we are cows to be butchered and thrown away?" said the victim's father, Muhabat Azizov, in his small house here a day after his funeral in mid-December. Though gruesome, the killing was not unprecedented. It was a grim reminder of the vicious daily attacks against ethnic minorities that have become a part of daily life for the millions of migrants from the former Soviet Union who work in Russia. The collapse of the Soviet Union plunged Russians into poverty and humiliated them, and some young Russians have turned their bitterness on the migrants from the poorer fringes of the empire who poured into Russian cities during an oil boom. Now, with a sharp economic downturn looming, and Russian officials talking about instituting quotas for migrant workers, Tajiks fear the attacks will only get worse. The Tajik news agency, Asiaplus, reported that Tajik authorities had counted 324 deaths among migrants as of Dec. 16, and that at least 80 of them had been killed in ethnically motivated attacks. "They hate us," said Nurali Bashirov, a friend of the Azizov family, who has worked in Russia. "If a week went by without an attack, we would celebrate." The Azizov family is typical for this village, which has been abandoned by most of its men for manual labor jobs in Russia. Of six brothers, five have worked in Russia, sending small amounts of money home every month for the family to survive the grinding poverty in Tajikistan, where 50 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Everybody has a story. Bashirov recalled how a group of young Russian men, out of meanness, tore down a wash basin that he had built for migrants at a construction site. "They were saying to us, 'We're better than you,'" he said. "You could see it on their faces." Another young villager was walking with Azizov when he was killed that evening, but he managed to escape. One of Azizov's brothers pointed him out last week, as he rode by on a bicycle, a bandage taped to his face. The last time Azizov heard from his son was when Salohiddin called to tell his father that he had sent him money for the Muslim holiday Id al-Adha on the day he was killed. For his family, his death has disrupted the flow of Tajik tradition, in which the youngest son takes care of his parents in their old age and settles his family in their house. "We, who raised him, remember every one of his movements, his conversations," Azizov said. "I want to sleep where he died. I want to find who did this." The Azizov family was still in shock last week, and had only recently received Salohiddin's body, after days wrangling with the Russian police in Moscow. The brother Salohiddin lived with said he made eight trips to the Tajik Embassy begging for help with the body. "So many mothers and fathers suffering like me," Azizov said, sitting on the floor of his small house with mats and one wood stove. After years of ignoring the violence against migrants, the Russian authorities have given the problem some attention recently. The prosecutor's office in the city of Yekaterinburg ordered a local construction company to pay back wages to Tajik workers, Radio Free Liberty reported this month. And on Dec. 15, a court in Moscow convicted a group of teenagers for the murder of 20 migrants, Reuters reported. For the one Azizov brother who has never been to Russia, that is no consolation. "No, never I go," he said in English, walking through the mud in the village to a relative's house to repay a debt his dead brother owed. "After what happened, no." More Articles in World ยป A version of this article appeared in print on December 28, 2008, on page A8 of the New York edition
