You're reading: RFE/RL: Muslim migrants are revitalizing Russia’s countryside

RFE/RL: Muslim migrants are revitalizing Russia’s countryside

Published May 21, 2018 at 5:39 pm

Children of Tajik migrant workers in Russia wait for their arrival at the airport in the Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe, on November 2, 2013. Thousands of Tajik families are torn apart by the ex-Soviet state's enduring economic crisis, which has forced an estimated one million men of working age to seek work abroad, mainly in Russia.

Photo by AFP

ROZHDESTVENO, Russia – Nazim Soliev is confident that he’s good for Russia.

Or more specifically, the 35-year-old native of Tajikistan, the most impoverished of Central Asia’s five former Soviet republics, says his presence here, 200 kilometers northwest of Moscow, is good for his adopted homeland.