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Kyiv's Troeshchyna: An Emerging International Migrant Neighborhood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Blair A. Ruble
Blair A. Ruble*
Affiliation:
Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, USA, [email protected]
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Extract

Troeshchyna is a down-at-the-heels late Soviet moonscape that happens to be located on the fringe of Kyiv, though it is indistinguishable from hundreds of other socialist neighborhoods built in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s anywhere between Berlin and Beijing. This Brezhnev-era district has almost no distinguishing features other than the Ukrainian capital's most robust and scraggly markets. Walk by one of Troeshchyna's neighborhood elementary schools, such as School 247, and something looks not quite appropriate for this part of the world. The school's playground will be chock full of kids from countries and cultures not traditionally associated with the central Dniepr, including children from Afghanistan, Angola, Korea, Mongolia and Vietnam.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , June 2003 , pp. 139 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. This categorization of Kyiv's migrant community, which is discussed further in Nancy E. Popson and Blair A. Ruble, “Kyiv's Nontraditional Immigrants,” Post-Soviet Geography and Economics, Vol. 41, No. 5, 2000, pp. 365–378, is based on Tomas Frejka, Marek Okolski, and Keith Sword, In-Depth Studies on Migration in Central and Eastern Europe: The Case of Ukraine (New York and Geneva: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and United Nations Population Fund, 1999); T. Klincheko, O. Malynovska, I. Mingazutdinov, and O. Shamshur, Country Studies on Migrant Trafficking and Alien Smuggling: The Case of Ukraine (Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 1999); and T. Klincheko, O. Malynovska, I. Mingazutdinov, and O. Shamshur, Migrant Trafficking in Ukraine. Report to the International Organization for Migration (Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 2000).Google Scholar

2. For discussion of interviews with migrants concerning motivation for travel to Ukraine, see Klincheko et al., Country Studies on Migrant Trafficking and Alien Smuggling, pp. 35–38, and Volodymyr Volovich, Volodymyr Yevtukh, Vladimir Popovich, Vasiliy Kousherec, and Konstantin Korzh, Transit Migration in Ukraine (Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 1994), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

3. For discussion of travel routes to Ukraine, see Klincheko et al., Country Studies on Migrant Trafficking and Alien Smuggling: The Case of Ukraine; Klincheko et al., Migrant Trafficking in Ukraine; and Volovich et al., Transit Migration in Ukraine. These published analyses of migrant motivations were collaborated by interviews with Ukrainian and Kyiv municipal officials (interviews by author with: Vasyl' Gazhaman, former official, Kyiv City Department of Refugee Status and Migration, Kyiv, 26 January 2000; Mykola Pilipchuk, Chief, Administration for Passport, Registration, and Migration Work, Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Kyiv, 30 June 2000; Volodymyr Novik, Head, Department for Refugees and Minorities, Kyiv City State Administration, Kyiv, 29 June 2000 and 24 May 2001; and Yurii Buznicki, Director, Center for Investigations of Migration Problems, Kyiv, 29 June 2000).Google Scholar

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5. Kennan Institute Survey of Migrant Families, Kyiv, June-November 2001 (Questions #3 and #35).Google Scholar

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8. Ibid., p. 390.Google Scholar

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11. “Ironiia syd'by, ili s legkim parom!” (Moscow: Mosfil'm Movie Studio, 1977).Google Scholar

12. Kennan Institute Survey of Migrant Families, Kyiv, June-November 2001 (Questions #67 and #261)Google Scholar

13. Kennan Institute Survey of Migrant Families, Kyiv, June-November 2001 (Questions #71 and #261). The actual monthly reported income levels appear to be incomplete. However, the hierarchy of earning power reported here is consistent with other data as well as more anecdotal evidence.Google Scholar

14. Kennan Institute Survey of Migrant Families, Kyiv, June-November 2001 (Questions #66 and #67). This experience is consistent with migrant entrepreneurs elsewhere. For example, Timothy Bates argues that high levels of educational attainment as well as previous employment in the professions prior to migration help to explain the relative success of Korean and other migrant merchants in American cities during the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. (See Timothy Bates, Race, Self-employment, and Upward Mobility. An Illusive American Dream [Washington and Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center and Johns Hopkins University Presses, 1997].)Google Scholar

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16. Diana Hope Varat, “The Informal Economy and Urban Space: A Comparative Study of Street Vendors in New York and Mexico City,” senior honor thesis, Interdisciplinary Field Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1 May 2001, pp. 58–59.Google Scholar

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18. “V stolitse rastaskivaiut zemli, a khoziain Kievsoviet—i ne vedaet o tom,” Kievskie Vedomosti, 27 June 1995g., pp. 1, 8Google Scholar

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20. Kennan Institute Survey of Migrant Families, Kyiv, June-November 2001 (Questions #164 and #261)Google Scholar

21. Ibid. Google Scholar

22. Kennan Institute Survey of Migrant Families, Kyiv, June-November 2001 (Questions #181 and #261)Google Scholar

23. Kennan Institute Survey of Migrant Families, Kyiv, June-November 2001 (Questions #182 and #261)Google Scholar

24. Kennan Institute Survey of Migrant Families, Kyiv, June-November 2001 (Questions #184 and #261)Google Scholar

25. Kennan Institute Survey of Migrant Families, Kyiv, June-November 2001 (Question #223).Google Scholar

26. For an overview of Latin America's urban “revolution,” see articles in Richard M. Morse and Jorge E. Hardoy, eds, Rethinking the Latin American City (Washington and Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center and Johns Hopkins University Presses, 1992); as well as A. Gilbert, J. Hardoy and R. Ramierez, Urbanization in Contemporary Latin America (Chinchester and New York: Wiley, 1982). For a review of the region's demographic trends in relation to other global regions, see Ellen M. Brennan, “Population, Urbanization, Environment, and Security. A Summary of the Issues,” in Christina Rosan, Blair A. Ruble, and Joseph S. Tulchin, eds, Urbanization, Population, Environment, and Security. A Report of the Comparative Urban Studies Project (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2000), pp. 29–50.Google Scholar

27. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961).Google Scholar

28. For an intellectual history of the concept of the “informal” urban sector, see Lisa R. Peattie, “Urban Research in the 1990s,” in Michael A. Cohen, Blair A. Ruble, Joseph S. Tulchin, and Allison M. Garland, eds, Preparing for the Urban Future. Global Forces and Local Forces (Washington and Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center and Johns Hopkins University Presses, 1996), pp. 378–380; and Richard Stren, “The Studies of Cities: Popular Perceptions, Academic Disciplines, and Emerging Agendas,” in Michael A. Cohen, Blair A. Ruble, Joseph S. Tulchin, and Allison M. Garland, eds, Preparing for the Urban Future. Global Pressures and Local Forces, pp. 406–411.Google Scholar

29. Keith Hart, “Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana,” Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, 1973, pp. 61–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. International Labor Office, Employment, Income and Equality: A Strategy for Increasing Productive Employment in Kenya (Geneva, 1972).Google Scholar

31. See, for example, International Labor Office, Calcutta: Its Urban Development and Employment Prospects (Geneva, 1974); International Labor Office, Urbanization and Employment in Jakarta (Geneva, 1975); International Labor Office, Urban Development and Employment in Abidjan (Geneva, 1975), Kalmann Schaefer, Sao Paulo: Urban Development and Employment (Geneva: ILO, 1976); and V. Sethuraman, ed., The Urban Informal Sector in Developing Countries: Employment, Poverty, and Employment (Geneva: ILO, 1981).Google Scholar

32. Among subsequent influential works refining Hart's concept were Richard Webb, Income and Employment in the Urban and Traditional Sectors of Peru (Washington: World Bank, 1974); Ray Bromley and Chris Gerry, Casual Work and Poverty in Third World Cities (Chichester and New York: Wiley, 1979); and Alejandro Portes, Manuel Castells, and Lauren A. Benton, eds, The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

33. See, for example, John C. Turner, “Squatters and Urban Policy: A Review Essay,” Urban Affairs Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1967, pp. 111–115; John C. Turner, “Barriers and Challenges for Housing Development in Modernizing Countries,” American Institute of Planners Journal, Vol. 33, No. 3, 1967, pp. 167–178; Gerald Breese, “Housing Priorities, Settlement Patterns and Urban Development in Modernizing Countries,” American Institute of Planners Journal, Vol. 34, No. 6, 1968, pp. 354–363; Gerald Breese, ed., The City in Newly Developing Countries: Readings on Urbanism and Urbanization (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1969); W. Mangin, ed., Peasants in Cities (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970); and John C. Turner, Housing by People; Towards Autonomy in Building Environments (New York: Pantheon, 1976).Google Scholar

34. Milton Santos, The Shared Space: The Two Circuits of the Urban Economy in Underdeveloped Countries (London: Methuen, 1979).Google Scholar

35. Janice Perlman, The Myth of Marginality: Urban Poverty and Politics in Rio de Janiero (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976).Google Scholar

36. Ibid., p. 132.Google Scholar

37. Ibid., p. 137.Google Scholar

38. Larissa A. Lomnitz, Networks and Marginality: Life in a Mexican Shantytown (New York: Academic Press, 1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. Lisa P. Peattie, “The Idea in Good Currency and How It Grew: The Informal Sector,” World Development, Vol. 15, No. 7, 1987, pp. 851–860.Google Scholar

40. Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital. Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p. 35Google Scholar

41. Nigel Harris, “Toward Eliminating Urban Poverty,” presentation at Woodrow Wilson Center, US Agency for International Development Symposium on “Reducing Poverty and Strengthening Growth: The Urban Perspective,” Washington, 25–26 July 2002.Google Scholar

42. Kennan Institute Survey of Migrant Families, Kyiv, June-November 2001 (Question #139).Google Scholar

43. Oxana Shevel, in an excellent and perceptive analysis comparing the performance of indigenous and international institutions in dealing with migrant issues in Russia, Ukraine, and various neighboring states, argues that international organizations in general—and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, in particular—have been unusually effective in Ukraine due to their relatively late entry into the country, by which time lessons learned from previous experiences in Russia and elsewhere enabled both international and Ukrainian officials to respond more effectively to one another. See Oxana Shevel, “International Influence in Transition Societies: The Effect of UNHCR and Other IOs on Citizenship Policies in Ukraine,” Rosemary Rogers Working Paper Series of the Inter-University Committee on International Migration, Working Paper No. 7 (Cambridge, MA, 2000).Google Scholar

44. Mohamed Halfani, “Marginality and Dynamism: Prospects for the Sub-Saharan African City,” in Cohen, Blair A. Ruble, Joseph S. Tulchin, and Allison M. Garland, eds, Preparing for the Urban Future (Washington and Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center and Johns Hopkins University Presses, 1996), p. 84.Google Scholar

45. Ibid. Google Scholar

46. Ibid., p. 100.Google Scholar

47. Ibid., p. 101.Google Scholar

48. Ibid. Google Scholar

49. M. O. Shul'ga, R. P. Shul'ga, N. L. Boiko, and T. Yu. Zagorodnyuk, Vyvchennya Vplyvu Zovnishn'oyi Mihratsiyi 91–1996 rr. Na Sminy Etnichnoho Skladu Naselennya Ukrayiny ta iyi Rehioniv (Kyiv: IOM, 1998), pp. 68–69; N. A. Shul'ga, Velikoe pereselenie: repatrianty, bezhentsy, trudovye migranty (Kyiv: Institut sotsiologii, NAN Ukrainy, 2002), pp. 605–654; Mary Frances Muzzi, “Ukrainian Press Surveys, March-May 2002,” unpublished manuscript, Kennan Institute, Washington, 2001; Olena Nikolayenko, “Migration in Ukraine, 1998–2001. Annotated Bibliography,” unpublished manuscript, Kennan Institute, Washington, 2001.Google Scholar

50. Afghan leaders and local officials concur, for example, that the per capita crime rate among Kyiv's Afghan community has remained far lower than that of native-born city residents (interview, Mokhammed Zekriia Khamnava, Sudkhan Dzhamat, and Abdul Mokhammed Iadchari, Afghan community leaders, Kyiv, 30 June 2000; interview, Yurii Vasyliovych Buznicki, Chairman, Ukrainian Charitable Foundation “Migration,” Kyiv, 29 June 2000).Google Scholar

51. Migrant Profile, Kennan Institute Survey of Migrant Families, Kyiv, June-November 2001.Google Scholar

52. Vitalii Riaboshapka, “S segodniashnego dnia Troeshchinskii rynok prekrashchaet rabotu.”Google Scholar

53. “Urban social sustainability” is defined by Richard Stren and Mario Polese as “policies and institutions that have the overall effect of integrating diverse groups and cultural practices in a just and equitable fashion” (Richard Stren and Mario Polese, “Understanding the New Sociocultural Dynamics of Cities: Comparative Urban Policy in a Global Context,” in Richard Stren and Mario Polese, eds, The Social Sustainability of Cities: Diversity and the Management of Change [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000], pp. 3–38). For further discussion of the applicability of Stren and Polese's conception of “urban social sustainability” to the case of Kyiv's migrants, see Nancy E. Popson and Blair A. Ruble, “A Test of Urban Social Sustainability: Societal Responses to Kyiv's ‘Non-Traditional’ Migrants,” Urban Anthropology, Vol. 30, No. 4, 2001, pp. 381–409.Google Scholar