In May 2024, a Moscow court banned several online job postings seeking candidates “of Slavic appearance” as illegal under Russian anti-discrimination labor laws and anti-extremism statutes, calling their distribution “unlawful and criminally punishable.”
The ruling followed a similar decision by a different Moscow court that same year about job ads reading “only for Slavs,” an exclusionary requirement that is commonly included in real estate ads by Russian landlords seeking tenants.
But state entities continue to use similar discriminatory language in public tenders, according to findings by Systema, RFE/RL's Russian-language investigative unit, which also found such language being used by the government of a major industrial city.
“We are seeing more and more attacks on people of non-Slavic appearance. And at the state level, instead of fighting xenophobia, racist statements are made,” said Stefania Kulayeva, an expert at the respected rights group Memorial. “The authorities themselves provoke this hatred with statements by officials and security forces.”
In Dzerzhinsk, a city in the central Nizhny Novgorod region, the city government has published at least four tenders for cleaning services that said potential contractors should “be of Slavic appearance,” one as recently as last month, Systema found.
The Moscow branch of the Federal Center For Hygiene And Epidemiology published a tender in November also seeking cleaning services and requiring a “Slavic appearance.”
Neither the Dzerzhinsk city administration nor the Moscow branch of the Federal Center For Hygiene And Epidemiology responded to a request for comment in time for publication.
'Increase In Racist Violence'
Russian law explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of nationality or ethnicity, including during job hiring. And the constitution includes a clause guaranteeing equal rights and freedoms for citizens regardless of nationality or ethnic origin.
President Vladimir Putin himself regularly touts the country’s diverse ethnic and religious makeup, though he has endorsed what he calls the “dominance of Russian culture” among these groups, and critics accuse his government of co-opting openly xenophobic far-right groups for political expediency.
Ethnic Russians account for about 72 percent of the population, according to the 2021 census, though its accuracy has been questioned by sociologists. Native, non-Slavic ethnic groups include Tatars, Kalmyks, Buryats, and Chechens among many others. There are also about 10 million migrants from Central Asia living in Russia.
In a report released last month, the respected extremism monitor Sova Center said Russia has seen a “rapid increase in racist violence” since the spring of 2023.
Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, said in a report this week that Central Asian labor migrants are experiencing “increased xenophobic harassment, hate speech, and violence” since the deadly terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue outside Moscow on March 22, 2024.
Discriminatory hiring practices are not new for Russian government entities.
In 2018, the Moscow city government’s funeral-services monopoly said in a response to a potential contractor to install air conditioners that “ethnic Slavs only” should submit a bid.
That same year, an entity under the umbrella of Russia’s National Guard security forces, known as Rosgvardia, openly stated in a tender that entrance to its facilities was forbidden for foreigners and people of “Caucasian ethnicity” -- a blanket term describing the many ethnic groups who inhabit the mountainous Caucasus region, which encompasses parts of Russia and its southern neighbors.
'Ethnic Profiling Has Become The Norm'
Kulayeva told Systema that the situation with discrimination in Russia is changing, but not always for the better.
“If you look at the situation as a whole, employment bans for migrants are increasing, and discrimination based on nationality remains a common practice of employers,” Kulayeva said. “These requirements are contrary to the law, and in theory they can be challenged in court -- if there is a person who was not hired only because of his nationality.”
Racism in Russia manifests itself not only in personnel policy, but also in everyday life, Kulayeva said.
A police lieutenant colonel for the Moscow Oblast -- a federal subject that surrounds, but does not include, the capital city -- said at a briefing with local officials last year that a key task of the police force is to “brighten up” the region “so that it is not blackened, so to speak, by foreign citizens.”
In the conditions of Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine “and the growth of nationalism, it is not surprising that ethnic profiling has become the norm,” Kulayeva said.
