Moscow is an incredibly congested city -- the fourth most populated city in the world the last time I checked. Mass immigration is a new thing here. In Soviet days, although of course there were migrations, one did not have MASS migrations as occur today. Georgians mostly lived in Georgia, Armenians in Armenia, etc. It's actually kind of interesting to see ethnic neighborhoods forming in Moscow before my eyes -- Armenians, for example, move here and then invite all their kin. Such things did not exist in Soviet days.
Re: immigrants and Luzhkov. Moscow has a system, in total contradiction to to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, according to which you need a special stamp in your passport to live here (Russians carry their passports with them everywhere). This is not just immigrants, but anybody from a city that is not Moscow. Moscow is almost a city-state.
--- Jerry Monaco <monacojerry at gmail.com> wrote:
> I suppose this would be a fine place for Woj to rage
> against "populism." It
> is certainly a good example of Woj's usual argument.
> I know very little
> about Luzhkov except what I hear from my Russian
> chess playing friends from
> Moscow.
>
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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