The Caucas lies before …

At the LCSR regular seminar on May, 31, Evgeniy Varshaver and Yegor Lazarev presented a report on their expedition on Caucasus.

On May, 31 of 2012, Evgeniy Varshaver and Yegor Lazarev, researchers at the LCSR, presented a report on their expedition on Caucasus at the regular seminar of the Laboratory.    

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During the last April and the beginning of May LSCR researches accompanied with Vera Mironova from the University of Maryland made a trip on Transcaucasia. In the expedition they conducted a set of projects. Evgeniy was interested in study of migratory networks in Azerbaijan and Yegor focused on the problems of social status and political attitudes of refugees generated by many armed conflicts which took place at the region in the two last decades, especially Nagorno-Karabakh War of 1992-1994 and pogroms of Armenians and Azerbaijani in other areas after the Collapse of the Soviet Union, and also South Ossetia war of 2008.    

It is need to say a few words about some preliminary findings of both projects. In Azerbaijan Evgeniy Varshaver conducted a series of interviews on the matter of migratory experience. Almost all of Evgeniy’s respondents have an experience of visiting Russia or relatives who lives there. It is interesting that Azerbaijani move to Russia not only to work. There is a wide-spread pattern among young men in the country to visit Russia with the aim to relax after the army or study years. From the other side, the number of labour migrants moving from Azerbaijan to Russia has been decreasing in the last years due to the impressive economic growth.   

Some people even go back to Azerbaijan. However, it is a marginal strategy, which is chosen in some extreme conditions, for instance, when someone has troubles with business partners or authorities in Russia.  Need to take care of aged parents, serious disease, or wish for living old ages at home are among other reasons for return. Nevertheless, that people who are relatively young usually say that they are going to visit Russia again in the near future.

Concerning the problem of refugees, Yegor found out that despite almost twenty years have passed away after the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict refugees both in Armenia and Azerbaijan have not been assimilated in the received states. Moreover, while in Azerbaijan main difficulties for refugees are generated by bad economic performance of the country that in the case of Armenia displaced people faced hostility from their fellow citizens due primarily to cultural differences between refugees and natives.

Another interesting finding about refugees is that there are less nationalistic and aggressive than other citizens. One possible explanation for that is negative experience of being a victim of armed conflict. As usual, refugees also demonstrate positive attitudes toward authorities and high level of paternalism.    

There were many other interesting topics in the report including also some road impressions of the travelers, not only scientific subjects. It should be mentioned that the seminar was broadcasted in HSE Perm Branch in addition to familiar sites in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Young students from Perm took a part actively into discussion after the presentation, as well as leading researches of LCSR Eduard Ponarin, Julia Zelikova, Andrey Shchebak, Evgenia Nadezhdina, and Maria Ivanova.

A rich empirical material was collected during the expedition, and it can be used for preparing some interesting and topical papers. So the main task for Evgeniy and Yegor in the respect of their Caucasian projects now is to treat, analyze and explain their observations. We are waiting for first published results!     

By Boris Sokolov