The number of Tajik nationals wanting to leave Tajikistan for Russia for permanent residence is increasing.
According to the Russian Interior Ministry’s office on migration issues in Tajikistan, 2,500 Tajik national last year applied to the office for permit to leave for Russia under the State Program for Assisting Compatriots Residing Abroad in Their Voluntary Resettlement in the Russian Federation.
1,700 of them reportedly received program participant certificates.
Last year, nearly 7,000 families (5,700 people) get permit to leave for the Russian Federation under the program for supporting voluntary migration. Nearly 1,400 families (5,700 people) last year left Tajikistan for Russia for permanent residence.
More than 20,000 national of Tajikistan were granted Russian citizenship last year under the voluntary resettlement program alone.
In all, 35,700 nationals of Tajikistan got Russian citizenship in 2018.
For comparison, 29,000 Tajik national were granted Russian citizenship in 2017 and only 10,000 Tajik nationals were granted Russian citizenship in 2012. It means that the number of Tajik nationals wanting to get Russian passport is increasing.
The State Program for Assisting Compatriots Residing Abroad in Their Voluntary Resettlement in the Russian Federation was approved in 2006 and launched in January 2007. Implementation of the program has been carried out in stages. According some sources, Russian government officials estimated that more than 25 million people were eligible for the repatriation program, “many of them ethnic Russians who found themselves living in former Soviet republics after the Soviet collapse in 1991.”
The program has been promoted in several countries, including the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). According to the Russian government, most requests for participation in the program come from compatriots living in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Ukraine, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
The program designates the areas in which new arrivals will live in Russia, providing them with some benefits on the condition that they stay in these regions for at least two years.
Under the dual citizenship agreement reached between Tajikistan and Russia in 1996 “each nation recognizes its citizens’ entitlement to obtain citizenship of a second country without being required to relinquish their original citizenship.”
