“This solution is actually having the reverse effect: legal traders are suffering and illegal traders will find their way to the other side anyway with the help of corrupt officials,” said a Western diplomat, who preferred to remain anonymous. Indeed, corruption of the border services has been one of the key reasons why smuggling has blossomed at Russia’s borders. Yet Moscow seems to refuse to understand that. “Azerbaijan naturally accepts the Russian government’s decision,” said first deputy Prime minister Abbas Abbasov, who is responsible for bilateral economic relations. Official Baku pretends that the intensified regime at the border does not bother the government, yet in reality the economy suffers, as do the business interests of Azerbaijani entrepreneurs.

No exact number for Azerbaijanis living and working in Russia is available, but rough estimates indicate that there are between 1,5-2 million Azerbaijanis working in Russia as labor migrants. They are mainly engaged in the retail sale of agricultural products, for which Azerbaijan is a main supplier due to its warm climate.

Russia often threatens with imposing visa regime for these labor migrants to achieve political and economic goals in its relations with Baku. The Azerbaijani leadership has to take this factor into consideration as the arrival of such a large number of unemployed people back to Azerbaijan would result in a difficult socio-economic crisis and potentially political instability.

It is not the first time that Moscow pursues these measures to fight terrorism in the Northern Caucasus. In 1994, after the breakout of the first Chechen war, Russia closed down the border with Azerbaijan and Georgia, claiming that terrorists in Chechnya get their supplies through these countries, a claim that was repeatedly refuted by the leadership of Azerbaijan and Georgia. But as one political commentator in Azerbaijan’s private ANS TV channel noted, “If they accuse our border troops in helping the smugglers, what about their own ones? Why not protect the border from their own side?”

The tighter regime in the border already caused the price for goods imported from Russia, such as sugar and butter, to increase. The cancellation of the flights to Russian cities caused the increased usage of the railroad system. The majority of Azerbaijanis, who travel to Russia for work purposes now have to use railroads, which, in turn, leads to overpressure on Azerbaijani railcars.

These so-called security measures have taken place in parallel with the intimidation and murder of ethnic Azerbaijanis in the Russian cities. The situation has become especially unbearable in Moscow, where Azerbaijanis and other representatives of Caucasian nations are targets of attacks by skinhead, neo-fascist groups. These groups of young men pursue the goal of cleaning Russia from “outsiders” and use terror acts to spread racial and ethnic hatred. In the past month, several Azerbaijanis were severely beaten and murdered in Moscow and another cities of Russia by skin-head groups.

Meanwhile, the residents of some villages in the Gusar region of Azerbaijan, which is located on the border with Russia, suffer from the current border regime. They can not pass to the other side of the village, where their relatives live and with whom they trade on a daily basis. Cut off from the main supply of groceries, villagers in the remote mountains suffer from the shortage of daily necessities.