By empty (2/8/2006 issue of the CACI Analyst)
More members of Kyrgyzstan\'s Russian- speaking community are willing to immigrate to Russia, Russian Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Yevgeny Shmagin told journalists on Wednesday. \"There was a decline in immigrant rates since 2000. But the number of people willing to move to Russia as permanent residence has risen following the events of March 2005,\" Shmagin said.
More members of Kyrgyzstan\'s Russian- speaking community are willing to immigrate to Russia, Russian Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Yevgeny Shmagin told journalists on Wednesday. \"There was a decline in immigrant rates since 2000. But the number of people willing to move to Russia as permanent residence has risen following the events of March 2005,\" Shmagin said. \"Nearly 25,000 Kyrgyz citizens immigrated to Russia in 2005. The number of potential immigrants is still much higher than it was before March 2005,\" he said. \"If this trend persists, more than half of Kyrgyzstan\'s Russian-speaking population will leave the country within the next ten years,\" the ambassador said. \"Immigration applications are being submitted not only by ethnic Russians, but also people of over 20 ethnicities, including people of Kyrgyz and Tajik origin,\" he said. \"The people who want to move to Russia mainly name economic reasons. But 2005 also added security concerns to the list,\" Shmagin said. (Interfax)