Archive · 2022 · From the print edition of Tuesday 4 October 2022, Vol. 30, No. 9,254
NewsNurzhan families wait for word from sons in Russia
Since Russia’s mobilization order, young men with Russian passports have been coming home or sending their families ahead, and recruiters are calling on migrants.
NURZHAN — Since Russia announced its partial mobilization last month, young men of Iradi origin who hold Russian citizenship have been returning to Nurzhan, or sending their wives and children there, according to families, the bus stations and the Irad Fellow-Countrymen’s Association in Moscow.
Tatyana Gorbunova’s son, who studied in Yekaterinburg and took Russian citizenship after graduating, put his wife and daughter on a bus to Nurzhan two weeks ago and has stayed behind for his job. “He calls every night,” she said. “I don’t sleep until he does.”
Migrants working in Russia on Kyrgyz and Kazakh passports, who are not liable to mobilization, report being approached by recruiters offering contract military service. The Department of Public Information has advised ISEZ residents working in Russia not to sign any military contract.
The fellow-countrymen’s association, which gives migrants legal advice, said its telephone lines had been busy since the order. An estimated 70,000 to 120,000 ISEZ residents work in Russia at the peak of the season, most of them Russian-speaking men from Nurzhan and Talas.