Russian-Speaking Diaspora in Turkey: The Geopolitics of Migration in the Black Sea Region

Abstract

This chapter aims to identify the diasporic experiences of Russian-speaking migrants, refugees and travellers in the context of geopolitical, cultural and historical relations between Turkey and Russia. Since the end of the Cold War period, the deregulation of the markets in the Black Sea region has accelerated the processes of human mobilization, and economic and cultural exchange between Turkey and Russia, creating a regional space of interaction that undermined the bounded spaces of nationhood and ethnicity. Whilst Turkey and Russia adopted overtly regional cooperation strategies to rebrand their official regional geopolitical identities, Turkey has become a regional hub for highly gendered migration flows from the post-Soviet countries around the Black Sea. Particularly cities like Istanbul and Antalya attracted Russian-speaking female migrants as gendered sites for transnational cultural and economic exchange. This chapter assesses the evolving trajectory of Russian diasporic communities under different geopolitical and historical circumstances.