Stereotypes regarding Central Asian migrants’ perception as representatives of the single region culture

Abstract

The relevance of the studies regarding all levels of cultural interactions between the nations of Central Asia and the Russians can be explained by a number of factors. The people from these countries used to belong to one territorial-political entity of the USSR; these countries used to be geographically closed to Russia. Today the Central Asian countries share similar economic and political interests, stick to the similar strategic priorities as does Russia. The Sverdlovsk region (the Russian Federation) annually receives large migration flows. Significant amount of migrants come from CIS countries, in particular, from Central Asia. In general, the majority of migrants from the CIS countries (The Commonwealth of Independent States) who are currently living in Russia (the data 2018) come from Central Asian countries (67,7 %). The migrants of foreign ethnicities from Central Asia not only fall into the ranks of labour and student migrants on annual basis, but also obtain Russian citizenship. Thus, the issue of perception of Central Asian migrants’ cultural characteristics by the Russians remains relevant. The results of the surveys of Ekaterinburg citizens (2016 and 2019) show that according to their perception they see the migrants from Central Asia as the representatives of the single cultural environment; there is no differentiation between ethnic groups in their views. This fact was confirmed by the content analysis of comments from Russian residents in the group “Science in the Urals”. It showed that the a percentage of Russians interested in this problem, first of all, shows a negative attitude towards migrants from Central Asian countries, stereotypically equating all ethnic groups of migrants from this region.