The long migration home for Oralmans

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ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- “In the morning I wake up, look out the window and I cannot believe that I am in Kazakhstan.

“I am afraid that all these years are a dream, and I am still in China. When I reassure myself everything is OK, my heart is at ease and free”.

Six years ago, Tanjaryk, now 25, moved with his parents from China to Almaty under a repatriation programme for ethnic Kazakhs. While his family had lived in China for several generations, they never quite fit in, continuing to speak Kazakh as their first language.

When the Chinese government began to eliminate Kazakh language schools and required fluency in Chinese in order to attend college, the family decided to leave. They took advantage of the repatriation programme launched 18 years ago.

Some 192,000 families, or 760,000 Oralmans, as the repatriates are known, have taken advantage of the programme, now called Nurly Kosh (Blessed Migration). The programme reimburses relocation costs, and provides repatriates with money for housing and financial support. A percentage of seats in universities and other institutions of higher learning are set aside for the Oralmans.

“Just in the last 10 years, around a million Kazakhs settled in the republic”, said Almaty State University sociologist Azimbai Gali.

“The actual number of Kazakhs arriving in Kazakhstan is significantly higher than those cited”.

Tanjaryk received a university degree in architecture – and learned Russian. The money the government gave them helped his family build a home in the suburbs and Tanjaryk now earns a living through farming.

In 2009, President Nursultan Nazarbayev raised the number of families to 20,000 from 15,000 annually. The government has budgeted 17 billion tenge (about US $130 M) for the migrants.

“I see only positive sides to the return of the Oralmans”,Dos Koshim, leader of the national patriotic movement Ult Tagdyry, told Central Asia Online. “The duty of the Kazakh government is to return people who had to leave the country during the difficult years”.

Thanks to the Oralmans, said Gali, the proportion of ethnic Kazakhs in Kazakhstan has grown from 48 percent of the total population in 1989 to about 67 percent in 2009.

“They also help fill the outflow of Slavic and German populations abroad”, he said. “By 2009 we succeeded in restoring the population to the size it had in 1989. The rapid reproduction of Kazakhs and the new repatriates will ensure the sustained growth of the population of Kazakhstan from now on”.

A large number of ethnic Slavs and Germans left Kazakhstan between 1991 and 2000, taking advantage of repatriation programs and freedom to leave the country. But Gali says the movement of Kazakhs into and out of the country is nothing new.

“The migrational exchange of Kazakhs from the near and far abroad has been continuous since the very inception of the Kazakh Khanate”, said Gali. “… Some left the territory in hard times and returned in times of stabilisation. Migration is a form of existence for the Kazakhs.”

But life for the repatriated Oralmans is not always easy. According to the programme, roughly half of the repatriated families lack housing, and the programme’s authors write: “There is no multifaceted approach or co-ordination between state administrative bodies engaged in resolving migration issues”. They say a third of all working-age Oralmans are unemployed, and that despite reserved spots in higher education institutions it is difficult for them to get an education.

All families of five or more people receive about 833,000 tenge ($5,500) for housing. Tanjaryk said his family used that money to build a foundation for a house, and then built the rest on their own. Asar, the ancient Kazakh custom of neighbours, friends and relatives helping build a home, assisted them in construction.

“I am not complaining”, he said. “It is enough that I am not a second-class citizen here. I have the ability to work and I am thankful.”

“Four or five years ago,… it was possible to buy a house on the money they were allocated. In this time of economic crisis, you can’t even buy a bathroom. The authorities should commit themselves to providing the Oralmans with housing”, Koshim said.

While repatriates from post-Soviet countries settle relatively easily due to similarities in mentality, education and knowledge of the Russian language, it is more complicated for people from the “far abroad”.

“Mongolian Oralmans have problems of the everyday sort because they still live in the 18th and 19th centuries and are psychologically unable to adapt”, said Koshim.

The biggest challenge for Oralmans from China and Mongolia, according to him, is the widespread use of the Russian language in Kazakhstan. “They did not expect to face problems in their everyday lives and with employment due to this ignorance.”

With some ethnic Slavic migrants now wishing to return, the repatriation programme has been changed to accept not only ethnic Kazakhs, but others who left Kazakhstan and now wish to return.

Some however see a problem with the inflow of the Oralmans.

“If one part of Kazakhstan’s population understands and wants to help, then the second (ethnic Slavs) is outraged that for years they have not been able to receive apartments and the Oralmans will get them out of turn. Five or six years ago local residents even picketed (in protest)”, Koshim said.