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Avdashkin A. A. In Search of Concentration Patterns of Chinese Migrants in Russian Cities

A. A. Avdashkin
South Ural State University,
Chelyabinsk State University
Chelyabinsk, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0001-8169-2755
E-mail: adrianmaricka@mail.ru

 

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ABSTRACT. The paper examines the settlement patterns of Chinese migrants in Russian cities. The author focused on the urban locations, which the residents and the media called Chinatowns. These are the Chinese market neighborhood in Chelyabinsk, the Tagansky Row district in Yekaterinburg, and Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg. Comparing these locations allows us to understand the mechanisms behind the concentration of Chinese migrants in certain territories of the city and the construction of such locations by the host country. The empirical base comprises the materials from the author’s interviews, participant observation, and publications in print and electronic media. The study’s conceptual framework is the theory of mobility and the idea of the right to the city. The examined locations share a particular trait: the formation of the migrant infrastructure — cafes and shops, hairdressing salons, nightclubs, and various services. Although the locations in Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg are directly connected to Chinese markets, the Chinese are not in the majority there. Chelyabinsk is an example of the emergence and subsequent deconstruction of a large Chinese market, resulting in the disappearance of an extensive settlement area of migrants from China. The situation is reversed in Yekaterinburg: the Chinese market has survived and accumulated a visible Chinese community. St. Petersburg presents a new version of the emerging location: a business cluster to serve the flow of Chinese tourists, associated with a change in the collective portrait of Chinese migration rather than a market.

 

KEYWORDS: migration, Chinese diaspora, Chinatown, urban space, markets, concentration of migrants

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8600-2023-2(20)-215-239
УДК 316

 

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