Country: Russia

Group: Roma

Date Finalized: 2/12/22

Team: Domenik Valdivia (lead), Jacob Kebe, Mason McNeel, Anusha Natarajan

Content Warnings:

Approximate Time Period:

            The Roma in Russia are a historically oppressed group that have experienced forced displacement. The Roma began migrating to Russia in the 15th century (Minority Rights Group, 2021). Since that time, different Russian governments have a long history of restricting Roma movement and settlment and displacing them from their homes.  As early as 1795, the city of St. Petersburg banned Roma from entering. In the 1930s, the Russian government deported many Roma to Siberia (Minority Rights Group, 2020). Later, in the 1950s, the government banned “nomadism” which forced Roma to find other regions to wander or to eventually settle in colonies (Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial Brussels, n.d.). In post-Soviet Russia, the government privatized land occupied by Roma, forcing them to move (Cviklova, 2015). For example, in 2016, the government destroyed 121 Roma homes forcing residents to relocate and find their own housing situations without government assistance. Additionally, Russian law states all unregistered structures be demolished for reconstruction of legally registered structures (Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial Brussels, n.d.). Roma also currently struggle to obtain permanent housing as they have no possession of legal documents to display ownership of property.

The data quality was ranked 2 out of 3 because there is a quantity of reliable evidence regarding the Roma population, but most of the information was from one source.

Sources

  1. Cviklova, L. (2015). Direct and indirect racial discrimination of Roma people in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and the Russian Federation. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38(12), 2140–2155. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.1042892
  2. Minority Rights Group. Roma (2021, February 6). Retrieved February 5, 2022, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/roma-15
  3. Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial Brussels. (2021). Input to the report on “Effective promotion of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities.” Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial Brussels.