Nationalists vent anger against migrants

MOSCOW (AP):

Several thousand Russian nationalists rallied yesterday in Moscow, venting against the migrants they accuse of pushing up the crime rate and taking their jobs.

The protest took place on Unity Day, a national holiday established in 2005 to replace commemorations of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Many demonstrators carried Russian imperial flags. One group displayed a banner reading 'Young People Against Tolerance'.

Animosity is strong among nationalists against migrants from the former Soviet Central Asian republics and against non-Slavs from the largely Muslim Russian Caucasus region. Central Asian migrants are widely employed in big cities in construction and do other low-paid jobs that Russians are not eager to do.

The protesters, from tough-looking youths and neo-Nazis to older people, marched in a quiet southeast neighbourhood yesterday afternoon along a tree-lined boulevard.

The crowd has grown more middle-class since 2005 when the first march was held. A string of well-publicised crimes committed by migrants has embittered many Muscovites who see police as unwilling to persecute the perpetrators.

Authorities have largely ignored the flow of Central Asians migrants, neither trying to integrate the newcomers or cut on the immigration.

While some of the onlookers were displeased, other locals said they were supporting the march.