‘The Federal Migration Service’s Sverdlovsk Region division’s data on the number of foreign workers entering the region are incomplete, since the only information they get comes from Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg. According to the data I have, the number of foreign workers coming t o the region has halved since the beginning of the year. Most of the workers, who went home upon the end of the season, are now waiting for things to get more certain: it’s a well-known fact that the future of the region’s numerous construction projects is dubious at the moment,’ the leader of Yekaterinburg’s Tajik community Farukh Mirzoyev said to an UrBC reporter.

According to the Federal Migration Service’s Sverdlovsk Region division, about 12,000 foreigners have arrived in the region by March 1, 2009.

‘This is 30% less than a year earlier,’ says the division’s head Colonel Igor Semochkin.

‘In case things get better, the number of foreign workers in the region will rapidly reach the earlier levels,’ Mirzoyev added.