Moscow law-enforcers said on Friday they had discovered “a whole town” of makeshift cabins in northwestern Moscow, where about 2,000 illegal labor migrants live.
The discovery was made after nearby residents complained about their noisy neighbors. A probe showed that the land, which was de jure leased by Moscow authorities for agriculture purposes to a farm, “was de facto turned into a major supplier on the Moscow labor market,” a law-enforcement official said.
“Buses arrived there in the morning, took labor migrants to construction sites all over the city, and took them back in the evening,” the source said.
This is not the first time such settlements are found in Moscow. In April 2011 police discovered what it called an “underground city” of labor migrants in an abandoned bomb shelter in the capital’s east.
A total of 110 men and women were living in an underground bomb shelter behind a four-meter high concrete barbed wire fence. The facility had showers, bedrooms and even prayer rooms.
Russia has been struggling to stem the inflow of immigrant workers, most of whom come to Moscow and other major Russian cities from former Soviet Central Asian republics. Around ten percent of Russia’s workforce is thought to come from outside the country.