Russia to test migrants seeking residency on Crimea

Foreigners applying for residency or work permits in Russia will soon have to answer politicized questions about the newly annexed Crimean Peninsula if a stiffened language and history exam reported by local media Monday is approved.

The exam, which is compulsory for all immigrants seeking work in Russia, would replace a version that took effect earlier this year. Like the current test, applicants will have to demonstrate proficiency in the Russian language and score at least 60 percent on questions ranging from law and civics to the identity of famed Russian figure skater Irina Rodnina, a three-time Olympic champion who is now a pro-Kremlin lawmaker.

According to questions from the new test published in Izvestia newspaper, Crimean history will now come into focus — specifically, the peninsula's historical ties to Russia. Immigrants will have to name the republic that “was joined to” Russia in 2014, as well as answer the question “In which century did Crimea join Russia under Catherine the Great?” (Answer: the 18th.)

No official explanation has been given for why Russia has decided to update the exam, which was introduced in 2012 amid a widening crackdown on immigration. Al Jazeera America’s attempts to contact the Russian Embassy in Washington for comment were unsuccessful.

But the timing of the new changes did not seem a coincidence. Last spring Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in apparent retaliation for a pro-Western uprising in Kiev. Russian President Vladimir Putin framed the move as a reclamation, noting that Crimea belonged to Russia under the Soviet Union until 1954. Under the watchful eyes of Russian soldiers who were occupying the peninsula last year, Crimea's mainly Russian-speaking residents voted in favor of rejoining Russia in a referendum.

Kiev and its Western backers, including the United States, declared the annexation a violation of international law. They also accuse Russia of arming and egging on the pro-Russian separatist movement in eastern Ukraine, which is currently under a cease-fire agreement. The face-off has revived Cold War rhetoric from both sides, stoking Russian nationalism and sending Putin’s popularity soaring.

The new residency test fits with the Kremlin's far-reaching efforts to promote its narrative on the events in Ukraine. Last year the Education Ministry introduced a program called We Are United that provides slide presentations and lesson plans for schoolteachers that emphasize Crimea's historically Russian character.

The program also explains that Putin acted amid the “increasing political instability and criminalization of the situation” in Ukraine, which led Crimea to hold a referendum "in full compliance with democratic procedures and rules of international law," according to the ministry's website.

“The Russian government very much wants its own people to know its preferred version of history, and now it seems they want foreigners to know it too,” said Derek Bloom, an American lawyer who has been living and practicing law in Russia for two decades.

But Bloom, a partner in the Moscow law office of Marks and Sokolov, said the changes seemed incremental. He noted that Russia's requirements for residency are not entirely dissimilar to  the United States’. Bloom, who gained residency in Russia before the test was introduced, is married to a Russian woman, who has gone through the U.S. version of the process.

In these types of test, he said, “certainly there’s a desire to bring up certain facts from the past” and not others.

About 440,000 immigrants have taken the residency or work permit versions of the current test since it was launched, with 95 percent passing, Izvestia reported. According to the latest government statistics, however, Russia has seen a net exodus of migrant labor this year due to the sinking ruble — a result both of plummeting oil prices and Western sanctions imposed over Russia's actions in Ukraine.