Russian German immigrants Social characteristics, networks and self-image

Abstract

At least 2.3 million Russian German immigrants have come to Germany from the Soviet Union and its successor states since 1987. During the 1990s, their integration was frequently called into question. Then, they almost disappeared entirely from public awareness as a group. Many of them achieved a certain degree of prosperity through manual labour and often badly-paid jobs in the service sector. Nowadays, a Russian German middle class has emerged that is well integrated on the employment market. However, this is overshadowed by the attention paid to ``problem areas'' with a large number of immigrants, to free churches promoting an orthodox form of religion or to those individuals who have been receptive to the lure of Moscow's diaspora policies. This fails to acknowledge the heterogeneity of Russian Germans as a group today, and the difficulty in identifying them as a separate group in German society overall.