Overnight on 17 March, a Kyrgyz citizen raped a resident of Yakutsk, in the Sakha Republic in Russia’s Arctic. Though left in a car repair shop on the edge of the city, the woman managed to escape and inform the police. The 23-year-old man detained by police admitted to the charges against him and, on 18 March, he was charged with rape and abduction.
In response, angry residents of Yakutsk started gathering for spontaneous protests, destroying fruit and vegetable stands run by migrants from Central Asia - and then uploading the videos online. The “results” came quickly: a few days later, all the city’s fruit and vegetable stands were closed, it was harder (and more expensive) to call a taxi, or, indeed, to get anywhere on public transport.
The situation has now calmed down, but the head of Yakutia Aisen Nikolayev has now signed an order banning employers in 33 professions from employing migrant workers.
