Understanding Migration: T-Chart Activity—Russia

Section 3: Using T-Charts and Writing Prompts to Explore Migration Section 3 contains a series of parallel activities that explore specific real-world examples of migration. Each short unit contains a simple reading, written for a middle-level audience, a T-chart activity, and a writing prompt, which can be done as an individual class assignment, in small groups, as an entire class, or as homework. Case Study 5: Migration from the Former Soviet Republics to Russia The Soviet Union consisted of fifteen "soviet socialist republics," many of which were originally independent nations that had been conquered by the Russian Empire or over the course of the 1917 revolution that established the Soviet Union. In 1989, the last Soviet census listed 128 separate ethnic groups living in the fifteen republics. At the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, more than twenty-five million ethnic Russians were living in the former-Soviet republics outside of Russia. Because Russians formed the dominant group during the Soviet years and often got the best jobs and housing, after the transition Russians still living in these republics were often treated poorly. Students are asked to consider whether these ethnic Russians should try to remain in the post-Soviet republics, or whether to try to make a new life in Russia.Latin American StudiesMiddle Eastern StudiesRussian, East European, and Eurasian StudiesSouth Asia Institut