building, building everywhere

As I have mentioned before, there is currently so much building and renovation going on around this area, that the ongoing health-and-safety(not) theme is just too easy to illustrate, frighteningly so. I read an article recently about Tajiks, who make up a large percentage of the mainly immigrant building labourers. Tajikistan’s migration service reported that during the first eight months of 2011, the bodies of 603 Tajik gastarbeiters had been repatriated from Russia. Of these, reports James Brooke, 67 were attributed to “attacks by nationalist groups” - which is bad enough in itself - but which also means over 500 deaths on building sites in less than a year.


And today is Unity Day, a day off and a yearly excuse for Russia's nationalist extremists to march, reminding these Tajiks that their position in Moscow continues to be fragile in every way.