DUSHANBE, September 25, 2013, Asia-Plus – The first group of migrants from Tajikistan to Russia have received certificates under an updated National Program for Supporting Voluntary Migration of the Compatriots Residing Abroad to the Russian Federation, also legally known as the State Program for Assisting Compatriots Residing Abroad in Their Voluntary Resettlement in the Russian Federation.

According to the Russian Embassy in Dushanbe, Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS)’s office in Dushanbe received more than 500 applications after the updated program for supporting voluntary migration took effect.

An official ceremony of granting the first nine certificates took place at FMS’s office in Dushanbe on September 24.

Under the program for supporting voluntary migration, some 5,500 people have left Tajikistan for the Russian Federation since 2007.

The State Program for Assisting Compatriots Residing Abroad in Their Voluntary Resettlement in the Russian Federation (2007 – October 2011) was approved in 2006 and launched in January 2007.  Implementation of the program has been carried out in stages until 2012.  According to The New York Times , Russian government officials estimated that more than 25 million people were eligible for the repatriation program, “many of them ethnic Russians who found themselves living in former Soviet republics after the Soviet collapse in 1991.”

The program has been promoted in several countries, including the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).  According to the Russian government, most requests for participation in the program come from compatriots living in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Ukraine, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

The program designates the areas in which new arrivals will live in Russia, providing them with some benefits on the condition that they stay in these regions for at least two years.

By Russian president’s decree of September 14, 2012 the program became open-ended and certificates granted to the program participants before January 1, 2013 are valid until January 1, 2015.