Russia encompasses the world’s second-largest migrant population in absolute numbers. This chapter explores the role migrants play in contemporary Russian identity discourse, focusing on the topic that ordinary Muscovites identified as most important during the 2013 Moscow mayoral election campaign: the large number of labour migrants in the capital. It explores how the decision to open up the elections into a more genuine contest compelled the regime candidate, incumbent mayor Sergei Sobianin, to adopt a more aggressive rhetoric on migration than otherwise officially endorsed by the Kremlin. The chapter concludes that the Moscow electoral experiment, allowing other candidates than the regime’s own hand-picked, ‘controllable’ sparring partners to run, contributed to pushing the borders of what mainstream politicians saw as acceptable positions on migrants and migration policy.
