#auslaender

Relative frequency of Russian citizenship in Germany at the district level (2014, map by Michael Sander. Dark green: most frequent foreign nationality in this district. White: 6th-most common foreign nationality or less. 

RUSSIANS IN GERMANY

There’s a significant Russian population in Germany (German: Deutsch-Russen or Russischsprachige in Deutschland). The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 triggered mass immigration to the West, with Germany being the top destination, mostly for economic and ethnic reasons. Russians and other Russian-speaking ethnic groups are notable among other migrant communities for their concentration in the area of the former East Germany. Population data from 2012 records 1,213,000 Russian migrants residing in Germany - this includes current and former citizens of the Russian Federation as well as former citizens of the Soviet Union. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports that about 3,500,000 speakers of Russian live in Germany, split largely into 3 ethnic groups:

- Ethnic Russians

- Russians descended from German migrants to the East (known as Aussiedler)

- Russian Jews

Immigration to Germany surged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. According to Global Commission on International Migration research, "In the 1990s ethnic Germans and Jews comprised the largest components of emigration, and the most attractive destinations were Germany, Israel and the United States." Between 1992 and 2000 Germany purportedly received 550,000 emigrants from Russia, that is 60% of the total amount emigrating to the 3 main destinations. 

Earlier in history, particularly during the 17th century, a number of Germans migrated to Russia and modern-day Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Article 116 of Germany's Basic Law, approved in 1949, provides individuals of German heritage with the right of return to Germany and the means to acquire German citizenship if they suffered persecution after WW2 as a result of their German heritage. As a result, roughly 3.6 million ethnic Germans moved to West Germany between 1950 and 1996. These German descendents increasingly petitioned to return to Germany under First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev. According to historian John Glad, by 1957 the petitioners, commonly known as "Aussiedlers" or transferred settlers, filed over 100,000 applications a year to migrate to West Germany - several thousands returned in the 1970s. The flow of Aussiedler increased with the breakup of the Soviet Union. Between 1992 and 2007, a total of 1,797,084 ethnic Germans from the former USSR emigrated to Germany. Of this total number 923,902 were from Kazakhstan, 693,348 from Russia, 73,460 from Kyrgyzstan, 40,560 from Ukraine, 27,035 from Uzbekistan, and 14,578 from Tajikistan. Numbers peaked in 1994, then gradually began to decline. The number of non-German relatives who emigrated along with them is not known, but many if not most are presumably members of Germany's ethnic Russian community. The number of emigrated Aussiedlers fluctuates as many retained housing in the former Soviet Union - some are presumed to have returned to their residences in Former Soviet Republics.

After WW2, Germany's Jewish population was 15,000, a small percentage of the country's pre-war Jewish population of about 500,000. That number grew to 30,000 by the late 1980s. Then between 1991 and 2005, more than 200,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union moved to Germany. In total, the Berman Jewish DataBank estimates that over 225,000 Jews from the Former Soviet Union immigrated to Germany between 1989 and 2012. Many, speaking Yiddish as well as Russian, picked up the German language easily as Yiddish is related. The Berman Jewish DataBank estimates "Germany's core Jewish population at 118,000 in 2013," of which all but about 5,000-6,000 are post-Soviet immigrants. Growth began to diminish in 2005 when the government replaced the special quota immigration law (Kontingentsflüchtlingsgesetz) with more restrictive rules (Zuwanderungsgesetz).

Other Russian speakers in Germany fall into a few different categories. The German Statistisches Bundesamt (Federal Statistical Office) reported the following figures for Russian speakers from the year 2000: legal aliens (365,415), political asylees (20,000), students (7,431), family members of German citizens (10,000-15,000), special workers in fields of science and culture (5,000-10,000), and diplomatic corps (5,000). 

Most Russian-Germans have assimilated and integrated well into German society. As with other immigrant groups, there remain some contemporary issues. German authorities have been concerned that the high number of Russian immigrants self-segregating in certain neighborhoods hinders social integration. This has led to restrictions on immigration from Russia and the former Soviet Union. Other issues have included crime, drugs, poverty, and unemployment. The Aussiedler have raised many issues. Although they were expected to assimilate rapidly into German society, Aussiedler and their descendants are struggling with their identity, and most consider themselves Russian. In Russia, due to outside pressure, they had become assimilated into Russian society, in most cases speaking Russian as their first or only language, and this has made their return difficult. Native Germans typically consider them Russian, just as they consider German-Americans visiting Germany to be American, despite their German surnames.

Hey foreigners, if you want to live in Austria you need to learn to speak & write German as good as this guy.* 

... arbeitet, dann heißt es, dass die Ausländer "unsere" Arbeit wegnehmen.

... nicht arbeitet, dann heißt es, dass sie zu faul zum Arbeiten sind und nur Geld vom Staat abzocken.

Was sollen sie denn sonst machen? o_0

Still readjusting to the keyboard...Gonna be some slow typing...

We left Oklahoma on Monday the 5th of March, 2012 at 4:40 pm Oklahoma City time, were at the airport 1:40-ish pm OKC time. We sat at our gate for...I dunno, an hour or so. Frau Boudreau spent it teaching Frau Losher- the adjunct who has never had any of the GAPPsters as students- the names of all the Amis and their partners. Some people went for some last-minute Sonic, which Kira and I also did. Last Blue Coconut Slushie for three weeks!

The flight to Dallas was short, but I met Haley- sorta. She and I had never spoken before. She was next to me on the eight-hour flight too. My row was Ricky, Hannah, Jared, Haley, me.

It all felt like a dream...Sorta. But not. As excited as I was, I also found myself more relaxed and at peace than I'd been in a while.

Most people were trying to sleep on the eight-hour flight. Hannah and Ricky made good use of each other's shoulders, and at one point, Haley and I looked over and compared the sleeping Jared to the sleeping Ricky: Jared looked adorable and boyish, Ricky looked adorable and older. I think part of it was Ricky's facial hair compared to Jared's...not facial hair.

We stopped in London Heathrow, and everyone scrambled to get food. I wasn't hungry- or maybe I was just lazy...details, details- so I stuff-sat for...everyone.

The Travel Rules of Frau Boudreau:

1. Nimmer allein. Never alone. Always have someone with you.

2. If you want to leave, have someone else watch your stuff. Like you, your stuff is never alone.

Our last flight consisted of us all going "WE'RE ALMOST THERE" and thinking of how we have to speak German. Small freakouts.

Then we actually GOT to Tegel...Oi. The first German we all met was the passport dude, who was this angry German man sitting at this tall desk...

We could see the crowd of German GAPPsters as we got our luggage. Glass windows! They had signs and were all squeey like us, and some of them were obviously looking for their Ami- as some of the Amis were looking for their German (this theme of searching for each other will carry on throughout the trip).

I think I was the first to get all my luggage, so I was the first one out. I probably had the most awkward smile on my face- I mean, I was excited and sleep-deprived and...well, it must have made for an awkward smile! I found my partner Yasemin easily, though.

SHE IS SO CUTE. She's a bit shorter than me and petite, and her hair is like dirty blond and wavy-curly-ish and long, and her eyes are blue, and she's just so ADORABLE. She was all smiley too, and she handed me a bag with a Kaethe-Kollowitz Oberschule (our partner school, KKOS) hoodie, a box of Kinder Schokolade- GERMANY'S GIFT TO MAN, I SWEAR- a bar of Caramel Milka, and a bag of Haribo. Welcome to Germany!

Frau B just sent us away from there. Yep. She was just like, "Find your partner and leave. Uh, bye!"

Got home to my own room- MY OWN ROOM. Never had my room! I unpacked, gave all the gifts.

I had two little host sisters, Dilara and Sara. Dilara is twelve and Sara seven- she turns eight in April. I met my host mother, Merih, and my host father, Herr Gross. Merih is a Turkish Muslim, so there was no pork in the house. She also always had Turkish tea on the stove- and when they first asked if I wanted some, I was like, ECSTATIC. I love tea, and I was worried that maybe I wouldn't be able to have it as often in Germany...Nope, tea every day! Herr Gross is a tall German man who looks quite intimidating if he doesn't smile. He's that awkward "I'm a father" friendly, and he reminded me a lot of my Baba.

Yasemin, Dilara, Sara, and I went on a walk at sunset, and I learned the word for sunset- Sonnuntergang. Sunrise is Sonnaufgang. We walked to a small park, and they had these disk things...We all sat on one and took turns spinning it. It was pretty tight.