Thousands of Russian citizens resettled in different cities in the South Caucasus region after the military invasion of Ukraine by the Russian state on 24 February 2022. DIASCON project researcher Vadim Romashov conducts research on war-induced migration. In collaboration with colleagues from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Germany, Georgia, and Russia he has collected extensive research material, including about 60 in-depth interviews with recent migrants and diverse ethnographic observations in Baku, Batumi, Tbilisi, and Yerevan. Together with the colleagues, Vadim presented preliminary results of this research at two academic conferences.
On November 25–26, 2022, he participated in a two-day conference on how wars affect cities and societies organized by the Center for Independent Social Research (CISR), Berlin. Romashov moderated a panel discussion titled “Relatively European cities”: Russian migrants in Yerevan, Tbilisi, Batumi and Baku. The panel discussed the reasons of migrants from Russia for leaving the country, their choices of place for migration, relationships and communication with local population, perceptions of their host cities, and experiences of living there. You can read more about Warning the Cities Conference on the website of CISR Berlin here (https://www.cisr-berlin.org/warning-the-cities). On January 27–28, 2023, together with Ekaterina Korablyova, Vadim made an online presentation titled Political migration from Russia to Georgia in the context of war: adaptation, citizenship, and national narratives at the conference “Чтения the MILIEU – 2023” that continues the tradition of annual conferences previously organized by the Center for Independent Social Research (CISR), St. Petersburg.