Prague, May 5 (CTK) – The number of Russians living in the Czech Republic has more than doubled since 2004 and with 35,000 people it has become the third largest immigrant community in the country, following the Ukrainians and Vietnamese, daily Pravo writes on Thursday.
The community is educated, rich and young and likely to keep steadily growing, the paper says, citing a study issued by the Research Institute of the Czech Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.
In 2014, Russians formed 13 percent of the 266,000 legal immigrants in the country, Ukrainians and the Vietnamese represented 39 and 21 percent, respectively, according to the study.
Russians are not interested in short-term stays, but they want to settle in the country for a long time.
More than half of the Russians have permanent residence permits and they learn Czech as they want to be granted Czech citizenship, the paper writes.
The main reasons for the long-term stay are studies in the country and family reunion.
When presenting their motives to move to the Czech Republic, the Russians mostly mention corruption and the general situation in Russia, gender discrimination and alcoholism of Russian men, better health care in the Czech Republic and political reasons, Pravo writes.
Two fifths of the Russian community are children and youths under the age of 25. In 2014, over 1200 Russian children attended Czech primary schools, over 1000 attended secondary schools and 4500 studied at universities.
Russians are among the most educated ethnic minorities in the Czech Republic as 43 percent of the adult immigrants are university graduates.
The Russians moving to the country are rather rich: only 17 percent of them had a paid job in 2011. Among the Ukrainians and the Vietnamese, 58 and 55 percent, respectively, were employed or ran business. However, the Russians may get well-paid jobs because they are university graduates.
Only one in ten of the Russians is self-employed and unemployment is very exceptional among them. Apart from maternity pay and parental allowances, they do not receive welfare benefits.
Half of the Russian immigrants are women, unlike in the other ethnic minorities in which men prevail. Most of the immigrants live in Prague (21,000). The Russian community living in the Karlovy Vary spa town in western Bohemia, which has been popular among rich Russians since the 1990s, seems to be shrinking in the past few years.
In 2014, 11.5 percent members of the Russian community passed the Czech language exam, which is a condition for the permanent residence, while in 2011 it was only 3 percent.
The paper writes that Russians are among the best students of the Czech language. This indicates that Russians are an immigrant community that moved to the country to settle and be active here rather than only for economic reasons, the paper writes.
Almost all Russians living in the Czech Republic buy food and books in Russian shops. They take part in Russian cultural events, use a Russian dating agency and read Russian newspapers. They do not have strong links to the Orthodox Church.
Most of the immigrants try to adapt to the majority society in social life, but they maintain strong ties to their homeland in their family lives. They speak Russian at home, although it happens more and more often that children going to Czech schools also speak Czech with their parents.
A part of the Russians living in the Czech Republic feel a certain tension and discrimination against themselves in their relations with the majority society. They sometimes consider it a hangover from the communist era, but the current Russian politics plays a role in this, too.
However, the latest STEM opinion poll showed that the relation of the Czech public to Russians keeps gradually improving. Half of the Czechs said they would not mind having a Russian neighbour.
