ABSTRACT
Russia covers one-eighth of the Earth’s land and is the largest country in the world. That is why management of human mobility on its territory has been and remains a rigid challenge and a prioritised state task over decades. Tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet authorities used various legal mechanisms and policies to regulate human migration on the territory of Russia: from an entry ban on ‘unwanted persons’ and the redistribution of labour resources to the passport withdrawal of certain groups of Russia’s inhabitants.
This chapter tells a story about the development of the right to free movement within Russia in three historical epochs. The chapter consists of three paragraphs, each of which offers insights into some less well-known aspects of migration management in Tsarist, Soviet, and modern Russia.
