ABSTRACT
Visitors to contemporary Moscow are frequently struck by the highly visible police presence in the streets and public places of the Russian capital. Police officers can be seen stopping passers-by and inspecting their identity documents. Many, though not all, of those singled out for such inspections will be visibly non-Russian. This is not supposed to happen. Post-Soviet Moscow is theoretically an open city, in which any Russian citizen has the constitutional right to reside, and which foreign nationals can visit subject only to the immigration policies of the Russian federal government. Yet from the 1990s to the present day, the Moscow government, assisted by the city’s police, has exercised de facto jurisdiction over people’s residence and even presence in Moscow, making certain categories of outsiders unwelcome in the city, and creating an informal municipal citizenship.
