From 1989 the pensioners whose stay in the Territory was not registered have been denied to have their Uzbekistan pensions either re-registered or calculated. The unregistered refugees were also disallowed other social payments and allowances. The War veterans without residence registration are bereaved of the warranted 50 per cent discount for using utilities (electricity, water and gas).

At first the officials who refused to meet the refugees requests for pensions and allowances referred only to the decisions of Territory Administration, such as the Instruction of the Territory Social Security Department to regional and town departments no.14-01 of 17.03.91: «... The procedure for the recovery of pensions envisaged by letter of the RSFSR Ministry of Social Security no.1-12-И of 06.02.90 shall cover persons who were compelled to leave the places of their permanent residency. At present time the migrants continue to arrive to the Territory. Therefore we recommend that pension files requests be subject to prior residence registration in the Territory... Upon the receipt of responses to earlier pension files requests for the pensioners who are not registered in the Territory their files should be returned to the regional social security department that forwarded the request with the recommendation to transfer pensions by remittance to the place of actual domicile in our Territory. For the migrants who do not have permit to stay in the Territory pensions should not be allowed in the way some departments did... » [the document is available at the authors of the report].

The instructions from Krasnodar were replicated by regional and town authorities.¹

In October of 1992 the Ministry of Social Security of Russia issued «Instruction» no.1-91-У «On Providing Pensions and Allowances to Persons Arriving to the Russian Federation from the Republics of the Former USSR» which officially confirmed that social payments depended on the availability of residence registration or the official status of a refugee or a forced migrant.

In connection with the problem of effecting social payments to the Turks–Meskhetians migrated to Russia Deputy RF Social Security Minister A.Klimkina has provided the following explanation in the letter addressed to the RF President Assistant D.Ryurikov: «...According to the Federal Migration Service of Russia the Turks–Meskhetians shall be forced migrants but at the same time this category of citizens does not qualify for the current normative documents on refugees and forced migrants. The Turks–Meskhetians are leaving the places authorised for their settlement and moving on their own into the southern areas of the Russian Federation where they are denied permits to stay (Stavropol, Krasnodar Territories, Rostov Region) and consequently are deprived of the opportunity to exercise the right for pensions, social allowances. We think it necessary that the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation consider the problem of temporary residence registration of the Meskhetian Turks in the communities where they presently residing in Russia » [no.1-3565-9 of 24.11.92 ].

All the appeals to the authorities concerning the payment of pensions to the pensioners without residence registration had negative responses. According to Yazdan Gafurov, an activist of the Umid Society, the Turks–Meskhetians — the War veterans residing in Krymsk region secured a petition from the Defence Ministry, but the regional social security department refused to calculate their pensions [27.10.94.]

Some refugees who had pensions in Uzbekistan before 1989 and who had not annulled their residency registration there succeeded in their attempts to have the pensions remitted to the places of their actual domicile. However this practice was halted after 1991. Some pensioners who had obtained permanent residence registration in other Russian regions ensured that their pensions would be remitted to the new places of their residency and be paid by the power of attorney. Consequently, they had to travel to the communities where had been registered previously to get this money. Some pensioners travelled personally to Uzbekistan for their pensions until travel expenses started to exceed the amount of their pensions.

Registered pensioners as well as those who obtained temporary residence permits with the help of Territory Administration late in 1994 — in 1995 have their pension files processed or have it being done now in the Territory.

Many people we talked to emphasised that they were shocked most of all by the moral aspect of the situation rather than by the material damage: some 40–45 years of labouring on cotton plantations appeared to have no reward; the state had threw away as useless those people who had fought for it and worked for it for decades. Here are the statements of the veterans. Abdulla Akhmedov is Merited Teacher of Uzbekistan, an invalid of the Patriotic War, has 20 governmental awards, participated in the battles for the liberation of Krasnodar Territory: «We have been living here for six years, applied for the status, for the permit to stay, for political rights, for the privatisation cheque — everything was denied. The invalids of war — without a hand, without a leg — are not paid pensions, they are old, many of them are crippled, they worked for 45 years at the collective farms and the state farms in the heat of 50 centigrade, in the production sector — yet they are not paid pensions. Now people are searching for those who died all over Russia, to make monuments to them, but they are unable to support those who survived. When I fought with the Kuban Cavalry Corps under the command of Dovator we had amiable relations with each other, and now our children are frightened: »Grandpa, when the Cossacks are going to drive us away?" Sarval Chakhalidze, an invalid of the Patriotic War, has 7 military awards: «After Fergana events I came here purposely, — because I participated in the Kuban region liberation, but I found myself deprived here. For 6 years they have been refusing to grant a residence permit, to legalise my house: we are suspended between sky and earth. When the 50th Anniversary of the Victory was celebrated nobody invited us nowhere, we are just forgotten, that’s all».