A new social phenomenon is emerging in post-Soviet Russian speaking immigrants communities in Berlin: the rapid expansion of “Russian” immigrant media for the newcomers which emphases hybridity and blood relations of readers actually based on supra-ethnic sense of Soviet-Russian identity. The main interest of this paper is to explain the reasons for this growing popularity of ethnic media among the heterogeneous Russian-speaking population in Berlin, and to show how they negotiate the image of a new collective identity with inclusive group definition as “Russians of Berlin”. Both of the two main ethnic categories of these immigrants – Russian Germans and Russian Jews – fit into inclusive notion of “Russians”. These media practices can be defined as a mixed form of profit-oriented ethnic business and non-profit moral institutions which claim to stand for the formal organised cultural “community” of Russian-speakers. In the first part of this paper I will give a short overview on migration backgrounds of Russian-speakers in Berlin in terms of ethnicity and their general economic situation .In the second part I will discuss the media involving strategies of the readership and modes of internal operation.

 Migration background

The recent post-Soviet immigration to Germany is a mostly legally sanctioned exodus of the citizens of the now former Soviet Union and is limited to only two Soviet nationalities – Germans and Jews. It means that the post-Soviet immigration to Germany was sanctioned by ethnic identifications such “ethnic Germans” and “Soviet Jews”. After the German reunification 1990 and the easing of emigration requirements in the Soviet Union, about 85.000 Russian speakers arrived in Berlin building two juridical categorical migrant groups ethnic German Aussiedler and Russian Jewish Kontingentflüchtlinge. While Aussiedler or Russlanddeutsche are seen by the German government as historical co-ethnics, Jewish people were invited as a means of moral reparation of the German national history. In comparison to growing instability in Russia, the early problematic ethnic identification of being Jewish or ethnic German provided, through the migration, an explicitly economic value. It was directly related to the access to financial advantages and basic life insurance such as regular welfare income, paid flat and language courses in Germany. The consequence of this German migration policy was the privileged juridical positioning of Russian-speakers in comparison to the other migrant groups in Germany- the issues of residence permits without limitations and the access to German citizenship. And this fact is related to the next common peculiarity of Russian speaking migrants. As the result of the already mentioned legal positioning and of support programs, Russian-speaking migrants economically deal with “specific” static life conditions after the migration. It means the regular use of the complex state life support programs by migrants. Such conditions can lead to limiting initiative and entrepreneurship activity in the new place, as it was characterised by immigrants themselves “it is the comfortable pillow of the welfare state”. In spite of privileged status, the occupational integration of the immigrants of the 1990s into the German labour market can hardly be called successful. According to internal data of self-estimation, 60% of post-Soviet immigrants in Berlin still live on state welfare. This despite that fact that the overwhelming majority of adults have higher education or technical training, which, as a rule, is only partially recognised by the receiving authorities. In Germany the foreign qualifications the immigrants attained in the Soviet Union are often devalued. In fact, it is the most important problem the migrants face. But a considerable number of immigrants broke out of the passivity by establishing their own businesses, mainly related to transnational import-export trade connections and to the Russian ethnic consumer market. At the same time the first Russian language weekly newspaper has appeared on the press market in Berlin. The Russian language newspapers in Berlin have demonstrated remarkably early development of the own communication channels. Within the last five years, local Russian language newspapers in Berlin have begun to boom and they seem to follow a successful media strategy of incorporation into the receiving countries.

The first Russian language newspaper “Evropazentr”, the Russian spelling of a well-known shopping and office centre in West Berlin, was first published in May 1993 and still circulates with 30.000 copies all around Germany (see: Darieva/Schütte, 1997). In the following three years, two more Russian weekly papers appeared, “Russki Berlin” and “Novaya Berlinskaya Gaseta” with a circulation of 16.000 and 13.000 copies, respectively. Now the media market in Russian language includes more than 20 different weekly and monthly periodicals, as well as two regular TV programmes in Berlin. The most popular and successful immigrant press items are still Berlin newspapers such as “Russki Berlin” (today with circa 50.000 copies) and “Evropazentr”. Both newspapers invariably run 18-24 pages and have national circulation in Germany among nearly the same readership. In terms of political orientations there is no fundamental difference between “Ecropazentr” and “Russki Berlin”. They seem to take a neutral position toward the national policy of the host country and explicitly provide a pro-integration strategy of incorporation into the receiving country. The production and the circulation of foreign language press in Germany is generally free. Therefore Russian language newspapers are sold on numerous newspapers stands in public places throughout Germany. However, it is hardly possible to observe any Russian immigrants buying the paper or reading them in public places such as the underground or cafes. It is related to the fact  that as a rule Russian speaking readers subscribe to one or two newspapers and read in private spheres.

Conceptualising the role of ethnic media in relationships between migrant group and the host society, sociologists have viewed the dual role of the ethnic media (Riggins, 1992). The dual role serves two contradictory purposes: to contribute to ethnic cohesion and cultural maintenance, what can be considered as separate loyalty, on the one hand, and to help members of minorities to integrate into a larger society, on the other hand. In the case of Russian language newspapers, it can be hardly estimated as expression of an oppositional political ideology or of resistance to assimilation to German mainstream culture. We deal here instead with the process of networking among newcomers and the search of identity related to implicit counter-reaction in terms of ethnicity.

Consequently the initial aim of the ethnic media is to inform and to serve the needs of a specific immigrant group forming in this way a kind of economic niche without direct competition with mainstream media. The main content of Russian language press consists of practical information on social and legal behaviour norms in official institutions of the receiving country, and political and cultural news from the country of origin. The third category of information of the Russian ethnic media go beyond delivering news in the native language. More than 35% of the newspaper as well as of broadcasts are used for commercial needs. In recent years, the branches of this subculture have grown stronger and encompassed a greater number of activities. On the economic side, it includes numerous small businesses, most typically food and book stores, small trades in reconstruction and repair shops, car maintenance, medical and personal services and consulting. By informing geographically dispersed Russian-speaking immigrants of specific events for Russian tastes as well as commercial sales and news, the media is producing a new field of business networking and building personal network up a family crises. It is necessary to emphasise that there is no centralised community organisation with its own governance among Russian-speakers in Berlin and they live predominantly dispersed in the city. The internal coherence and ethnic solidarity among Russian-speakers is challenged by different migration statuses, ethnic divisions, occupational and geographical distinctions. Perhaps the only collective product representing migrants as a group is the regular local Russian language media. The symbolic identification of “community” ocurres on the meta-level, when elements like the common myth of origin – and shared memories might deliver enough bonding facilities for such level of community activity like media.

Returning to the contents of newspapers, in many cases, the commercial advertisements reveal the invisible map of the immigrant settlement more fully than does the rest of the paper. For example, addresses of Russian food store “Gastronom Zarya”, diverse book stores and so forth, show that there are at least three places where Russian speakers concentrate in Berlin – districts like Charlotteburg, Schöneberg and Marzahn. The advertisements also reflect to what extent an economic specialisation among Russian-speaking entrepreneurs has developed. Large number of  advertisements for travel agencies, lodging houses and car maintenance, shows that there is a great demand for these services, especially for those who have no command of the German language. We can see that there are a large number of recent arrivals from Russia, as well as the increasing role of ordinary migrants in making transnational small and middle size businesses, organising an exchange of material and cultural goods within the Russian-speaking diaspora.

The obvious commonality of the Russian media is the use of the Russian language as well as of old Soviet-Russian cultural patterns to interpret the new social conditions. What is typical is the explicit broadly conceptualised inclusive definition of a we-group which defines the potential audience as broadly as possible by incorporating different ethnic and social ways of belongings, and not only newcomers but also marginally assimilated people.  “Our motherland is Russian language”, the central motto of the Russian language media recruiting strategy, seems to be really a flexible symbolic variable for mobilising clientele among groups of both Russian Jews and Russian Germans.

In this way Russian language media offer new forms of participation in public “community” life as well as social control for newcomers, so that media can play a major role in reshaping relationships hence social and cultural identities. In this context I should mention the existing cultural gap between Russian speaking Jews and German Jews, and between native Germans and Russlanddeutsche. Social divisions and conflict situations are to be found in official institutions, especially in the Jewish Congregation of Berlin between newcomers and old settlers. Russian Jews seem to have a rather different perception and sense of being “Jewish” especially in the everyday ethnic cultural practice. It can be explained in the following terms. While German Jewishness is concentrated in the practice of public demonstration of religious identity (publicly visiting the synagogue, celebrating traditional Jewish holidays) the Russian Jews perceive it as a private and family affair invisible to outsiders, and in this way lacking in manifesting collective Jewish rituals. As a result the “real” Jewish ethnic-religious identity of newcomers was questioned by the receiving “co-ethnics”, who drew a strong social ethnic boundary labeling them as “Russians”. The reaction of newcomers is precisely commented by one co-producer of a Russian language television program in Berlin: “The Jewish Congregation (Gemeinde) does not help us, Russian speakers,  in cultural matters at all. It would have been better to open an insurance for legal fees than to pay the membership fees”.

Similar dissociative tendencies we can observe in the relationships between Russlanddeutsche and Germans. Poor command of German language and a traditionalist pattern of cultural values as well as a scanty experience of urban life style result in avoidance of contact with newcomers by native Germans. Moreover similar to the experience of Russian Jews, the “real” German identity of Aussiedler was questioned by German society and main-stream media discourses classifying them in the abusing category of “foreigners or Ausländer”. Thus, although post-Soviet migrants travel to Germany as Germans or Jews they arrive as “Russians”.

A. came to Berlin from Odessa in 1991 on a tourist visa because he “just wanted a change of place”. As a person of Jewish origin, he received the immigration status of quota refugee” and stayed in Berlin. “I knew even back then that Germany accepted Jews and therefore I brought all my documents with me”. In Odessa, he had worked as a technical manager in a state-run shipping business. In Berlin A. earned his living first by playing piano in a music cafe. Later A. was able to earn his first “serious capital” thanks to his earlier contacts with successful businesses in Russia and Ukraine. At the same time he learned German. In his German language course, A. met many other “Russians” who had “many of the same questions and answers” regarding their new home.  “We found ourselves in this social network that was like a young pioneer camp. The leader came and told us how and what we had to do. There was such an enormous need for information that we wanted to convey our life experiences to the new arrivals through a newspaper. My friends, a couple, with whom I shared a flat in Heim (transitional housing units for refugees and returnees) had experience in journalism and we decided to publish a Russian newspaper”. A. invested the capital (110,000 Mark) he had earned through import-export business into the founding of the publishing house and the Russian newspaper editorial board.

  B. and C. came to West Berlin in 1990 from Charkov (Ukraine) on a package visa for Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the GDR.  They arrived “in an old car that they lived out of for the first few weeks”.  C. is a sociologist and Russian; B. is a musician and Jewish.  B. quickly found, like A., a job playing piano at a big hotel, while his partner earned her living by cleaning.  At the same time, B. applied for an unlimited residency permit on the grounds of his “Jewish nationality”. As his wife, C. also received the unlimited residency status in Berlin, as well as welfare benefits.  Two years later, B., “like many other Russians”, joined an import-export business trading in everyday consumer goods.  After 1995, as the “import-export business in Russia became monopolized by large enterprises, “the couple began searching for another employment niche. “Occupationally, we have focused on the sphere of culture, so we came up with the idea: why not try something with Russian TV”?  Funded partially with their own capital, B. and C. started a family-operated Russian television broadcast.  “Through our Russian language television broadcast we want to help immigrants find their own social niche in Berlin”.

The above mentioned externally ascribed homogenous etiquette as “Russians” becomes actually accepted by many Russia-speakers as a cultural part of their identity. Moreover, active immigrants revealed in this cultural phenomenon their successful business formula, stressing in their production concepts the common usage of Russian language among post-Soviet migrants as a core of a group identity. This view seems to correspond to social reality. Russian language, being more than a social resource for solving family everyday problems, becomes a flexible collective marker of identification in forming social networks. Further, norms about sharing knowledge or keeping it in secret for sale – thus making it an economic good – constitute codes of a communication strategy which make a language a relevant tool for social action. The entrepreneurs of Russian language media in Berlin claimed for newspapers as well as themselves the role of “ethnic brokers” who manage collective immigrant issues and sensitive migrant experiences due to their own professional degree of adaptation in the new social environment.

In Cohen`s study on urban ethnicity in the USA, ethnic brokers are regarded as successful migrants who negotiate within a specific locale the relationships between immigrant communities and the major society (Cohen, 1974). Further, conceptualising international labour migration, ethnic brokers were classified as gate keepers who operate not only in a specific locale, but also across the national boundaries and recruit further migrants from the former home land (Goss & Lindquist, 1995). The pattern of the developing brokerage observed among the self-organized Russian-speaking media institutions is more of a mediator in relation to the host society and the immigrant grass roots. It is a private ethnic entrepreneurship which does not necessarily pretend, at least now,  to set up a strategic political power in terms of brokers who control the rate of immigration. The role of mediator in this case means that media producers are not just journalists but  they are attempting to take the role of local brokers of information and entertainment as they claim to manage specific adaptation patterns of new comers.

This type of entrepreneurs serve as  mediators who promote their individual or family interests within the imagined “ethnic group” through its possible solidarity and finally use this clientele as a resource in economic relationships to outsiders. (Hannerz, 1974:56).

In the case of the Russian media enterprises, media producers in its initial phase of business establishment rely upon the members of their kin as a source of labour, not necessarily being professionals in the communication business. According to the findings collected during my field work, it is obvious that the key position is occupied by the bounding couple or closed relatives. In fact, this family-based strategy offers a relatively high degree of economic security and minimises risk, lends more resources for internal operation. Concerning the composition of the entire staff, Russian media enterprises are characterised by flexible size and relatively high degree of fluctuation. This can be explained by two factors: the first is related to the German labour market system and particular support programs to lower unemployment. As far as I could discover, one of the common forms of employment among the immigrants today is through special state immigrant-aid programs (Hilfe zur Arbeit). Such state-sponsored programs provide employees at low cost or no cost to the employer, in fact sponsoring his or her organisation. According to the rule of such aid- programs the only obligation is to provide an occupation for one year and in this way give the employee an opportunity to develop his or her skills in a special branch of activity. This practice is quite popular among small to mid-size Russian-speaking entrepreneurs. The second factor is the internal organisational framework of Russian language media institutions. These independent media organisations are typically structured as informal associations rather than formal bureaucracies. Much of the work at different levels is done often on a volunteer basis or by unpaid or irregularly paid part-time staff, in particular among Russian television organisations. The “free-lance” model offers an opportunity for people living on welfare to earn additional pocket money. Since roles and regulations inside of media institutions are quite flexible, there is likely to be little task specialisation. Individuals hired to fill one role may find themselves working at a variety of functions. “We are friends here and try to help each other. We work in the atmosphere of mutual replacement. If we have urgently to distribute our newspapers, it means that each person of our team does it together with others. And if I need more people, one phone call is enough and tomorrow 10 people stand here and pack newspapers” – commented the editor of one Russian Berlin newspaper.

Following this explanation, indeed the informal character of ethnic media seems to be one of the advantages of employers. In addition, we observe informal non-commercial exchange operations even between different business units. It is not unusual for Russian language media to arrange mutual barter agreements concerning advertising services. For example, the practice of advertising exchange between one Russian television program and a Russian newspaper in Berlin provides a specific form of economic solidarity “ty mne – ya tebe” (I help you - you help me). This barter exchange of services without financial operations can be typically classified to the old Soviet practice of informal exchange and social networking blat (see Ledeneva, 1997). The nature of the practice of informal exchanges of services, observed in the Russian immigrant “community”, is similar to this reciprocal relationship in the former Soviet Union. As “large parts of the population were active in distributing by means of exchange the products and services they had access to as a result of their occupation…Social networks (blat) were much more important than they are in Western capitalist society and of greater significance for a satisfactory existence (Doomernik, 1997:63). Russian-speaking immigrants seem still to regard social networks as economic resources using informal forms of provisioning and employment.

Under these circumstances the Russian immigrant media seems to have successfully mobilised the concept of “Russian community”, offering in this way for their consumers an additional social field of adaptation to Germany on one hand, and the instrument for maintaining of Russian language in diaspora, on the other hand. Modern technologies allow the media producers to start up newspapers and television studios with relatively little expenditure and, in many cases, little professional knowledge. Finally, it should be stressed  here that the successful features of Russian language media face certain risks. Claiming to be a cultural representation of the whole “Russian community”, which is ethnically and socially  heterogeneous, small media may not be equally responsive to all segments of the “community”. There is the risk that opinions of some other segments are not represented enough or over represented due to limited informal networks of producers. Furthermore the fact, that the newness of information of weekly newspapers can be often exhausted quite quickly makes the existence of media in long-term perspective fragile.

  I have tried to illustrate in this chapter cultural practices of Russian-speakers in Berlin such as media, which taken as a whole, constitutes in the new place a significant resource for the flexible social organisation of new immigrants in the urban context. My point was that the inclusive character of the Russian language media identity strategy in Berlin creates a specific notion of the “shared fate of integration” for their heterogeneous consumers which symbolically blurs highly formalised ethnic boundaries between Jewish quota refugees and Russian-German Aussiedler (Russlanddeutsche). Summarising, two major factors that influence the existence of  Russian language communication channels in Berlin (Germany) in general are: the discovery of specific Russian consumer market in  Germany, and the presence of certain personalities, active immigrants-intellectuals, who are eager to play the role of intermediary between immigrant grass roots and the receiving society.

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