Dagestan

By Neave Barker in Europe on January 26th, 2010
Photo by AP

A 35-year-old migrant labourer from Dagestan was arrested trying to get into the Kremlin in an attempt, he later explained, to become President Dmitry Medvedev’s son-in-law.

The man was stopped after loitering near the Kremlin’s Spasskye gates on Red Square, a gate the president only uses on formal occasions.

According to the Moskovksy Komsomolets newspaper, he was hoping to meet the Russian president to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage. He hoped tying the knot would help him escape financial hardship.

Russia’s migrant worker population fluctuates between 4 and 9 million a year. Many of them travel from impoverished former Soviet Republics to Russia’s big cities in search of work. But since the economic crisis hit, thousands have found themselves in dire straights.