There is a significant Russian population in Germany. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 triggered mass immigration to the West, with Germany being the top destination, mostly for economic and ethnic reasons. Russians are the biggest migrant group in Germany, together with Turks.
There are about 3,500,000 native Russian speakers in Germany, split largely into three ethnic groups: ethnic Russians, Russians descended from German immigrants, and Russian Jews.
560,178 people in Germany were categorized as ethnic Russians in 2007. Their number is growing.
Between 1992 and 2007, a total of 1,797,084 ethnic Germans from the former USSR emigrated to Germany. [...] The number of non-German relatives who emigrated along with them is not known, but many if not most are presumably members of Germany's ethnic Russian community.
Most Russian-Germans have assimilated and integrated well into German society. As with most other immigrant groups, there remain some contemporary issues. German authorities have been concerned that the high number of Russian immigrants self-segregating in certain neighborhoods hinders social integration. This has led to restrictions on immigration from Russia and the former Soviet Union. Other issues have included crime, drugs, poverty and unemployment.
The Aussiedler have raised many issues. Although they were expected to assimilate rapidly into German society, Aussiedler and their descendants are struggling with their identity, and most consider themselves Russian. In Russia, due to outside pressure, they had become assimilated into Russian society, in most cases speaking Russian as their first or only language, and this has made their return difficult. Native Germans typically consider them Russian, just as they consider German-Americans visiting Germany to be American, despite their German surnames.
Wasn't there some sort of 'agreement' (until 21 of March)??
. Things have happened so quickly the last couple of days.
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