[Winter]

Chinese... As mentioned by some here, Chinese immigration is major concern and a serious issue to many in Amur Region (not certain how bad situation is in other regions). When I left in Decembre, Blagoveshchensk was home to largest Chinese immigrant community in entire of Russia, according to local news and I am inclined to believe it. It was common knowledge that a many of them merely paid or bribed Russian "guards" to assist them in various ways to sneak across the border, in other cases there were some known areas where people could literally walk across. You cannot walk down, seemingly, one street in that city without encountering an overbearing and obvious Chinese presence in some capacity. In my experience, worst aspect of this was that most of them you encounter are either unusually rude and disrespectful or very arrogant towards Russians. I remember reading a news article where a local Chinese man was interviewed and boast that "Russians should be down on their knees thanking China for providing immigrants"... that the area was economically depressed and desolate before high influx of Chinese immigrants. First thought I had was whether or not that is true is not the point. There are some things more important than economics. Regardless, hordes of Chinese are not the appropriate answer to economic crisis.