Deportation of Koreans in The Soviet Union - Life in Central Asia

Life in Central Asia

In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev decided to give the Soviet Koreans freedom and for the first time they were given the right to decide where to live and what to do. Many Koreans moved to the cities to start professions in medicine and education. Others, however, stayed and worked on their highly productive farms. When Khrushchev introduced his Virgin Lands Campaign, Korean farms were consolidated into larger collective farms as part of the prefect.

Due to their organizational skill and work ethic, many Koreans were soon leaders of industry, government, and educational institutions within the Soviet Union. Koreans were elected to the Parliaments of the Soviet Union and Central Asian Republics and by the 1970s the number of Koreans with a college degree was twice that of the general population. Today hundreds of Koreans in Central Asia and Russia have received Ph.D’s and work as professors and researchers in universities, institutes and scientific centers. In addition, Koreans are the most urbanized ethnic group in both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, as more than 80% of the Korean population live in cities. According to the 1989 census, the number of Koreans living in the Soviet Union was 439,000, the bulk of which lived in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Russia, with more than 80% of that in Kazakhstan, and based on an analysis of Kazakh ‘areas of compact living’, the majority of Kazakh-Koreans today live in urban areas in the central and southern regions of Kazakhstan, most notably Kzyl Orda, Karaghandy, Dzhambul, and Almaty, and most live in urban areas.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation adopted a decree on the restoration of ethnic Korean rights. Under the new decree, the State permitted ‘individual and voluntary return to the former place of residence’ for deportees, and Russian citizenship could be obtained by any migrants from outside Russia. The decree also provided Korean returnees with ‘residential houses and lands for farming and other activities,’ if they desired.