‘Must have Slavic appearance’ Ethnic discrimination in Russia is rampant — and often written right into government contracts
Russian organizations, both public and private, often impose discriminatory requirements on contractors, a new post from RFE/RL’s Russian investigative unit, Systema, highlights. Many official tender documents explicitly state that cleaning, security, and equipment installation must be handled exclusively by people of “Slavic appearance.” In some cases, individuals of “Caucasian heritage” (i.e. people who appear to be from the Caucasus region) are explicitly barred from certain facilities. Meduza shares an abridged translation of Systema’s reporting.
In November 2024, the Moscow Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology included a clause in a cleaning service contract stating that “the contractor’s personnel must speak Russian and have a Slavic appearance.” This center is responsible for researching infections and conducting health inspections.
Similar requirements have repeatedly appeared in contracts issued by the Dzerzhinsk city administration in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region. A February 2025 cleaning service tender, for example, specified again that workers must have a “Slavic appearance.”
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These kinds of restrictions aren’t new. Back in 2018, the state-funded Moscow funeral agency Ritual told a contractor bidding to install air conditioners: “Entry pass conditions: only Slavic nationalities.” That same year, the Russian National Guard’s Military Canine Center explicitly banned people from the Caucasus from entering its premises, stating in an official document: “Access to the State Contractor’s facility is prohibited for foreign nationals and persons of Caucasian nationality.”
Systema notes that these practices occur despite the fact that there’s no such thing as a single “Caucasian nationality” — the Caucasus region is home to dozens of ethnic groups.
Discrimination in the private sector
These racist policies aren’t just found in government contracts — private businesses enforce them, too. Security service contracts for shopping malls in Moscow, Sochi, Novosibirsk, and Krasnodar have included discriminatory instructions for vehicle inspections, requiring guards to conduct “thorough checks” when:
- A driver appears to be of Caucasian or Asian nationality;
- A vehicle has license plates from the North Caucasian republics;
- A driver is wearing clothing traditionally associated with Islam. (A separate note even specifies “particular attention to individuals of Slavic appearance wearing such clothing [i.e., associated with Islam].”)
Most recently, similar language appeared in the tender documents of Moscow’s Metropolis shopping center in January 2025.
Even international companies have engaged in these practices. In 2024, European chocolate manufacturer Barry Callebaut, while hiring staff for exhibitions in Moscow, initially specified that waitstaff had to be “young people aged 21–40 of Slavic nationality.” The wording was later removed in updated versions of the document.
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‘Ethnic profiling has become the norm’
Stefania Kulaeva, an expert from the Memorial Human Rights Center, told Systema that while discrimination in Russia is evolving, the overall situation is not improving:
If we talk about positive changes, for example, the list of banned professions for women is gradually shrinking, which is an important step forward. But overall, restrictions on migrant employment are tightening, and ethnic discrimination remains a routine practice for employers. These requirements are illegal and, in theory, can be challenged in court.
She also noted that racism in Russia extends far beyond hiring practices:
We’re seeing more attacks on people who don’t have a Slavic appearance, while at the state level, instead of fighting xenophobia, racist rhetoric is becoming more common. Officials and security forces themselves fuel this hatred — for instance, a representative of the Interior Ministry recently spoke about the need to “lighten up the Moscow region.” In an environment of war and rising nationalism, it’s no surprise that ethnic profiling has become the norm.