Paper Short Abstract:

This paper explores a particular case of state-citizen care relations, namely the Soviet social contract, its historical transformations and reverberations in the present. Empirically, it studies the mobility of Tajik older adults seeking an old age pension in Russia and its multilayered dimensions.

Paper Abstract:

This paper focuses on transnational mobilities, old age security and welfare system entanglements on the territory of the former Soviet Union. More specifically, it sheds light on the mobility of elderly people from Tajikistan and their transgenerational citizenship practices with the aim of securing an old age pension in Russia. Termed as the ‘Soviet pension’ in Tajikistan, this opportunity goes back to an agreement among the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) dating back to 1992. The deal granted CIS citizens access to the pension system of other member states and guaranteed the retirees recognition of their Soviet employment history on the territory of the country where they reside. More recently, this agreement is mobilized by Tajik senior citizens on a larger scale to get hold of an old age pension in Russia, which in most cases is significantly higher than their retirement pay in Tajikistan opening up new sources of livelihood and consumption avenues. This paper explores the multilayered dimensions of old age pension mobilities on the territory of the former Soviet Union that speak to questions of transnational social protection, state’s daily operations, and the exploitation of former colonial subjects, and reflects on the specificities and ambiguities of state-citizen care relations in the post-soviet case. It is based on ongoing ethnographic research in Tajikistan (since Aug 2022, 4 months in total) on the relational dynamics of mobility of Tajik older adults across spatial, temporal and gendered scales.