After years of fearing a flood of Chinese immigration, Russians in eastern Siberia are slowly coming to terms with a migration flow that has become vital to the region's economic development.
"We've had a Chinese cobbler working near our house for five years now and he does everything quickly and for cheap, not like our Russian ones," said Anna Makarova, a Russian pensioner living in the Pacific port of Vladivostok, some 50km from the border.
"If they want honest work, they can come," Makarova said.
City and regional authorities say Vladivostok and the surrounding Primorye region can no longer do without Chinese immigration and have introduced a program to attract more Chinese immigrants.
"Look how hard-working they are," said Polina Mironova, a Vladivostok student. "Our workers have all gone home, but they'll keep painting walls until sundown."
Fourteen years after the fall of the Soviet Union, it is difficult to imagine Vladivostok without the sight of Chinese laborers repairing roads, houses and parks.
A first wave of immigration came to Primorye in the early 1990s, when the local population was struggling to get hold of the most basic necessities in this remote region, 9,300km east of Moscow.
The Chinese opened giant markets in Vladivostok and other cities in the region, where even the poorest could buy what they needed.
But the new arrivals got a wary welcome because of long-standing Sino-Soviet tensions that culminated in a bloody border clash between the Soviet Union and China on Zhen Bao island, known as Damansky in Russian, in 1969 that killed dozens and risked sparking a wider conflict.
During the 1990s, fear of invasion gave way to an acceptance of immigration.
Officially, nearly 14,000 Chinese have gained the right to work in Primorye so far this year, and the authorities are due to issue up to 18,000 work permits next year.
But the real figures are higher because of illegal immigration, say local officials, who deported 2,235 mostly Chinese illegal immigrants last year.
"It is important that the flow be controlled and not pose a threat to the well-being and security of local residents," said a recent local administration report, which vowed to stamp out illegal immigration but stressed the importance of immigrants for demographic stability.
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