In a closed facility around 620 miles east of Moscow, the Kremlin attracts hundreds of young African women to Russia with promises of a better life.
But what awaits them is not a Slavic paradise, but a living hell of grinding work, racism and in some cases even prostitution.
The Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is a compound in Western Russia full of boring industrial buildings that speak more with the Russian Soviet past than its hi-tech ears of the present.
But this is a region that produces some of the most devastating weapons that Moscow uses for his bloody war against Ukraine.
Working with a mysterious Ukrainian research group I will call 'Inception', MailOnline was able to discover a series of shocking revelations about a schedule that brings African students from the entire continent to Alabuga.
The 'Alabuga Start' program was set up in 2023 for foreign students who want to move to Russia. The website states that it was 'designed for ambitious girls between 18-22 years'. It promises opportunities for work, fairs, fully funded training, Russian language courses, accommodation, paid flights to Russia and health insurance.
In some advertisements, MailOnline candidates were promised a salary of $ 700 a month – a huge amount in their home country.
But the truth is very different.
The Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is a compound in West -Russia full of boring industrial buildings that speak with the Soviet history of Russia
In a closed facility around 620 miles east of Moscow, the Kremlin attracts hundreds of young African women to Russia with promises of a better life
“They don't learn Russian well and speak English incomprehensible – and they smell and look strange,” says Anastasia (depicted, third from the right) about those from the West African Land Sierra Leone.
The young women exist in a living hell of grinding work, racism and in some cases even prostitution
Alabuga is in fact a facility that focuses on the production of the Shahed drones that Russia uses to attack Ukrainian cities daily.
And those who participate in the start program Learn not valuable skills, but ultimately do a variety of manial jobs, including cleaning and working in the canteen.
An Ugandan who is currently revealed in Russia that almost everything they were promised was incorrect. “The working hours are longer and the payment is not the $ 700 that we are promised,” she said in a message to the Ugandan publication New Vision. We sleep in hostels and are constantly checked. By the way, the $ 700 that was promised to us is subject to many subdivisions, including accommodation, bus rate and taxes. '
Inception has accepted MailOnline a file with different files, one of which is an audio recording of one of their researchers who discussed possible employment in Alabuga and Anastasia, an HR manager at the beginning.
That is the level of forensic details that his researchers have been able to acquire the full name, address, date of birth and event tax -ID number of Anastasia, which we have decided not to publish to protect its privacy.
Her contempt is clear when she speaks about the women who come. “They don't learn Russian well and speak English incomprehensible – and they smell and look strange,” she says about those from the Western African Land Sierra Leone.
Racism can be casual, but it is no less shocking.
The research revealed screenshots of prostitution services offered by African women in Alabuga herself
MailOnline was indeed also able to discover that African women are being kept in their own dormitory, separated from all other nationalities – that is, white people.
This is all far removed from the statements of the Russian state about start.
The Russian ambassador in Uganda, Vladlen Semivolos has bragged a brag about the number of Russian stock exchanges that have been assigned to graduates from the Ugandan high school. This number doubled this year and the song is now at 50, “he said.
Anastasia would, however, beg to differ. “They come to a work visa and work in the economic zone itself and at the same time they learn Russian,” she said. “But this is a work visa, it is not a grant or an educational program, it's work.”
And make no mistake, the Russians ensure that they get their pound meat from those they lure.
When a 21-year-old Zimbabwean woman was accepted by the starting program, her family was overjoyed. The money she sent home would help them all to escape the grinding poverty that had plagued them all their lives. It was a dream come true
But their joy would be short -lived. “We have often communicated during her first months in Russia, but now she is hardly accessible and we are only waiting for her to call us because she says she will be busy and that she is not allowed to use phones in her workplace that she said is a safety zone,” said her father of humanitarian media focus on Zimbabwe.
“She hardly sends money here, because she says she doesn't earn much and the last time we spoke to her, she said she was promised is completely the opposite of what she is confronted. So we said she had to come back, but she said she had to raise money for airline tickets for a few months if she can leave, “he added
Further research shows that employees are under strict evening clock and cannot bring telephones to the factory. They also run the risk of getting a fine when they reveal what is happening in the factory.
Caught in a closed zone, in a foreign country, with insufficient funds to leave, it seems that some women in prostitution are forced as their nightmare gets deeper.
In the screenshot that we passed through the beginning, a man from the city of Chelny explains close to Alabuga how he ordered a black prostitute in his apartment. She was forced into a prostitute after she was fired from Alabuga, she told him.
Further research shows that screenshots show the prostitution services offered by African women in Alabuga herself.
MailOnline cannot say with certainty that these women are employees at the SEZ. But because of the facility, access to the city is limited. It is therefore difficult to imagine what other African women would be there.
The hostel claims to be fully equipped with furniture and household appliances
A woman told his client that she was forced to prostitute after she was fired from Alabuga
Many indeed wonder why the starting program is only for girls. Representatives of the Alabuga Start program have an answer: that many of the available professions require a certain level of female attention to detail. '
What makes the Alabuga case even more nauseous is that the denials of Russia and Vrome do not go to the top.
President Vladimir Putin, the relations of his country with Africa, recently stated that “we never exploited African peoples, nor have we dealt with the continent in the continent.”
“On the contrary,” he added self -satisfied. “We have always supported Africa in its struggle for independence, sovereignty and creating basic conditions for economic development.”
