Experts say a dozen ethnic enclaves may appear in Moscow within the next ten years, GZT.ru news portal reported on Friday.
"Despite the authorities' claims, all areas of Moscow have been divided according to the ethnic principles," an expert from the gdeetotdom.ru company said.
"We can already readily identify where the Azerbaijani, Chinese and numerous members of other ethnic communities rent and buy apartments," he said
The expert said Moscow may well suffer a fate similar to those of London or New York, with their vibrant, yet fickle ethnic communities which are way too often at loggerheads with the wider city.
Gdeetotdom.ru said that despite the official hushing-up, the process had started long ago and is now irreversible.
According to the police figures, 571,000 foreign nationals have registered with Moscow's migration authorities in the first four months of 2010 alone. In 2009, the figure was 1,8 million, almost a million more than in 2008, with its steady 1,07 million.
Gdeetotdom.ru said the Armenian community will build up their traditional stronghold in south-eastern Moscow, while the Georgians will continue settling down close to the northern loop of the city's Garden Ring.
Natives from Russia's troubled North Caucasus favor northern parts of the city, while the Azerbaijanis prefer the west and south-west of the capital.
A large Chinese-Vietnamese enclave may appear in Moscow's south-east and west, and a Korean community is growing in the extreme north of the city.
Experts believe the new enclaves may cause ethnic unrest, not unlike an intercity war between the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities in Moscow's south in the beginning of the 1990s.
"It is about time the Moscow authorities created a set of rules of conduct for every area," gdeetotdom.ru said, referring to a recent initiative by the city authorities to devise the Code of the Muscovite.
"Moscow is a city whose life is based on the Russian culture and traditions... and those who come to live here should square up to them," Mikhail Solomentsev, a Moscow official in charge of interethnic relations, said in an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Thursday.
He added this would help develop a community sharing common rules of conduct and a "Moscow style of life."
However, some critics say Moscow is unlikely to turn into a city of ethnic communities.
Valery Prokopyev, an expert at the MIAM real estate agency, said it is the economic factor that governs the city's settlement patterns. Migrants from the ex-Soviet states are striving for lower prices, not communal ethos.
Prokopyev said it was incorrect to speak of special areas for migrant workforce in Moscow.
MOSCOW, June 18 (RIA Novosti)
