Waching daily Mar 5 2018

When you draw, there is no stolen moment,

no snap of a shutter.

You really take the time to see what's in front of you.

As a reportage illustrator, I find myself drawing

people who are on the move.

Around the world, huge numbers of people

are uprooting themselves and traveling great distances,

whether to flee from danger or to find work.

I'm in Tajikistan to explore one of the world's largest migrations.

It's not to sensationalize it.

It's not to exaggerate the reasons for doing it,

but it's trying to pick the most common experience.

Twice a week, a train packed with migrants

leaves Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan,

and traverses the whole of Central Asia

through Ukbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan,

and into Russia before arriving in Moscow.

It takes four days.

It's an extraordinary commute just for the prospect of work.

Oyat and Abdullo are two young men from rural Tajikistan.

I wanted to capture their stories

with an intimacy we seldom see.

Drawing allows me to witness the issues

surrounding their friendship: of breaking tradition,

of leaving family behind and of growing up.

But their future is uncertain.

At times, more than 50% of the Tajik economy

relies on money sent home.

But that crucial source of support has been drying up.

[children laughing]

[goat bleating]

How do you choose between two equally unattractive options —

to stay at home without work or to go to Russia without family?

Oyat stays and Abdullo decides to leave.

This will be his fourth trip to Russia.

He leaves behind his wife and his six-month-old baby.

And the conditions on the train were a sign of things to come.

[chatter]

The border guards bully the migrants.

They go through their bags.

They go through our bags, and they systematically

pull apart the train, all on the off chance

that they might find drugs.

The young men are often intimidated by police dogs

and deprived of sleep.

The train pulls into Moscow in the early hours,

and they arrive exhausted.

Abdullo and the other migrants spend

the night in the freezing station

huddled together, waiting for the metro

to open the next morning.

As they move about Moscow, there's

consistent pressure from the authorities.

It's something I noticed trying to draw in the metro.

Often, a policeman would come and look over your shoulder

to see what you were doing.

And each person who looked like they were from Central Asia

was being stopped, and their papers were checked.

And if they don't have the right paperwork,

then it's the beginning of trouble for them —

fines, visa complications, and deportation.

We traveled to the outskirts of Moscow

with Abdullo as he began looking for work.

The workers here live together in the apartments

they are refurbishing.

Once they finish one, they move on to the next.

If they are lucky, they make $500 a month.

In Tajikistan, they were together

and enjoying themselves.

Here, they are together, but trying to survive.

It's the process of drawing that allows me enough time

to understand the resilience and the extraordinary bond

that the migrants have here.

These are just a group of men trying to make their own way,

and their relationship to the Russian authorities

is a very difficult one.

In Abdullo's case, it was about trying

to avoid an overwhelming feeling of being helpless at home.

It was about him making a positive choice

to stay in control of his life.

We're beginning to experience change

to borders all over the world —

in the United States, in Europe

and in this case, in Russia.

[laughter]

But what will the future hold for the next generation,

and how should governments police their borders?

Perhaps if we showed not the most shocking, but the most

common experience of migration,

we would be less intimidated by it.

[rap music]