1 Transnational and National Identities of Kyrgyz Labor Migrants in Kazan, Yekaterinburg and Moscow Emil Nasritdinov This paper addresses the complex ways in which national and transnational identities of Kyrgyz labor migrants are shaped in three Russian cities: Kazan, Yekaterinburg and Moscow. It does so in the following order: first, it analyzes how individual self and group identities of migrants are created and manifested in their transnational practices; secondly, it focuses on how Kyrgyz labor migrants are perceived in Russia by the host communities and by the groups of migrants from other countries; finally, it looks at how the migrants’ transnational identities are formed in relation to their national identity as citizens of Kyrgyzstan. In the conclusion section, this paper asks the question of whether Kyrgyz labor migration can be seen as expansion or death of the nation. Research is based on the ethnographic fieldwork conducted in these three cities in 2010 and 2011. Keywords: migration; transnationalism; identity; Kyrgyzstan; Russia I only love my country when I am far and away. Elsewhere – that’s where I belong: the vast diaspora. Nowhere and everywhere. Ilan Stavans, Lost in Translation … transnational relations do not always seem to forge the sense of belonging simultaneously to two countries. On the contrary, they may paradoxically reinforce migrants’ feelings of living in more than one country but belonging to neither ‘place’. Rubah Salih, Shifting Meanings of ‘Home’ Three Vignettes Three episodes we witnessed during our fieldwork in the summer of 2011 proved to be of particular analytic significance for this paper. We introduce these episodes at the beginning to invite the reader to a discussion of the main conceptual links that shape the