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Throughout the Cold War, Yugoslavia was the only socialist country that participated in the Western-led international refugee regime and acted as a transit zone for refugees hoping to reach the Western Bloc. Those transiting were mainly, but not exclusively, escapees from various countries in the Soviet bloc. A few refugee groups also settled in Yugoslavia against the backdrop of shifts in international constellations, tense relationships with neighboring countries, and transnational mobilizations. This article will first investigate the dichotomy between transit and the few instances of refugees integrating into socialist Yugoslavia. Next, it will investigate the ease of the resettlement process by exploring how the length of time spent in the country was influenced by hierarchies among different refugee groups based on ethnic origin, political allegiances, class, and which opportunities for resettlement were available to whom. Finally, it will reflect on how the changing role of temporary refuge or permanent haven that Yugoslavia ascribed to itself was constructed and challenged by the host society, potential countries of resettlement, and the refugees themselves.

Migrant residential concentration areas have been a significant focus for research, but academic attention has primarily centered on their effects rather than how they form. There is some research considering the discrete factors of such areas’ emergence, but these factors are rarely fused into a comprehensive explanation with a description of specific mechanisms in operation. Even less is known about the formation of migrant residential concentration areas in postsocialist cities. The few studies in existence leave the impression that such areas emerge around bazaars by default. In this article, based on a multicase study (N = 37) conducted in the 15 largest Russian cities, we argue that although there is a pattern of migrant residential concentration areas’ emergence in postsocialist cities, this process takes place only in the presence of a combination of seven factors. The article presents these factors and describes an ideal type of a migrant residential concentration area in a Russian city and mechanisms of its emergence. The article concludes with the comparison of the postsocialist pattern with other types of migrant residential concentration and hypothesizing on how the Russian case differs from the other postsocialist cases in Central and Eastern Europe.