The car turns from the main road onto a dusty path. The driver snorts a little; he would rather drive tourists to the different ancient sights in Samarkand. He was not expecting his car to endure the countryside roads. At the end of the dirt road, seven pairs of eyes are anxiously waiting for our car to stop and for us to get out. They belong to Alisher, Bobur, Aziz, Ishoq, Behzod, Ruslan and Usmon, men who all came back to Uzbekistan after working in the Netherlands. They are waiting for us in front of a farm where IOM regularly purchases livestock.
It is a lovely spring day in Samarkand. The air smells of green grass and countryside. Every now and then, a deep mooing erupts from the stables behind us. “You know, owning livestock in Uzbekistan is a tradition; it is part of who we are,” says Doniyor, the national IOM reintegration officer.
And we can see this in the statistics, too: 44% of people returning with IOM the Netherlands’ assistance choose to invest their reintegration budget in livestock. Livestock immediately generates income or helps to provide essential nutrition and relieve the family from the costs of purchasing, for example, milk. And it is true, travelling through the country, you will see cows and sheep everywhere. Livestock is an investment in Uzbekistan, and with Eid al-Fitr approaching, it can be quite a lucrative one too.
The country is an upcoming economy; you can see it everywhere, and many investments are made, especially in the tourism sector. Still, work is scarce, and many men of working age are looking for opportunities abroad. Russia used to be one of the destinations to earn more money. However, since the sanctions against Putin’s regime and the war in Ukraine, Uzbek migrants are looking for opportunities beyond Russia. Usually, they first travel to one of the Baltic states – Latvia or Lithuania – sometimes Poland.
However, the labour market there also experienced a high influx of Ukrainian refugees, and earnings are much higher in the Netherlands. At least, that is what migrants hear in Telegram groups and through word-of-mouth information. So, they travel further.
“I wanted to earn just a bit more money so I could support my family and my wife, and I would be able to build our house back in Uzbekistan”, says Temur*. At 27 years old, he is a father of two and returned to Samarkand when his wife was ready to give birth to their second child. He is not part of the group that receives livestock; he chose to invest in construction supplies and tools and now owns his small construction business.
“When I was paid, I was able to earn 100 euros a day in the Netherlands. That is much more than I can earn here.” The average wage of Uzbek workers is around 500 euros per month. So, it is understandable that working abroad is attractive to many young men in Uzbekistan. It helps improve living conditions for the traditionally multi-generational households.
This form of living, with multiple generations under one roof, also provides the safety net that we know returning migrants need. Reintegration and finding your way back after you have left for a couple of years is strongly influenced by the network you still have in the country you return to. Even more so, if the expectations of moving abroad and earning money are not met with reality.
"I am very happy with the support I received because life in the Netherlands was much harder than I thought. I was paying lots of money for the room I lived in, and I did not always receive the money for my work even though I often worked more than 12 hours a day,” says Usmon. Others agree. Living expenses were high, and wages were not always paid in full or paid at all. Temur reports that the company he worked for still owed him more than 10,000 Euro but since he was “illegal” he did not know how to claim that money. Exploitation seems to be common, although none of the men we speak to would describe themselves as victims.
Alisher does not quite understand our question when we ask why he chose this particular cow; Doniyor helps to translate, and then he laughs. “I choose her [the cow] because she has good muscles and she looks strong. I hope she will reproduce, and I want to start a small farm myself. I might become a competitor for this farm,” he says with cheeky self-confidence.
In the framework of IOM the Netherlands Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration project, colleagues are carrying out monitoring visits to different relevant countries of return. Uzbekistan is currently the number one country of return for the Netherlands. A group of three staff from the Netherlands visited Tashkent and Samarkand in May 2026 to speak to the colleagues of IOM Uzbekistan, partner organizations of IOM in the country and most importantly to returnees who benefited from the programme to learn from their experiences.
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