Russia

III

Population

With a total population of about 141,377,750 (2007 estimate), Russia is one of the world’s most populous countries. More than 100 nationalities inhabit Russia, making it one of the largest multinational states in the world. Russians, a Slavic people, are the predominant nationality, comprising more than 80 per cent of the total population. The largest of the non-Russian minorities, the Tatars, comprise only 3.8 per cent of the total. The Ukrainians (3 per cent) and the Chuvash (1.2 per cent) are the only other minorities constituting more than 1 per cent of the population. Other minorities include Avars, Armenians, Bashkirs, Belorussians, Jews, Germans, Mari, Moldovans, and Udmurts.

A

Population Characteristics

The overall population density of Russia is about 8 people per sq km (21 people per sq mi). Population distribution across the country, however, is extremely uneven. The population density of a particular area generally reflects the land’s agricultural potential, with localized population nodes occurring at mining and industrial centres. Most of the country’s people are concentrated in the so-called fertile triangle, which has its base along the western border between the Baltic and Black seas, and then tapers eastward across the southern Urals into south-western Siberia. Although the majority of the population remains concentrated in European Russia, there was substantial eastward migration after World War II, especially to southern Siberia and Far Eastern Russia as new industries and farming areas were opened up. Relations between Russia and Estonia remain tense over unsettled borders along the western frontier.

Throughout much of rural European Russia the population density averages about 25 people per sq km (65 per sq mi). The country’s heaviest population densities are found in sprawling urbanized areas, such as the Moscow oblast. More than one third of Russia has a population density of less than 1 person per sq km (2.6 per sq mi). This includes part of northern European Russia and huge areas in Siberia.

The demographic structure of Russia has undergone profound changes over the past decade or so, with the greatest changes during the 1990s. Like other economically more developed countries, Russia’s birth and fertility rates have been declining over many decades. Official figures, however, show that this trend has intensified since the mid-1980s. The birth rate has halved, from nearly 20 live births per 1,000 population in the mid-1980s to 10.90 per 1,000 in 2007. During the same period the total fertility rate—the average number of children born to a woman during her reproductive life—has registered one of the largest falls among the economically more developed countries. Russia’s total fertility rate during the second half of the 1980s averaged 2.1 children born per woman, the rate usually considered to be the minimum necessary to maintain existing population levels. By 2007 it had fallen to just 1.4 children born per woman, one of the lowest rates in the world.

Mortality rates, by contrast, have shown a dramatic reversal of the downward trend that has characterized the modern era. The overall death rate has jumped from about 10.5 per 1,000 in the mid-1980s to 16 per 1,000 in 2007. Infant mortality rates have also risen, from 19.9 deaths per 1,000 live births in the late 1980s to 11 per 1,000 in 2007. The rise in mortality is reflected in the sharp decline in life expectancy during the 1990s, from an average of almost 69 years for the population as a whole at the early 1990s to 66 years in 2007. This is one of the worst figures among economically more developed countries, comparing for example with an average life expectancy of about 77 years in the countries of the EU. The average figure also conceals sharp differences between the sexes. Male life expectancy has fallen since the start of the 1990s, from an average of 64 years to just 59 years in 2007. The decline in female life expectancy, however, has been less, from 73 years to 73 years.

The impact of these demographic changes means that in Russia deaths outnumber births. In 1989 there were 1.6 million deaths and 2.2 million births; by 1995 the figures had reversed, with 2.2 million deaths and 1.4 million births. The result is a rapidly declining population that is beginning to cause concern to the authorities, who fear depopulation of many of the more remote areas. Russia’s population growth rate is now -0.48 per cent (2007). Overall, the country’s population has fallen by more than 600,000 since 1992; if the effects of migration are excluded the decline is nearer 2 million.

The change in Russia’s population structure reflects a variety of factors. The large drop in male life expectancy, for example has been attributed to the high levels of alcohol consumption and smoking among Russian men, as well as to the psychological stresses created by the rapid changes in the economy, rising unemployment, and increased uncertainty. Russian researchers have identified the greatest rise in mortality among poorly educated, unemployed urban males, who have been unable to adapt to the country’s new economic conditions. A general deterioration in health levels due to a worsening of people’s diet as a result of rising food prices, and to poor environmental conditions, especially air and water pollution, have contributed to the general rise in mortality levels. So too have the shortages of medicines and vaccines, and the deterioration in state-run medical services generally, that have resulted from funding cuts. There has been a marked increase in levels of preventable diseases such as diphtheria and tuberculosis, as well as in bronchial asthma and other respiratory diseases, dysentery, and typhoid.

B

Principal Cities

Almost 73 per cent of the population lives in urban areas. Russia became a country of large cities despite government restrictions during the Soviet period designed to limit the populations of major urban centres. Thirteen cities have more than 1 million inhabitants; most of these are in European Russia. Another 80 have populations of between 1 million and 200,000. The largest city by far is Moscow, the capital, with a population of 10,101,500 (2002). St Petersburg (called Leningrad during the Soviet era), which served as the national capital from 1712 to 1918, is the country’s second city. It is situated on the Gulf of Finland, a leading port and a primary industrial centre, and has a population of 4,669,400 (2002). The third-largest city, Nizhniy Novgorod, the largest city on the Volga and a major automotive and shipbuilding centre, has a population of 1,311,200 (2002). Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia, has a population of 1,425,600 (2002). Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk), the largest city in the Urals, has a population of 1,293,000 (2002). Samara (Kuibyshev), a commercial centre of the middle Volga region and the primary refining centre for the Volga-Urals oilfields, has 1,158,100 inhabitants (2002). Omsk, the second-largest city in western Siberia and the region’s chief petrochemical centre, has 1,133,900 people (2002).

The other cities with more than 1 million inhabitants include Chelyabinsk, the second-largest urban centre in the Ural Mountains; Kazan, capital of the Tatar republic, located on the middle Volga; Perm, the major industrial centre in the Kama River region to the west of the Urals; Ufa, an important petrochemicals centre in the southern Urals; and Rostov, a commercial, industrial, and transport centre in southern European Russia on the lower Don River.

C

Religion

Religious expression, which was controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and strictly discouraged for nearly seven decades, has unfolded in a myriad of different beliefs, sects, and religious denominations since the dissolution of the USSR. Missionaries from abroad and other proselytizers have introduced a wide variety of religious beliefs and new-age philosophies to Russia. The religious revival, however, has resulted primarily in the resurgence of traditional religions, particularly Orthodox Christianity, but also other forms of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism.

Russian Orthodox Christianity (see Orthodox Church), adopted by the Eastern Slavs from the neighbouring Byzantine Empire in the 10th century, is the primary religion in Russia, with an estimated 35 million to 40 million adherents (about one quarter of the population). The head of the Russian Orthodox Church is the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia (from 1990 Alexii II of St Petersburg and Novgorod), assisted by the seven-member Holy Synod. The Church is widely respected by Russian non-believers, who see it as a symbol of Russian heritage and culture. Orthodox holidays are officially observed by the Russian government, and politicians attend major Church festivals. The Church is divided, however, on its role in a post-Soviet society. An anti-Semitic, highly nationalistic, intolerant faction is opposed by another group advocating a more tolerant, ecumenical approach to worldly affairs. Another challenge to its authority outside Russia has been the resurrection of the Uniate Church in Ukraine, which observes Orthodox rites but recognizes the supremacy of the Roman Catholic pope.

Other traditional Christian denominations include the Old Believers, whose schism from the Orthodox Church dates from the 17th century; the Armenian Apostolic Church; and the Roman Catholic Church. In the mid-1990s there were estimated to be 300,000 Roman Catholics in European Russia and 122,000 in Siberia.

Most Muslims in Russia practise the Sunni form of Islam. Islam is the dominant religion among peoples of the north Caucasus, such as the Chechen and the Ingush, and in the middle Volga region, among the Tatars, Chuvash, and Bashkirs. Buddhism has been an official religion in Russia since the mid-18th century, and is most widespread in the Buryatia republic, where the Central Spiritual Department of Buddhists of Russia has its seat, in the Kalmykia and Tuva republics, and in parts of the Irkutsk and Chita oblasts. There are also newly established communities in Moscow and St Petersburg. Although many Jews have left Russia (and previously the USSR) since the relaxation of emigration rules during the 1970s, the country still has a sizeable Jewish population—around 656,000 in the mid-1990s—living mainly in urban areas, but also in small communities around the country including Yevreyskaya (Birobidzhan), the Jewish autonomous oblast in the far east.

Since the passing of the 1990 law allowing religious freedom, there has been a rapid rise in the number of other religious groups. Although the most dramatic growth has been among evangelical Christian sects, including Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh-Day Adventists, other groups have also established themselves—including Japan’s Aum Shinri Kyo fringe cult, which was implicated in the 1995 Tokyo subway gas attack. The rise in non-traditional religions generally, and particularly the presence of large numbers of well-financed foreign missionaries, has created considerable unease and resentment within conservative religious and nationalist circles in Russia. In July 1996 Aleksandr Lebed, then the Russian security chief, reflected the feelings of many ordinary Russians when he called for the banning of all foreign religions. Yeltsin rejected such action, but many local administrations, particularly in strongly Muslim and Buddhist areas, are reported to have taken independent action, issuing restrictive decrees and laws.

D

Languages

More than 100 languages are spoken in Russia (including Tatar, Chuvash, Chechen, Ukrainian, and Belorussian), and some of the republics have declared their own local state languages. The Russian language, however, is the most commonly spoken in business, government, and education. Russian was established as the dominant language during the Soviet period, reflecting the dominance of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic within the former USSR and the dominance of Russians within the state government and bureaucratic structures. As a result, Russians speak their native tongue almost exclusively—in 1989 only 4.1 per cent of Russians throughout the former USSR could speak another indigenous language—while most other ethnic groups are bilingual. Millions of non-Russians have adopted Russian as their mother tongue. The government of the former USSR helped many smaller ethnic groups to develop their own written alphabets and grammars; however, through educational policies, it also ensured the dominance of the Russian language.