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.

E.

Education

Russian education and cultural institutions and activities, highly constrained and monitored, as well as financed, by the Soviet state for nearly seven decades, were granted much greater freedom during the late 1980s, under the policy of glasnost (Russian, “openness”) of the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Liberalization accelerated with the collapse of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the USSR. Ideological training has disappeared; new teaching methodologies have been developed and promoted in public schools, including a new approach to Soviet and Russian history; private schools have been established; and the bans on a variety of forms of artistic expression have been lifted. However, although now free of ideological and political interference, Russia’s educational system and cultural institutions have been severely affected by the impact of the liberalization of the country’s economy generally, and by the collapse of government finances in particular. State funding has been cut or, in many cases, ended and even where theoretically still provided has often failed to materialize.

Russia inherited a well-developed, comprehensive system of education that was probably one of the greatest achievements of the Soviet period. The Soviet authorities established an extensive network of pre-school, elementary, secondary, and higher-education institutions that transformed national educational levels. Literacy levels were brought up to almost 100 per cent, compared with a predominantly illiterate population in 1917, secondary-level education became the norm, with a sizeable minority going on to higher education, and the country became a world leader in many areas of research. It also provided free continuing education for adults. At the age of six or seven, children in the USSR entered primary school for an intensive course from grades one to four. Intermediate education began with grade five and continued until grade nine. After that, children entered upper-level schools, specialized institutions, or vocational-technical programmes, which included on-the-job training.

Nurseries, kindergartens, and other early-education facilities were particularly well developed in Russia during the Soviet period. In 1989 nearly 70 per cent of pre-school-age children attended a state-run facility—one of the highest proportions among the former Soviet republics. The system of specialized secondary and vocational-technical education was also well developed. In 1989 Russia had 2,595 specialist secondary institutions, or 57 per cent of the total in the former Soviet republics. Such schools were set up to train skilled and semi-professional workers such as technicians, nurses, and elementary-school teachers, who generally function as assistants to professional graduates of higher educational institutions. Vocational-technical schools offer students a chance to complete a general secondary education while obtaining occupational training.

Russia has some 70,000 primary and secondary schools, including some 447 non-state schools (1994). More than 21 million pupils were enrolled in 1994, equivalent to about 95 per cent of the total school-age population; 40,000 of the total were in private schools. Although primary and secondary education are still free in the state sector, schools are facing increasing shortages of equipment and books, and school buildings are generally in a poor state of repair; many schools lack basic facilities such as running water or sewerage. There is also a growing problem of staff shortages. Teachers’ salaries are very low (equivalent to about 73 per cent of the average national wage in 1994) and the status of the profession, which is dominated by women, has fallen considerably in recent years. Many teachers, particularly those with marketable skills like foreign languages, have left to take up jobs in the expanding and more lucrative private sector, while the number of entrants to the profession is falling. The problem of low wages has been compounded by the government’s financial problems, which have led to a large backlog of unpaid wages in the public sector generally. Schoolteachers have been in the forefront of strikes to protest against the backlog.

The impact of economic liberalization and government financial shortages on the pre-school sector has been even more profound. The state nursery sector, set up originally to support the Soviet Union’s large number of working women, by caring for children aged 6 months to 3 years, had virtually ceased to exist by the end of 1995. To help compensate for this loss, the government in 1994 increased maternity-leave provision from 1 to 3 years, and many women have taken advantage of this, although the additional leave is unpaid. Private crèches have been set up, but the cost of their fees mean that they are out of the reach of most parents. Kindergarten provision for children aged 3 to 6 years has continued. However, many of the free workplace facilities of the Soviet era have been closed down by privatized state industries, while nurseries still in the state sector have lost their subsidies, forcing them to charge fees.

The number of higher educational institutions has expanded since the collapse of the USSR, rising from 514 in 1990 to 553 in 1994 and nearly 700 by 2002. The increase reflects mainly the rapid growth of non-state higher educational institutions during the 1990s. However, the number of students enrolled in higher education has fallen, from 2.8 million in 1990, to just over 2.5 million in 1994, of whom 4 per cent were in the non-state sector. The fall in numbers has been due partly to Russia’s changing demographic structure, but mainly to the introduction of tuition charges for students. Although the fees are generally low, except in the most prestigious universities, by the end of 1996 the only university still providing completely free access was Kazan State University in Tatarstan republic. Founded in 1804, Kazan State University is the third oldest university in Russia, and also one of the most prestigious. The others included Moscow State University (founded 1755), St Petersburg State University (1819), and Novosibirsk State University (1959). Other important universities are located in Rostov, Nizhniy Novgorod, Tomsk, Vladivostok, and Voronezh. The number of universities has increased since 1991, created from numerous small institutes in cities of republics across the federation. Notwithstanding this, universities still comprise only a small proportion of higher educational establishments; the vast majority are institutes that specialize in vocational training.

Undergraduate training in higher educational institutions generally involves a four- or five-year course of study for full-time students. However, a large minority take their degree by correspondence course or attend on a part-time basis. Students completing undergraduate courses can enrol for graduate training for a one- to three-year term. Graduate students who successfully complete their courses of study, comprehensive examinations, and the defence of their dissertations receive candidate of sciences degrees, which are roughly equivalent to doctoral degrees in the West. A higher degree, the doctor of sciences, is awarded to established scholars who have made outstanding contributions to their disciplines.

F.

Research

During the Soviet era the state channelled large amounts of funding into research and the USSR achieved a prestigious reputation in a wide variety of fields, including nuclear physics, space science and technology (including astronomy), medicine, Earth sciences, and the biological sciences. Research was, and still is, carried out not only in universities but also in a large number of independent research institutes; in 1996, Russia had more than 1,000 such institutes of various kinds, for pure and applied research. Those relating to pure research are mainly organized within coordinating academies. The most important of these is the Russian Academy of Sciences (formerly the Academy of Sciences of the USSR), which is the chief coordinating body for research in the natural and social sciences in Russia, controlling a network of around 300 research establishments. There are also specialized academies for the agricultural sciences, the arts, the medical sciences and education.

G.

Culture

Russia has an enormous cultural legacy, notably from the 19th century; its achievements in music, ballet, drama, literature, and film are particularly renowned. Russia has produced some of the most famous names in 19th and 20th century music, notably the composers Alexander Borodin, Mikhail Glinka, Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninov, Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Aleksandr Scriabin, Igor Stravinsky, and Peter Illich Tchaikovsky. Other famous names are the singer Chaliapin and the musicians Vladimir Horowitz, Anton Rubinstein, and Emil Gilels. Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky are among the Russian composers who have had a close association with the ballet. Of all the performance arts, ballet is arguably the one most closely associated with Russia. It was the main home of classical ballet as it developed during the second half of the 19th century, largely under the direction of French-born choreographer Marius Petipa. In the 20th century the company of Sergei Diaghilev, Ballets Russes, with legendary names like dancer Anna Pavlova and the dancer-choreographers Vaslav Nijinsky and Michel Fokine, provided the impetus that revitalized ballet all over the world. In the modern era, the Bolshoi Ballet and the Kirov Ballet continue the classical tradition. Famous names include Galina Ulanova, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Irek Mukhamedov.

The 19th century was also probably the richest period for Russian writers, beginning with poet and author Aleksandr Pushkin, and including Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolay Gogol, Ivan Turgenyev, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Anton Chekhov. Famous names of the 20th century include Maksim Gorky, Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Sholokhov, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Joseph Brodsky. In the visual arts the most famous names include Andrei Rublev and Theophanes the Greek, artists whose work in the late 14th and early 15th centuries marked the supreme achievement in icon painting. More recent names include the artists Wassily Kandinsky, Ilya Repin, Léon Bakst, Kasimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko, and Vladimir Tatlin. Russia’s noted film-makers include Andrey Tarkovsky, Mark Donskoy, and Sergey Eisenstein.

For more details of Russian culture see Russian Cinema; Russian Literature.

H.

Cultural Institutions

Russia has a huge number of museums of all kinds, including outdoor museums of architectural preservation. Most of the major ones are in Moscow and St Petersburg. Best known to tourists are the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, one of the world’s finest museums, and the Armoury Museum in the Moscow Kremlin. Also in Moscow are the State Tretyakov Gallery, with a collection devoted to Russian art, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, the Folk-Art Museum, the Central Museum, and the Museum of the Revolution, as well as many other smaller, more specialized collections. The Permanent Exhibition of National Economic Achievements in Moscow offers a large display of achievements in science, industry, and agriculture. To the north-east of Moscow there is a string of a half-dozen old kremlin (citadel) towns that served as seats of government for city-states during the Middle Ages. These have been restored as part of a tourist circuit known as the Golden Ring.

Russia also has thousands of libraries of various kinds. Best known is the Russian State Library in Moscow, which is one of the largest library collections in the world. Other leading libraries include the State M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin Public Library in St Petersburg, the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Moscow State University Library.

The best-known theatres in Moscow are the Bolshoi (“big”) Theatre, the Maly (“small”) Theatre, and the Moscow Art Theatre. In addition, many of the larger productions of the Bolshoi ballet and opera companies are presented in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, which seats 6,000 people. Other theatres of note in the capital are the Moscow Central Children’s Theatre, the Moscow Young Spectators Theatre, the Moscow Central State Puppet Theatre, the Moscow Art Theatre, the Academic Musical Theatre, the Operetta Theatre, and the Theatre Art Institute. St Petersburg has the Mariinsky Theatre, the Maly Opera Theatre, and the Pushkin Academic Drama Theatre.

Russia’s cultural institutions have been greatly affected by the heavy cuts in public spending and the country’s other economic problems. The generous subsidies given to the arts during the Soviet era have left the country with an enviable cultural infrastructure, but one that is also extremely expensive to maintain. Russia’s theatres, orchestras, opera companies, circuses, libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions were all totally dependent on state funding. State patronage also supported writers, artists, and film-makers. A number of cultural institutions have been forced to close down, while many others are on the brink of closure. Some are attempting to compensate for funding cuts by raising finance commercially, such as through corporate sponsorship and donation, although this is a route open so far only to the most famous. Foreign tours have been a vital source of finance for some institutions, such as the Kirov and Bolshoi ballet companies. There have also been attempts to pressure the government and local authorities to release funds that have been allocated but not disbursed, a common occurrence. In October 1996, for example, the country’s museum directors mounted public protests in an attempt to persuade the Ministry of Culture to release funding allocated for maintenance.