Russia

The Russian Federation is a vast but truncated country in Europe and Asia. European Russia is generally considered to be west of the Ural mountains and river, with Siberia to the east. The population in 2022 stood at 146,088,055, of which 107,486,269 are urban. Ethnic Russians are estimated to number between 105 and 110 million. 74% of the population lives west of the Urals.

Previous to 1991 it had been the Soviet Union, a communist federation, which prior to 1917 had been the Russian Empire.

History

Ancient Russian principalities etc., 1054–1132

In the 1990s and into the 21st century, the United States' proxy force, NATO, deliberately and provocatively surrounded European Russia with military alliances and bases, supported by the European Union (EU). In February 2022 Russia invaded the breakaway (1992) republic of Ukraine as a result of disputed unsatisfactory permanent borders, and finally by Ukraine's proposals to join NATO and the EU.

The history of Russia can be divided in six stages.

• The Kievan Rus (882–1283)
• Grand Duchy of Moscow (1283–1547)
• Tsardom of Russia (1547–1721)
• Imperial Russia (1721–1917)
• Soviet Russia (1917–1991)
• Russian Federation (1991–current)

Communistic rule

In both relative and absolute terms, Russia is one of the countries having suffered most in the hands of Communists. The Communist coup of 1917 and power consolidation during the civil war destroyed the existing Russian way of life, wiped away the thin layer of intelligentia that had kept the country on the path of civilization and rendered the Russian people in the hands of Communists who exploited them to spread war and destruction to other countries.

The attempt to build a Communist empire ended in failure and Russia sunk into one of the deepest crises of its history in the 1990s. The number of victims of Communism in Russia is subject to various estimates. According to the Black Book of Communism, some 20 million perished, while academic A. Yakovlev claims that the Communist-triggered civil war alone claimed some 13 million lives, topped by 5,5 million who starved to death in early 1920s and the 5 million famine dead of the 1930s. According to Yakovlev, 20–25 million people were executed or died in prison camps as a result of Communist terror. With millions killed by mass deportations, the number of victims could be between 50–60 million. This figure does not include the estimated 27 million Soviet lives lost in the Second World War that Stalin helped unleash.

Russia has yet to overcome the demographic, social and economic disaster inflicted by Communism.

Demographic issues

Russia has a significant non-White and often Muslim population with higher birth rates.

There is also migration of Muslims to Russia from countries in the former Soviet Union.

In 2009, it was estimated that over the last 15 years, millions of Russian women had been ensnared in the sex trade and sold essentially as slaves, mainly to Muslim and Asian countries but also to Israel.

In 2010, Ivan Beloborodov projected the percentage of ethnic Russians (then 80% of the population) would decrease to around 60-70% by 2030.

Based on data from the 2021 census, ethnic Belarusians and Ukrainians are the oldest, Chechens, Avars, Kumyks, Ingush and Tuvans are the youngest, and Uzbeks and Tajiks have a great surplus of males, especially in the 20-50 age range.

Russia has taken various measures over the years in order to improve the low birth rate, which peaked at 1.7 children per woman in 2013-2015 but has been declining since and fell to 1.4 in 2022.

Illegal immigration

Higher estimates from 2003 put the illegal Chinese population at over 3 million, which would make the ethnic Chinese the fourth largest ethnic group in Russia after Russians, Tatars and Ukrainians, while lower estimates put the illegal Chinese at 200,000 to 500,000. In 2009, the number of Chinese immigrants was estimated to run into the millions. In sparsely populated Siberia, there were fears that the Chinese were outnumbering the Russians in certain areas.

According to Interior Ministry data, more than 332,000 illegal migrants from Uzbekistan reside in Russia as of 2021, along with 247,000 from Tajikistan, 152,000 from Ukraine, 120,000 from Azerbaijan, 115,000 from Kyrgyzstan, 61,000 from Armenia, 56,000 from Moldova and 49,000 from Kazakhstan.

Racial makeup

In the 2021 census, Russia had a legal resident population of 147,182,123. The racial makeup was:

• 74% Non-Turkic European (72% Russian; most numerous minorities: Ukrainians, Mordvins, Udmurts, Maris, Belarusians, Germans, and Komis)
• 6% Caucasian or West Asian (primarily Chechens, Avars, Armenians, Dargins, Kabardins, Kumyks, Lezgins, Ossetians, Ingush, and Azeris)
• 5% Turkic European (Tatars, Bashkirs, and Chuvash)
• 2% Siberian or East Asian (primarily Kazakhs, Buryats, Yakuts, and Tuvans)
• 0.5% Central Asian (primarily Uzbeks and Tajiks)
• 0.1% South Asian (primarily Gypsies)

It must be noted that 12% of the population did not specify their ethnicity.

In the Soviet 1989 census, Russia had a population of 147,021,869 and was:

• 88.3% Non-Turkic European (81.5% Russian)
• 3.5% Caucasian or West Asian
• 5.9% Turkic European
• 1.6% Siberian or East Asian
• 0.1% Central Asian
• 0.1% South Asian
• 0.5% did not specify

The 1989 census racial percentages are nearly identical to the 1979 ones, despite an increase of 10 million people, indicating a growing population with virtually no ethnic change under later Soviet rule.

The most numerous ethnicities have remained mostly unchanged between 1989 and 2021, with the addition of Uzbeks and Tajiks.

West Asian doubling

Almost all Caucasian ethnic groups have roughly doubled in number in these 32 years (1989-2021). As examples, Avars increased from 544,016 to 1,012,074, and Chechens from 898,999 to 1,674,854. It must be noted that all of these doubling groups, except Armenians whose doubling may be attributed at least in part to immigration from Armenia, are Muslim.

Exceptions to this doubling rule are:

• Ossetians, who are Eastern Orthodox Christians and have their own independent ethnostate (South Ossetia) experienced a smaller increase of ~25% in Russia.
• Turks, Kurds, and Yazidis who have migrated to Russia massively increased their numbers.
• Adygheis, followers of Islam, who numbered 122,908 in 1989, 124,835 in 2010, and 111,471 in 2021.
• Assyrians, followers of Syriac Christianity, who numbered 9,622 in 1989, 11,084 in 2010, and 4,421 in 2021.

The doubling of Caucasians is in stark contrast to ethnic Russians who have declined from 119,865,946 (1989) to 111,016,896 (2010) and 105,579,179 (2021) (excluding unspecifying respondents who may be fully Russian, ethnically mixed, or fully non-Russian). It is also in contrast with the Turkic Europeans (Tatars, Bashkirs and Chuvash) who are Muslim and have had a very small decline from 8.6 million (1989) to 8.4 million (2010).

Muslims

In 2006, Muslims were estimated to soon make up a majority of Russia’s conscript army, by 2020 be one-fifth of the population, and be more than half of the population by midcentury. A specialist on Islam in Russia argued that "Russia is going through a religious transformation that will be of even greater consequence for the international community than the collapse of the Soviet Union."Muslims migrants were also moving in large numbers to areas such as Moscow, which had 2.5 million Muslim inhabitants. Many Slavic Russians feared becoming a minority in their own country. Ethnic/racial tensions were stated to be increasing.

In 2010, Pew Research Center estimated Muslims in Russia at 12.5%.

In 2018, one of the grand muftis of Russia, sheikh Rawil Gaynetdin, estimated the Muslim population at 25 million, or 17% of the population.

In 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that 20% of Russian aviation industry employees are Muslims.

Jews

The number of Jews was counted as 700,651 in 1979, 551,047 in 1989, 237,097‬ in 2002, 157,673 in 2010 and 83,896 in 2021.

In 2014, despite being 0.1% of the population, Jews were a quarter of Russia's richest people.

See also

• Jewish influence: Russia
• Russian Revolution (1917)
• Communism
• Mass killings under Communist regimes
• Two Hundred Years Together
• Pogrom

Further reading

• Volkoff, Vladimir, Vladimir, The Russian Viking, Honyglen Pubs., U.K., 1984, ISBN: 0-907855-02-4
• Franklin, Simon, Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus, c950-1300, Cambridge University Press, England, 2002, ISBN: 0-521-81381-6
• Murray, John, Russia, Poland, and Finland, London, 1875.
• Morfill, W.R., Russia, Fisher Unwin pubs., London, Second edition. 1891.
• Winter, Nevin O., The Russian Empire, Page & co., Boston, 1913.
• Howe, Sonia E., A Thousand years of Russian History, Williams & Norgate pubs., London, 1917.
• Seton-Watson, Hugh, The Russian Empire 1801-1917, Clarendon Press, Oxford, England, 1967/1988, ISBN: 0-19-922103-7
• Gatrell, Peter, The Tsarist Economy 1850-1917, Batsford pubs., London, 1986, ISBN: 0-7134-2584-9
• Carr, Edward Hallett, The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1923, Macmillan & Co., London, 1950.
• Figes, Orlando, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924, Jonathan Cape pubs., London,1996, ISBN: 0-224-04162-2
• Korte, Stefan, Geopolitical Upheaval in Eastern Europe, www.Legatum-publishing.com, 2023, ISBN: 978-82-93925-23-1

External links

• Encyclopedia.com: Russia
• Communist crimes: Russian Federation