Building-up your vocabulary. Russia’s total population in 2006 was estimated at 142,8 ml, making the country the sixth most populous

Russia’s total population in 2006 was estimated at 142,8 ml, making the country the sixth most populous, after China, India, the United States, Indonesia, and Brazil. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 the number of immigrants to Russia has exceeded the number of Russians leaving the country. However, the rate of natural increase (=the number of births compared to the number of deaths) has been negative since 1992. In 2006 the birth rate was 10.4 per 1,000, while the death rate was 15.2 per 1,000.

Russia is the only major industrialized country in which demographic indices are worse than in earlier years, largely because illnesses have increased as the quality and availability of health care have declined. Although it has increased slightly since 1994, male life expectancy of 59 years in 2005 is still below the 64 years in 1990; female life expectancy during the same period dropped from 74 years to 72 years. Infant mortality rose from 17.4 deaths per 1,000 births in 1990 to 18.1 per 1,000 in 2000, and then started to decrease gradually, reaching the rate of 11 deaths per 1,000 in 2005.

The overall population density of Russia is about 9 persons per sq km (22 per sq mile), but the population is unevenly distributed across the country. The population density of a particular area generally reflects the land’s agricultural potential, with localized population centers occurring at mining and industrial centers. 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 tapers eastward across the southern Urals into southwestern Siberia. Although the majority of the population remains concentrated in European Russia, the country experienced substantial eastward migration before 1917 and after World War II (1939-1945), especially to southern and far eastern Siberia. Such migration was strongly encouraged by the government during the Soviet period. In recent years, this migration has been reversed, with many Russian citizens leaving northern Siberia and far eastern Russia for European Russia.

Throughout much of rural European Russia, the population density averages about 25 persons per sq km (65 per sq mile). The heaviest population densities are in sprawling urbanized areas such as Moscow Oblast. On the other hand, more than one-third of the country’s territory has a population density of fewer than 1 person per sq km (3 per sq mile). This includes part of northern European Russia and huge areas of Siberia.

From 1989 to 1996 nearly half of all urban settlements declined in population, although several towns and cities increased dramatically in size during the same period, especially those associated with oil and natural gas production in western Siberia and the Volga-Urals regions. The population in several towns in the North Caucasus area increased rapidly in the 1990s as a result of the inflow of refugees from war-torn Chechnya.

During the Soviet period thousands of ethnic Russians migrated to other Soviet republics. This trend began to reverse in the mid-1970s, and since the dissolution of the USSR ethnic Russians have returned to the Russian Federation in even larger numbers. Southwestern Russia (from the North Caucasus to southwestern Siberia), Moscow, and Saint Petersburg have been the main destinations for immigrants. Foreign nationals, such as Chinese, have immigrated to far eastern Russia and large cities in European Russia in comparatively small numbers.

During the pre-Christian era the vast territory that became Russia was sparsely inhabited by tribal peoples, many of whom were described by ancient Greek and Roman writers. The largely unknown north, a region of extensive forests, was inhabited by tribes later known collectively as Slavs. These Slavs were the ancestors of the modern Russian people. Far more important to the ancient Greeks and Romans were southern peoples in Scythia, an indeterminate region that included the greater part of southeastern Europe and Central Asia. Portions of this region were occupied by a succession of horse-riding nomadic peoples, including, chronologically, the Cimmerians, Scythians, and Sarmatians. In these early times, Greek traders and colonists established many trading posts and settlements, particularly along the north coast of the Black Sea and in Crimea.

Large stretches of open plain facilitated the immigration of outside peoples. Such migrations resulted in successive invasions, the establishment of settlements, and the assimilation of people who spoke different languages. Thus, in the early centuries of the Christian era, Germanic Goths displaced the Asian peoples of Scythia and established an Ostrogothic (eastern Goth) kingdom on the Black Sea. In the 4th century nomadic Huns invaded from Asia and conquered the Ostrogoths. The Huns held the territory constituting the present-day Ukraine and most of present-day Moldova until their defeat in Western Europe in the mid-5th century. Later came the Mongolian Avars, followed by the nomadic Asian Magyars, and then the Turkic Khazars, who remained influential until about the mid-10th century.

Meanwhile, during this long period of successive invasions, the Slavic tribes in the area northeast of the Carpathian Mountains had begun a series of migratory movements. As these migrations took place, the western tribes in the region eventually evolved as the Moravians, Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks; the southern tribes as the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and a Slavic people who were conquered by but soon assimilated the Turkic Bulgars; and the eastern tribes as a people who later gave rise to the modern Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians. The East Slavs became renowned traders. The systems of rivers and waterways extending through the territory from the Valday Hills facilitated the establishment of Slav trading posts, notably the cities of Kyiv (Kiev), which is the present-day capital of the Ukraine, and Novgorod, directly north of Kyiv. Along these waterways the Slavs transported goods between the Baltic and Black seas.

Notes:

Scythia [`siӨiә] - Скифия (территория в Северном Причерноморье, которую населяли древние племена скифов - Scythians)

Cimmerian [si`miәriәn] - киммериец, киммерийка (племена, обитавшие в VIII -VII в.в. до н. э. в Северном Причерноморье)

Goth [goӨ] - гот (из древнегерманского племени готов (не существует с VIII века н.э)

Ostrogothic [`ostrәugoӨik] - остготский

Magyars [`mægja:z] - мадьяры

Carpathian Mountains [ka:`peiӨjәn] – Карпатские горы

Slavic

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