Nearly 130 Mid-Sized Russian Cities with Almost 3.5 Million Residents May Soon Cease to Exist, Moscow Researchers Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 4 – Russia’s demographic decline is reflected in the disappearance of thousands of villages over the last 20 years; but now, this fall off in the number of Russians has reached the point that Moscow experts say 129 small cities with a combined population of 3.4 million may cease to exist with their residents dying off or moving elsewhere.

            The study, by the government’s Russian Academy of Economics and State Service said that these cities, which individually number less than 50,000 residents, are in a group of risk given that their combined population has fallen by 314,000 over the last decade (iz.ru/1931548/ana-sturma-valeria-misina/nenaselennyi-punkt-pocti-130-malyh-gorodov-v-rossii-mogut-isceznut and regionvoice.ru/rossiya-teryaet-korni-malye-goroda-vymi/).

            Of all Russian cities with 50,000 or fewer residents, the study continues, those currently the most at risk of dying soon are those such as the coal mining centers of the north, metallurgical and wood processing centers as well as “in population points located on the periphery of particular regions.”

            Some of these cities, the authors of the report say, won’t completely disappear but instead will “continue to exist as settlements or villages.”