Paul Goble
Staunton, Nov. 2 – Shortcomings in Russian official statistics mean that many oblasts, krays and republics have been claiming far larger populations than in fact they have with most of these “dead souls” being not inventions but rather the failure of the authorities to adjust the figures because of the outflow of workers to other regions, Aleksey Raksha says.
If the receiving regions could these workers as their own residents, the independent Moscow demographer and frequent regime critic suggests, that could mean a significant overcount in places like Moscow and an even greater overcount in the total population of Russia as a whole (versia.ru/perepis-najdyot-milliony-myortvyx-dush-i-poteryaet-milliardy-rublej).
The population of Ingushetia is officially 515,000, Raksha says; but in reality, there are only about 330,000 people living there. In Daghestan, the difference between reported and real is no less than 500,000. There and in the KBR, Kalmykia, and Karachayevo-Cherkessia, the gap is about 20 to 25 percent.
The total of such differences is large and that will force the authorities in Moscow either to adjust the official figures of the population in them downward or to come up with made up statistics that will not be able to withstand careful analysis or support a facts-based government policy.
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