Paul Goble
Staunton, June 15 – The 2010 census reported that more than 91 percent of the population of the Russian capital consisted of ethnic Russians; and the new census once its findings about ethnicity are released is likely to report something similar. But both figures are far above the actual total.
As anyone can see with the naked eye, Moscow is far less Russian than that. Some of this is the result of boosterism by officials, but most has a less nefarious cause: Hundreds of thousands of non-Russians who live in the city and the surrounding oblasts are there illegally. If they were included, the Russian share of the population would fall precipitously.
But they aren’t. That has two consequences: Officials will continue to present Moscow as more Russian than it is; and everyone else will speculate that the city is about to lose its Russian majority. Neither is correct. Moscow retains an ethnic Russian majority, but in the absence of data, people feel free to speculate widely
There is another factor at work as well: the indigenous ethnic Russian population of Moscow is aging rapidly and dying off at a greater rate than either other ethnic Russians coming from beyond the ring road or than the non-Russian “illegals,” something that makes the swing against the Russianness of the capital even greater.
For a review of both what is known and what is speculated about Moscow’s ethnic composition, see profile.ru/society/pochemu-moskva-prodolzhaet-vtyagivat-v-sebya-ljudskie-resursy-so-vsego-sng-1101615/.
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