North Caucasians Registering as Residents of Russia’s Northern Regions to Get Higher Subsidies, Distorting Demographic Numbers and Increasing Suspicions of Official Portals

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 26 – Using the Russian government’s internet portal, some residents of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, among the poorest federal subjects, are now registering as residents of northern regions of the country in order to get the much higher benefit payments to families paid in the latter.

            This practice means that money intended to boost family size in predominantly ethnic Russian regions is in fact going to families in North Caucasians where families still are much larger, but the practice has broader consequences and the authorities are bringing charges of fraud to court (fortanga.org/2024/06/zhiteli-ingushetii-fiktivno-registriruutsya/).

            On the one hand, it allows the regions in the North to claim that they are growing more than they in fact are and thus to get more funds from the center; and on the other, it allows the center to conclude that the growth rates in the North Caucasus have slowed far more than is in fact the case.

            But in addition to these statistical distortions, such practices mean that pressure is likely to grow to require in-person registration rather than allow people across the Russian Federation to make use of government internet sites, something that will further complicate the life of the government and increase costs as well.