"Russia will be inhabited by only 40 million people in the next 40 years, down from the current 143 million, if it does not adopt a policy to preserve natives in their regions.'
Demographers have provided dire statistics depicting a sharp decline in Russia's population in the next few decades - and said that St. Petersburg, which loses an average of 70 people every day and has the lowest birth rate in the nation, could be hit hardest.
According to the St. Petersburg Civil Registry Committee, an average of 130 children are born in the city every day but the daily mortality rate is just over 200.
However, the International Institute for Strategic Studies maintains that St. Petersburg's leading position in Russia's population decline has been exaggerated, reporting worse figures in the neighboring regions of Lenoblast, Novgorod and Pskov with annual demographic decline there ranging between 1.21 percent and 1.5 percent, while St. Petersburg is experiencing a less than 1 percent annual slump.
Dmitry Dubrovsky, head of modern ethnology and inter-ethnic relations at St. Petersburg's Russian Museum of Ethnography, said the forecast demographic catastrophe has nothing to do with Moscow and St. Petersburg, "because these cities as a rule are attractive spots for both internal and foreign migrants, ready to cover any demographic gap."
But "the real concern in Russia's official circles is about an extinction of Russians as a race, rather than population decline in its traditional sense," says Dubrovsky, adding that it was one of the factors that prompted President Vladimir Putin last year to adopt a special policy aimed at "calling ethnic Russians abroad back home, but restricting migration for other nationalities." ... Full story
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