The territory of the Russian Federation covers 17,075,499 square kilometers, of which 45% are located above the Arctic Circle, the area of permafrost and polar nights. The length of the state border is 58,322 km, the overall number of cities and villages is 157,895, among them 30,000 have no landline telephone lines, and over 39,000 have no people living in them either.
Most of the abandoned villages and towns are in the Central Federal Circuit, North-West, Far North, Siberia and Far East.
According to official data, the overall number of Russia's population is approximately 132,000,000 people, though estimates may vary.
Out of that number 74% (97,680,000) reside in cities, towns and urban-type villages, namely:
In Moscow 10,969,000, in Moscow Region (Oblast) 7,900,000;
in St. Petersburg 6,897,000, in Leningrad Region 3,350,000 (including temporary registrations and excluding foreign illegal migrants).
Cities with the population over 1 million:
Novosibirsk 1,391,900
Yekaterinburg 1,315,100
Nizhny Novgorod 1,278,300
Samara 1,139,000
Omsk 1,134,800
Kazan 1,116,000
Chelyabinsk 1,091,500
Rostov-On-Don 1,051,600
Ufa 1,022,600
Perm 990,200
Volgograd 986,400
From among the overall population:
64% are people of retired and pre-retired age - 84,480,000. Army personnel including draftees, contracted servicemen, extended servicemen, civilians working for the military, personnel of auxiliary facilities and science institutions - 2,127,000, and also generals and admirals - 1,686.
Staff of the FSB (Federal Security Service), FSO (Federal Protection Service), FPS (Federal Border Service), FAPSI (Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information), SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service), FMS (Federal Migration Service), etc. - 2,740,000.
Staff of the Emergency Ministry, Federal Police (Ministry of the Internal Affairs), Internal Troops, Ministry of Justice, Drug Enforcement Agency, and Prosecutor's Office - 2,970,000.
Officers of the Customs, Tax Enforcement, Sanitary and other agencies - 1,957,000.
Employees of other federal ministries and offices - 1,985,000. Employees of power structures involving government deputies (members of governments) - 1,870,000. Officials of licensing, controlling and registering agencies - 1,741,000. Clerks of pension fund, social fund, insurance fund and other funds - 2,439,000. Foreign Ministry and international offices (UN, UNESCO, etc.) - 797,000. Clergymen and attendants of religious institutions and denominations - 692,000. Notaries, legal bureaus, attorneys and convicts - 2,857,000. Personnel of private security structures, detectives, security guards, etc. - 1,775,600. The unemployed (according to the figures of Russia's Statistics Agency) - 5,780,000.
A total of 114,210,600 people who are doing nothing and living at the expense of the state budget and the taxpaying part of the population.
17,789,400 people are remaining. And this is all... The entire small and mid-size farming business-class along with the "traveling salesmen". It includes minor children, schoolchildren, college students, housewives, the homeless, the bums, the forced migrants, refugees, and so on and so forth.
This partly explains the fact that Russia's gross domestic product is not much higher than that of the area of Los Angeles, CA and its surroundings in the US.
Only 20% of Russia's population believes that the situation in Russia is quiet and well off. Over a half of the citizens (51%) are convinced that Russia is on a wrong track, and only 38% of the respondents say that they believe that the country is moving in the right direction.
18% of the respondents said that their financial situation is well off, 54% consider their position to be difficult yet tolerable, 24% said that "one can't stand it anymore".
Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center
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