With respect to emigration, while the population of ethnic Russians is declinign, until a short while ago this was approximately made up for by immigration, largely illegal, into Russia from the other former Soviet Republics. The populations of both Georgia and Armenia have dropped by about 40% since 1991, mostly due to an exodus northward.
Chris Doss The Russia Journal ------------------
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 20:18:54 -0800 From: michael perelman <michael at ecst.csuchico.edu> Subject: Re: Russian take on Bush's State of the Union blather
I am still wondering. Are you saying that even with the decline in economic growth and the emigration and the growth in privatization, that there is still 60% more bureaucrats.
Chris Doss wrote:
>
> Yep. Being a bureaucrat is a guaranteed way of enriching yourself via
> bribes, so you make lots of extra bureaucratic posts for your friends...
>
> Putin is attempying to cut down the bureaucracy. The number of businesses
> transactions requiring government licenses -- which usually means paying
> bribes -- has dropped from something like 1,000 to under 100 (numbers
pulled
> from my ass, but they're something like that).
>
> Chris Doss
> The Russia Journal