This must be very approximate. I have a hard time imagining illegal Georgian laborers answering honestly, plus the amount of federal money a minority group gets is determined by population size, so there is incentive to inflate figures.
If accurate, the demographis situation is a lot better than was earlier thought.
Over 145 Million People Took Part in Russian Population Census Rosbalt
MOSCOW, January 23. 'More than 145 million people took part in the Russian population census which was carried out in October 2002,' announced Head of the Russian State Statistics Committee Vladimir Sokolin at a plenary session of the State Duma yesterday. He added that about 7% of the population used their right to take part in absentia.
Mr Sokolin said that the census received 'a great deal of support from the public, especially from religious organizations and representatives of Russian business.' More than 600 thousand part-time workers were involved in the census. 'Thanks to this census modern Russia has for the first time ever a unique source of information about the socio-economic and national make-up of the country,' he added.
Mr Sokolin also mentioned that there was a 15-20% difference between the census results in certain regions and the current demographical data for the same reasons. In his opinion, this shows that the current Russian system for recording demographic change is below standard.