--- uvj at vsnl.com wrote:
> The Hindu
>
> Monday, Nov 08, 2004
>
> Russia's mixed blessing
>
> By Vladimir Radyuhin
>
> Migrant labour helps alleviate an acute demographic
> crisis and sustain
> economic growth, but also creates ethnic and social
> tensions.
>
> THE SOVIET Union may have been dead for 13 years but
> as far as Russians are
> concerned it has never been more alive. They have
> never seen so many Tajiks,
> Azeris, Moldovans and Ukrainians walk the streets of
> big cities and small
> townships across Russia from the Baltic Sea in the
> West to the Pacific coast
> in the Far East. The former compatriots build
> houses, sell
> fruit, drive public transport buses, and do a myriad
> other jobs for which
> Russians have no taste or ask a higher pay.
Oh yeah. This doesn't even address interior migration inside the RF, largely from Siberia (mostly ethnic Russians, but also Yakuts, Chukchi and others) south and west and from the Caucasus (Chechens, Ossetians, Ingush, etc.). According to an article a recent Russian edition of Newsweek, the North Caucasus population has increased 500% since 1989. Personally I think this is ultimately good -- the more the nationalities get smeared around geographically instead of located in little ethnic enclaves, the less appeal nationalism and regional exceptionalism will have.
To use my neighborhood as a microcosm: the entertainment.shopping center up the street is Armenian owned and operated, with Azerbaijani waiters (!). The head waitress at the cafe I go to across the street is half-Russian/half-Uzbek, from Dushanbe. The corner market is staffed and owned by Georgians. The guy who sells watermelons on the corner is from God knows what Caucasian nationality -- he has a Chechen/Ingush-sounding name but he looks way too dark-skinned to be a vainakh.
The 2002 Russian census gives the following data on the Russian pop., as compared to the 1989 census. Changes in indigenous Russian populations are fue mainly to "natural" causes; changes in others are to immigration/emigration. The stats are pretty amazing!! I also append some dats on groups to small to get into the list but which are important for this issue.
I also include data on the great increase in enrollment in higher education since the Soviet collapse.
The original doc (in Russian) is here: http://www.eastview.com/census_2002/report.pdf
Changes in the populations of the largest nationalities in the Russian Soviet Socialist Federa; Republic/Russian Federation (in millions of people). -----------------------------------------------------
1989 2002 % of 1989 ------------------------------------------- All population 147.02 145.16 98.7
Russian 119.87 115.87 96.7 Tatar 5.52 5.56 100.7 Ukrainian 4.36 2.94 67.5 Bashkir 1.35 1.67 124.4 Chuvash 1.77 1.64 92.3 Chechen 0.90 1.36 150 Armenian 0.53 1.13 210 Mordvinian 1.07 0.84 78.7 Belorussian 1.21 0.81 67.5 Avar 0.54 0.76 139.2 Kazakh 0.64 0.66 103 Udmurt 0.71 0.64 89.1 Azerbaijani 0.34 0.62 190 Mari 0.64 0.60 94 German 0.84 0.60 70.9 Kabasarian 0.39 0.52 134.7 Ossetian 0.40 0.51 128 Dargin 0.35 0.51 144.4 Buryat 0.42 0.45 106.7 Yakut 0.38 0.44 116.8 Kumyk 0.28 0.42 150 Ingush 0.22 0.41 190 Lezgin 0.26 0.41 160
Smaller groups: 1989 2002 Jews 540,000 230,000 Tajiks 40,000 120,000 Chinese 5,000 35,000
EDUCATION (Millions of people) ---------
1989 2002 % of 1989 People over 15 who have: 113.0 121.3 107.3 Professionsl education -----------
Higher (inc. graduate) 12.7 19.4 152.1
Unfinished higher 1.9 3.7 194.3
Middle 21.7 32.9 157.7
Beginning 14.7 15.4 104.6
General education -----------
Middle 20.3 21.3 105.0
Basic 19.8 16.7 84.3
Beginning 14.6 9.3 64.1
Not having basic education 7.3 1.2 16.4
Illiteracy: 1989 1991
1.9% 0.5%
===== Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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