Russian Experts Overestimate Census
November 15, 2002
MOSCOW (AP) - A top Russian official on Friday said preliminary results
from last month's census show that Russia's population has not declined as
drastically as experts predicted, Russian news agencies reported.
Russian Nationalities Policy Minister Vladimir Zorin told President
Vladimir Putin that early data indicate Russia's population stands at about
145 million - two million more than the last available estimates.
Russia's last census - in 1989, two years before the Soviet Union collapsed
- counted 147 million people. But the country's minuscule birth rate and
the declining health of its citizens had prompted officials to revise that
number significantly downward.
Ahead of last month's census, the State Statistics Committee estimated that
Russia's population had shrunk to 143.4 million.
Zorin said the largest increases were recorded in Moscow and four other
regions, including the republic of Chechnya where war has raged for nearly
a decade. He said the census counted 1,088,000 Chechens, more than the
government's own prewar estimate.
``The republic's population showed that they want the federal center to
know the true number of the republic's residents and their needs,'' Zorin
said, according to Interfax.
Human rights groups have expressed skepticism about the accuracy of the
Chechnya head count, given that hundreds of thousands of Chechens fled
their homes during the first war between Russian forces and Chechen rebels
in 1994-96 and second war which began in 1999.
The last census in 1989 counted 1,275,000 people in the Chechen-Ingush
republic, which merged Chechnya with neighboring Ingushetia in Soviet days.
The State Statistics Committee estimated Chechnya's 1994 pre-war population
to be 1,079,000 - declining to 865,000 in 1996.
This year's nationwide census was originally scheduled to take place in
1999 but was delayed for lack of funds.
Critics have questioned whether the census can give an accurate snapshot of
the nation, given Russians' traditional distrust of authorities and the
fact that many immigrants, who don't have the proper registration papers,
may have avoided census takers.
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