The multinational composition of the population of the Russian Federation is enshrined in the first lines of the Constitution and is determined by historical traditions, left over from previous historical eras.
The documents of the latest census enshrine the voluntary nature of the national definition of an individual, so the question “how many nationalities are there in Russia” can only be given a conditional answer.
Construction of a common house
Story Russian statehood, which began in ancient times, is the process of formation over a vast area of a social organism consisting of national formations very different in composition. The quantitative predominance of the Russian nation largely determined the qualitative composition of multinational education. The true Russian mentality is characterized by natural tolerance, which was formed from the habit of living in peace with neighbors. And how many nationalities are there in Russia - those who came with menacing intentions and became united people with the Russians?! How can one not recall the history of the Kazan Khanate or the nomadic peoples from the southern steppes.
Another reason for the increase in the number of nationalities gathered on one sixth of the land was the imperial policy of territorial expansion, which led to the unification under a single state entity of a huge number of “foreigners” with their own customs, languages and culture. The respectful attitude of the titular nation towards the way of life of other peoples was in many ways the basis of state unity, and how many nationalities there are in Russia can be understood by the huge variety of languages, costumes and traditions.
Belonging to an ethnic group
It is human nature to strive to understand one’s place in society, belonging to certain linguistic, cultural, professional, educational, and religious groups. Division along ethnic lines has always been one of the most important and familiar; nationality is one of the main categories of stratification. Calls to return to the roots, to search national roots characteristic of even the most advanced and educated layers of society.
Unfortunately, the desire for national identity often takes the form of a fad, a fashionable hobby, or, even worse, xenophobia and chauvinism, in favor of political needs current moment. This has always been a serious danger, given how many nationalities live in Russia. But there remains hope for the intelligence of people, because a rare nation can consciously declare intolerance towards other people’s customs and call for the destruction of a culture born within the framework of another nation.
Fifth column
A mandatory item on nationality (in the sense of belonging to a specific ethnic group) was in the Soviet passport, which was in direct accordance with the beliefs of the founder of the communist state, Lenin. Even before the revolution, in the questionnaires of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, at the direction of the leader, the column “nationality” was introduced.
Stalin became a faithful successor of the national policy, which aimed to hide interethnic problems, and solve obvious and urgent ones with an iron hand, without taking into account the diversity, how many nationalities and nationalities there are in Russia, evicting entire peoples from their usual places or creating artificial formations type complex in composition autonomous republics. This approach gave rise to huge problems during the collapse of the USSR in the form of interethnic conflicts, often with the use of armed force.
Soviet document circulation made the state bureaucracy a powerful force. It was easier to take into account how many nationalities lived in Russia with such document flow, although some nationalities, in particular small Finno-Ugric groups, were considered non-existent because they were not on the list approved by the authorities.
Modern views on national identity are in the nature of approaching a specific person, who himself makes conclusions about belonging to a specific ethnic group based on linguistic and cultural preferences.
Number of nations and nationalities
The census reports noted more than 800 answer options to the question on the census form about nationality, but after processing the numbers with the participation of ethnographers, it turned out that the names of many nations and nationalities differ only in pronunciation options in different dialects.
Thus, 193 ethnic formations of various scales were identified: 145 were separate ethnic groups, and 48 were their constituent parts in the process of historical and cultural evolution. This is one of the answer options to the question “how many nationalities are there in Russia.” That this is only an option is clear from an analysis of the results of censuses conducted in other years. It becomes clear that the identification of ethnic groups in separate category or their inclusion in another education is made at the discretion of ethnographic experts based on their scientific developments.
Indigenous Peoples
There is another type of statistical data showing how many nationalities there are in Russia. They divide all the nationalities of Russia into three groups:
The first is large ethnic groups, most of which live within the borders of the Russian state, often forming national administrative units. A minority of such peoples live outside the Russian Federation. This group includes Russians, Tatars, Chuvash, Komi, Yakuts, Kalmyks and others - about 100 peoples in total.
The second group is peoples from neighboring countries (former Soviet republics). Namely: Ukrainians, Belarusians, Armenians, Kazakhs, etc.
The third group includes representatives of nations that are small in number, most of whom live outside of Russia: Romanians, Hungarians, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. Total number ethnic groups the second and third categories depend on the calculation method and range from 60 to 90. These statistics show how many nationalities in Russia and nationalities whose representatives belong to a foreign ethnic group.
The majority of the Russian population consider themselves Russian - 81%, that's 111 million people. In addition to them, there are six more nationalities that number more than 1 million people: Tatars - 5.3 million (3.72%), Ukrainians - 1.92 million (1.35%), Bashkirs 1.58 million (1.11%). ), Chuvash 1.43 (1.01%), Chechens - 1.41 million (1.0%) and Armenians - 1.1 million (0.83%).
Geographic ethnography
The history of the Russian Empire, the history of the Soviet Union, the present period is an endless process of interaction between large and small ethnic entities, resettlement of peoples, migration and re-emigration. How many nationalities are there in Russia that have experienced cataclysms of various scales in their history at the behest of the authorities?
As a result, there are no more or less vast areas left on the map of Russia inhabited by representatives of one nation; there are areas with a relatively homogeneous national composition and areas that represent a motley mixture of customs and languages. The latter can safely include the Middle Volga region and North Caucasus. Using their example, one can imagine how many nationalities live in Russia if, say, in small developed mountain areas, speakers of several dialects belonging to different language families coexist.
Tree of languages
It is the language, and not the typical way of life for a group of people or similar external signs, that is the defining category for a nationality. There are almost as many languages in Russia as there are nationalities! That is, no one knows a definite answer, and every linguist and ethnographer has his own opinion. This is as true as the fact that language is like a living organism: it changes, develops or withers. Science knows many dead languages.
The number of language families alone, to which scientists classify the dialects spoken by Russians, is striking; there are 14 of them. This is like the number of branches extending from a single trunk, and smaller branches extend from them, the number of languages is comparable to the number of leaves, and in the case of languages throughout Russia, according to a number of scientists, this figure is close to two hundred.
Conclusion
Even world-famous scientists, linguists, ethnographers, and sociologists consider the most reasonable answer to the question of how many nationalities and languages there are in Russia to be more than a hundred. But just reasonable people add that it’s not a matter of quantity, but that there is enough space in the common house for happy life to all peoples, and the smallest of them would feel like part of a friendly family.
IN modern world Russia is the largest country, occupying a vast area - more than seventeen thousand square kilometers. Two continents divide it into parts - European and Asian. Each of them is larger in territory than many not-so-small states of the Earth.
In terms of population, however, our country is only in ninth place. The number of Russians today does not reach one hundred and fifty million people. The problem is that most of the country's territory lies under deserted steppes and taiga, for example, these are the most remote regions of Siberia.
However, this is compensated by the number of peoples living here. This was predetermined by the past. Historically, Russia is a multinational state, which it became by absorbing neighboring peoples, attracting outsiders with large territories and wealth. According to official data, the Russian state is now home to almost two hundred peoples, differing sharply in numbers: from Russians (more than one hundred and ten million people) to Kerek (less than ten representatives).
How many of us are there?
How many peoples live in Russia? How to find out? The leading sources of useful information about the population of our country are statistical censuses regularly conducted in last years. At the same time, according to modern techniques and according to democratic approaches, data on the nationality of Russian residents by origin is not noted in documents, which is why digital material for the census appeared on the basis of self-determination of Russians.
In total, in recent years, a little more than 80% of the country’s citizens declared themselves Russian by nationality, leaving only 19.1% as representatives of other nations. Almost six million census participants were unable to identify their nationality at all or defined it as a fantastic people (elves, for example).
Summing up the final calculations, it should be noted that the total number of peoples of the country who do not consider themselves Russian population did not exceed twenty-five million citizens.
This suggests that the ethnic composition of the Russian population is very complex and requires constant special attention. On the other hand, there is one large ethnic group that serves as a kind of core of the entire system.
Ethnic composition
The basis of the national composition of Russia is, of course, Russians. This people comes from their own historical roots from Eastern Slavs who lived on the territory of Rus' since ancient times. A significant part of Russians exist, of course, in Russia, but there are large layers in a number of former Soviet republics and in the USA. This is the most significant European ethnic group. Today there are more than one hundred and thirty-three million Russians living in the world.
Russians are the titular people of our country; their representatives dominate a significant number of regions of the modern Russian state. Of course, this led to side effects. The spread of this nation over several centuries over a vast territory during historical development led to the formation of dialects, as well as separate ethnic groups. For example, on the coast White Sea Pomors live, making up a subethnic group of local Karelians and Russians who arrived in the past.
Among the more complex ethnic associations, groups of peoples can be noted. The largest group of peoples are the Slavs, mainly from the eastern subgroup.
In total, representatives of nine large language families live in Russia, differing greatly in language, culture, and way of life. With the exception of the Indo-European family, they are mainly of Asian origin.
This is the approximate ethnic composition of the Russian population today according to official data. What can be said definitely is that our country is distinguished by a significant diversity of nationalities.
The largest nations of Russia
The nationalities living in Russia are quite clearly divided into numerous and small. The first ones, in particular, include:
- The Russian inhabitants of the country number (according to the latest census) more than one hundred and ten million people.
- Tatars of several groups, reaching 5.4 million people.
- Ukrainians number two million. The bulk of the Ukrainian people live on the territory of Ukraine; in Russia, representatives of this people appeared in the course of historical development in the pre-revolutionary, Soviet, and modern periods.
- Bashkirs, another nomadic people in the past. Their number is 1.6 million people.
- Chuvash, residents of the Volga region - 1.4 million.
- Chechens, one of the peoples of the Caucasus, - 1.4 million, etc.
There are other peoples of similar numbers who played an important role in the past and, possibly, the future of the country.
Small nations of Russia
How many small nations live on the territory of Russia? There are many such ethnic groups in the country, but they are poorly represented in the total population because they are very few in number. These national groups include the peoples of the Finno-Ugric, Samoyed, Turkic, and Sino-Tibetan groups. Particularly small are the Kereks (a tiny people - only four people), the Vod people (sixty-four people), the Enets (two hundred and seventy-seven), the Ults (almost three hundred people), the Chulyms (a little more than three and a half hundred), the Aleuts (almost half a thousand) , Negidals (just over five hundred), Orochi (almost six hundred). For all of them, the problem of survival is a pressing and everyday issue.
Map of the peoples of Russia
In addition to the strong dispersion in the size of the national composition of Russia and the inability of many ethnic groups in modern times to maintain their numbers independently, there is also the problem of distribution within the country. The population of Russia is distributed very heterogeneously, which is caused primarily by economic incentives both in the historical past and in the present.
The bulk is in the area between Baltic St. Petersburg, Siberian Krasnoyarsk, Black Sea Novorossiysk and the Far Eastern Primorsky Territory, where all the big cities lie. The reasons for this are the good climate and favorable economic background. To the north of this territory there is permafrost caused by eternal cold, and to the south there are vast expanses of lifeless desert.
In terms of population density, Siberia has one of the last places in the modern world. Its vast territory is home to less than 30 million inhabitants. This represents only 20% of the country's total population. While in its vast area Siberia reaches three-quarters of the expanses of Russia. The most densely populated areas are the directions Derbent - Sochi and Ufa - Moscow.
In the Far East, a significant population density runs along the entire length of the Trans-Siberian Highway. Increased standards of population density are also observed in the Kuznechny coal basin region. All these areas attract Russians with their economic and natural wealth.
The country's largest peoples: Russians, and to a lesser extent Tatars and Ukrainians, are mainly located in the southwest of the state. Ukrainians today are mostly located on the territory of the Chukotka Peninsula and in the Khanty-Mansiysk Okrug, in the distant Magadan region.
Other small peoples Slavic ethnic groups, such as the Poles and Bulgarians, do not form large compact groups and are scattered throughout the country. The Polish population is found in a fairly compact group only in the Omsk region.
Tatars
The number of Tatars living in Russia, as noted above, exceeded the level of three percent of the total Russian population. About a third of them live compactly in the region of the Russian Federation called the Republic of Tatarstan. Group settlements exist in the Volga regions, in the far north, etc.
A significant part of the Tatars are supporters of Sunni Islam. Certain groups of Tatars have differences in language, culture and way of life. Mutual language located within the Turkic group of languages of the Altaic language family, it has three dialects: Mishar (western), the more widespread Kazan (middle), and the slightly distant Siberian-Tatar (eastern). In Tatarstan, this language appears as an official one.
Ukrainians
One of the many East Slavic peoples is the Ukrainians. More than forty million Ukrainians live in their historical homeland. In addition, significant diasporas exist not only in Russia, but also in the countries of Europe and America.
Ukrainians living in Russia, including labor migrants, number about five million people. A significant number of them are located in cities. Particularly large groups of this ethnic group are located in the capital, in oil- and gas-bearing regions of Siberia, the Far North, etc.
Belarusians
IN modern Russia Belarusians, taking into account their total number in the world, constitute a large number of. As the 2010 census of the Russian population shows, there are just over half a million Belarusians living in Russia. A significant proportion of white people are located in the capitals, as well as in a number of regions, for example in Karelia and the Kaliningrad region.
IN pre-revolutionary years a large number of Belarusians moved to Siberia and the Far East, and later national administrative units existed there. By the end of the eighties, there were more than one million Belarusians on the territory of the RSFSR. Nowadays, their number has been halved, but it is obvious that the Belarusian stratum in Russia will be preserved.
Armenians
There are quite a lot of Armenians living in Russia, although different sources, their number differs. Thus, according to the 2010 census, there were slightly more than one million people in Russia, that is, less than one percent of the total population. According to the assumptions of the Armenians public organizations, the number of the Armenian stratum in the country at the beginning of the twentieth century exceeded two and a half million people. And Russian President V.V. Putin, speaking about the number of Armenians in Russia, voiced the figure of three million people.
In any case, Armenians play a serious role in the social and cultural life of Russia. Thus, Armenians work in the Russian government (Chilingarov, Bagdasarov, etc.), in show business (I. Allegrova, V. Dobrynin, etc.), and in other fields of activity. In sixty-three regions of Russia there are regional organizations Union of Armenians of Russia.
Germans
The Germans living in Russia are representatives of an ethnic group that has experienced a contradictory and, in some ways, even tragic story. Migrating en masse in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries at the invitation of the Russian government, they mainly settled in the Volga region and the western and southern provinces of the Russian Empire. Life on good lands was free, but in the twentieth century historical events hit the Germans hard. First the First World War, then the Great Patriotic War led to mass repression. In the fifties and eighties of the last century, the history of this ethnic group was hushed up. It is not for nothing that the mass migration of Germans began in the nineties, the number of which, according to some sources, barely exceeds half a million.
True, in recent years, episodic re-evacuations from Europe to Russia have begun, but so far they have not reached large proportions.
Jews
It is difficult to say how many Jews currently live in Russia due to their active migration both to Israel and back to the Russian state. In the historical past there were many Jews in our country - in Soviet era several million. But with the collapse of the USSR and significant migration to their historical homeland, their number decreased. Now, according to public Jewish organizations, there are approximately one million Jews in Russia, half of them are residents of the capital.
Yakuts
They are a fairly numerous Turkic-speaking people, an indigenous population of the region adapted to local conditions.
How many Yakuts are there in Russia? According to the 2010 All-Russian Census of the Domestic Population, there were slightly less than half a million people, mainly in Yakutia and surrounding regions. The Yakuts are the largest (about half the population) people and the most significant of the indigenous peoples of Russian Siberia.
In the traditional economy and material culture of this people there are many close, similarities with pastoralists south asia. On the territory of the Middle Lena, a version of the Yakut economy was formed, combining nomadic cattle breeding and the most important extensive types of fisheries (meat and fish production), similar to the local one. In the north of the region there is also a distinctive form of harness reindeer herding.
Reasons for resettlement
Story ethnic composition population of Russia in the course of its development is extremely ambiguous. The accelerated settlement of the Russian state by Ukrainians occurred back in the Middle Ages. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, according to instructions government agencies settlers from the southern lands headed east to develop new territories. After some time, representatives began to be sent there social strata from different regions.
Representatives of the intelligentsia voluntarily moved to St. Petersburg in an era when this city had the status of the capital of the state. Nowadays, Ukrainians constitute the largest ethnic group in Russia in terms of number of people after, of course, the Russians.
At the other pole are representatives of small nations. The Kereks, who have the smallest numbers, are in particular danger. According to the latest census, there are only four representatives left, although fifty years ago there were only one hundred Kerek people. The leading languages for these people are Chukchi and generally accepted Russian; their native Kerek is found only in the form of an ordinary passive language. The Kereks, in terms of their level of culture and ordinary daily activities, are very close to the Chukchi people, which is why they were in constant assimilation with them.
Problems and future
The ethnic composition of the Russian population will undoubtedly develop in the future. IN modern conditions The revival of ethnographic traditions and the culture of peoples is clearly visible. However, the development of ethnic groups experiences a number of problems:
- poor fertility and gradual decline of most peoples;
- globalization, and at the same time the influence of the culture and life of large nations (Russian and Anglo-Saxon);
- general economic problems that undermine the economic base of peoples, and so on.
Much in such a situation depends on the national governments themselves, including the Russian one, and on global opinion.
But I want to believe that the small peoples of Russia will further develop and grow in size in the coming centuries.
How many peoples live in Russia?
The existence of the population of Russia as the sum of numerous peoples - nationalities - has become an integral part of our consciousness and existence. One of the first articles of the Russian Constitution reads: “The bearer of sovereignty and the only source of power in the Russian Federation is its multinational people" Thus, the presence of many nationalities in Russia is enshrined in law.
How many are there? The phrase “more than a hundred peoples live in Russia” is common. It’s interesting that they said this about both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
Russia inherited from the USSR a fairly clear record of the ethnic (in official Russian terminology “national”) affiliation of each individual. Until recently, there was a mandatory fixation of such affiliation. Until now, ethnicity is optionally noted in vital records (birth and death certificates). There are statistical summaries of demographic phenomena. Questions about ethnicity are regularly asked in censuses. Moreover, by law, it is the census data that must serve as the basis for all official documents. The official ethnic picture seems very definite, with clear interethnic boundaries, a precise place in it for almost every person. Moreover, nationality/ethnicity has long been officially considered almost an integral characteristic, received at birth and irreplaceable throughout life. In many ways, this ethnic picture appears in mass consciousness, this often appears in academic articles. Most scientists - not ethnographers - use census materials as a background accompanying one or another historical processes, as a slice of reality that helps to better understand the existing situation in a given period of time.
As we have already said, the main source of information about the national composition of Russia is population censuses. In public opinion, the population census looks like a procedure for inventorying the country's human resources.
But the opposite hypothesis is also widespread among ethnographers and anthropologists. It is most convincingly presented in B. Anderson’s work “Imaginary Communities,” where the author convincingly shows that the way the state designates and classifies people greatly influences how these people perceive themselves. Those. The “fiction” of the state contributes to the formation of the self-awareness of its citizens. Anderson showed nations not as originally existing, but as communities created through the written word and literacy, maps and censuses.
From this point of view, both the conditions and methods of conducting population censuses become significant. And censuses, in turn, turn out to be not only a mirror reflection of the real ethnic composition, but also an instrument for its formation and, possibly, change.
Technologically it looks like this.
In all Soviet and Russian censuses, when answering the question about nationality (nationality), the principle of self-determination was and is in effect. In particular, when asked about nationality, the census taker can name any name of the nationality, nationality or ethnic group to which he identifies himself. And the census taker (until 2002 – a counter) writes down what was said on the census form without changes.
However, when developing census materials, not all responses are highlighted. Before the census, a list of nationalities is determined that will be identified during the census and for which its materials will be developed.
Special manuals are being created: dictionaries of nationalities and languages, which indicate which of the selected nationalities a particular answer should be attributed to. These lists of nationalities and corresponding dictionaries are the fruit collaboration ethnographers (now ethnologists) and statistics workers.
This is how they wrote about this procedure after the last census.
In general, the latest population census most fully and openly presented the stages of structuring the national composition of Russia:
– all the peoples identified during the development of census materials are listed: there were only 182. Moreover 142 of them were presented as independent peoples, and 40 – as ethnic groups that make up some of these distinct peoples. It was to this list that it was ultimately reduced 776 variants of ethnonyms.
As for previous population censuses, we can only see the final results of this " technological process» is the finite number of identified ethnic/national units.
As is known, the 1897 census did not ask a question about ethnicity. In 1926 it was allocated 175 ethnic units (including 4 ethnic groups that were part of the Georgians, and 6 nationalities that ethnographers considered “imprecisely defined”); in the “rejected” census of 1937 they intended to highlight 109 ; in 1939 they allocated 99 "nations, national groups, nationalities and nationalities" (including two groups: "other nationalities of Dagestan" and "other northern nationalities"); in 1959 it was divided 121 ethnic unit ; in 1970 – 122 ; in 1979 – 123 ; in 1989 – 128 ; in 2002 – 182 (including 40 ethnic groups that were part of other nations (Fig. 1).
Figure 1. Number of ethnic units counted in Russia during population censuses
The identification of individual peoples depended and depends not only on certain modern scientific views of ethnologists, but also on the political situation, often on the influence of lobbying groups, etc.
For example, Latgalians were considered a separate people in 1926, 1939. and were developed as a result of the census, but in 1959-1989 they were not singled out and were classified as Latvians. It can be assumed that until 1940 they were considered an oppressed national minority of a foreign and capitalist state, and then merged with the powerful Latvian socialist nation. To confirm my assumption, in 2002 they again began to be identified as a separate people.
There were also examples of direct dependence on the domestic political situation. In 1926 and 1939 Crimean Tatars during the census they were not distinguished from the rest of the Tatars in the country. And in 1959-1989. they were considered a separate people and data about them was developed based on the results of all four censuses. But nowhere in official open publications of 1959-1979. the name “Crimean Tatars” was not mentioned, they were added to the rest of the Tatars, and only in the 1989 census were data about them published openly.
Thus, the exact number of peoples is always just a reflection of the current opinions of the ethnological and political community. And, to the question “How many nationalities are there in Russia?”, it is best to answer “More than a hundred” - you probably can’t go wrong.
The stock phrase wanders from text to text and refers both to the country as a whole and to individual regions, and more precise numbers are often mentioned. Sometimes this accuracy even looks strange... For example: “According to the 2002 census, there are more than 134 nationalities in the Saratov region (according to the 1989 census, 111 nationalities lived in the region).” N.B. Telyatnikov. Peoples of the Saratov Volga region: modern demography. Questions of Statistics 2007, 4, p.64 Literally it can be understood this way: in 1989 there were representatives of exactly 111 nationalities, and by 2002 more than twenty-three more people were somehow added, perhaps arrived. Without understanding the procedure for conducting and processing census data, it is difficult to understand this.
Such hereditary consolidation of nationality was introduced through the efforts of the NKVD in personal documents (passports, etc.) in 1938.
Similar ideas are expressed in the article by V. Tishkov “Construction of categories and identities” .
“In the USSR, the question of nationality is included in the programs of all population censuses... To develop materials for the 1989 population census, a list of nationalities was adopted, containing 128 names. ... In all post-war population censuses, the number of identified nationalities fluctuated ... very slightly: in the 1959 census, 126 nationalities were identified, in 1970 - 122, 1979 - 123.” ( National composition population of the USSR. M.: Finance and Statistics, 1991. P.3).
What is surprising, however, is the 40,551 people with “options of answers to the question about nationality not listed above.” What “NOT LISTED” options could there be if the list itself implies ALL answers. We can only assume that these are fictitious names, like “goblins”, “elves”, etc.
The 2002 census confirmed that the Russian Federation is one of the most multinational states world - representatives of over 160 nationalities live in the country. During the census, the implementation of the Constitution of the Russian Federation was ensured in terms of free self-determination of nationality. The census received more than 800 various options responses of the population to the question about nationality.
The seven peoples inhabiting Russia - Russians, Tatars, Ukrainians, Bashkirs, Chuvashs, Chechens and Armenians - have a population exceeding 1 million people. Russians are the most numerous nationality, their number is 116 million people (about 80% of the country's inhabitants).
For the first time after the 1897 population census, the number of people who identified themselves as Cossacks was obtained (140 thousand people), and also for the first time after the 1926 population census, the number of people who called themselves Kryashens was obtained (about 25 thousand people). About 1.5 million people did not indicate their nationality.
Population of Russia by ethnic composition
79.8% (115,868.5 thousand) are Russians;
1% (1457.7 thousand) - nationality not specified;
19.2% (27838.1) – other nationalities. Of them:
All the peoples inhabiting our country can be divided into three groups:
- The first is ethnic groups, most of which live in Russia, and outside of it they are only small groups(Russians, Chuvash, Bashkirs, Tatars, Komi, Yakuts, Buryats, etc.). They, as a rule, form national-state units.
- The second group is those peoples of the countries of the “near abroad” (i.e., the republics of the former USSR), as well as some other countries that are represented on the territory of Russia in significant groups, in some cases in compact settlements (Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakhs, Armenians, Poles , Greeks, etc.).
- And finally, the third group is formed by small subdivisions of ethnic groups, most of them living outside of Russia (Romanians, Hungarians, Abkhazians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Albanians, etc.).
Thus, about 100 peoples (the first group) live mainly on the territory of Russia, the rest (representatives of the second and third groups) live mainly in the countries of the “near abroad” or other countries of the world, but are still a significant element of the population of Russia.
The peoples living in Russia (representatives of all three groups identified earlier) speak languages that belong to different language families . The most numerous of them are representatives of four language families: Indo-European (89%), Altai (7%), North Caucasian (2%) and Ural (2%).
Indo-European family
The most numerous in Russia - Slavic group , including Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, etc. Originally Russian regions are the territories of the European North, North-West and central regions of Russia, but they live everywhere and predominate in most regions (77 out of 88 regions), especially in the Urals, in southern Siberia and the Far East. Among other peoples of this linguistic group, Ukrainians (2.9 million people - 2.5%), Belarusians (0.8 million) stand out.
Thus, it can be argued that - first of all Slavic state(the share of Slavs is over 85%) and the largest Slavic state in the world.
Second largest among the Indo-European family German group (Germans).Since 1989, their number has decreased from 800 to 600 thousand people as a result of emigration to.
The Iranian group is Ossetians. Their number increased from 400 to 515 thousand, largely as a result of emigration from the territory as a result of the armed conflict in South Ossetia.
In addition to those listed, the Indo-European family is also represented in Russia by other peoples: Armenians ( Armenian group); Moldovans and Romanians (Romanesque group) and etc.
Altai family
The largest Turkic group in the Altai family (11.2 million people out of 12), which includes Tatars, Chuvashs, Bashkirs, Kazakhs, Yakuts, Shors, Azerbaijanis, etc. Representatives of this group, the Tatars, are the second largest people in Russia after the Russians.
The largest Turkic peoples (Tatars, Bashkirs, Chuvashs) are concentrated in the Ural-Volga region.
Other Turkic peoples are settled in the south of Siberia (Altaians, Shors, Khakassians, Tuvans) all the way to the Far East (Yakuts).
Third area of settlement Turkic peoples– (, Karachais, Balkars).
The Altai family also includes: group (Buryats, Kalmyks);Tungus-Manchu group(Evens, Nanais, Ulchi, Udege, Orochi),
Ural family
The largest of this family Finno-Ugric group, which includes Mordovians, Udmurts, Mari, Komi, Komi-Permyaks, Finns, Hungarians, and Sami. In addition, this family includesSamoyed group(, Selkups, Nganasans),Yukaghir group(). The main area of residence of the peoples of the Uralic language family is the Ural-Volga region and the north of the European part of the country.
North Caucasian family
North Caucasian family represented mainly by peoplesNakh-Dagestan group(Chechens, Avars, Dargins, Lezgins, Ingush, etc.) andAbkhaz-Adyghe group(Kabardians, Abazas). The peoples of this family live more compactly, mainly in the North Caucasus.
Representatives also live in Russia Chukotka-Kamchatka family(, Itelmen); Eskimo-Aleut family(, Aleuts); Kartvelian family() and peoples of other language families and nations (Chinese, Arabs, Vietnamese, etc.).
The languages of all peoples of Russia are equal, but the language of interethnic communication is Russian.
Russia, being a multinational republic in its own way state structure, is a federation built on a national-territorial principle. The federal structure of the Russian Federation is based on its state integrity, the unity of the system state power, delimitation of subjects of jurisdiction and powers between government bodies of the Russian Federation and government bodies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, equality and self-determination of peoples in the Russian Federation (Constitution of the Russian Federation, 1993). The Russian Federation includes 88 subjects, of which 31 are national entities (republics, autonomous okrugs, autonomous region). The total area of national entities is 53% of the territory of the Russian Federation. At the same time, only about 26 million people live here, of which almost 12 million are Russian. At the same time, many peoples of Russia are dispersed across various regions of Russia. As a result, a situation has arisen where, on the one hand, some of the peoples of Russia are settled outside their national formations, and on the other hand, within many national formations, the share of the main or “titular” (which gives the name to the corresponding formation) nation is relatively small. Thus, of the 21 republics of the Russian Federation, only in eight the main peoples make up the majority (Chechen Republic, Ingushetia, Tyva, Chuvashia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Tatarstan and Kalmykia. In multi-ethnic Dagestan, ten local peoples (Avars, Dargins, Kumyks, Lezgins, Laks , Tabasarans, Nogais, Rutuls, Aguls, Tsakhurs) form 80% of the total population. Khakassia (11%) has the lowest share of “titular” peoples (10%).
A peculiar picture of the settlement of peoples in the autonomous okrugs. They are very sparsely populated and for many decades they attracted migrants from all the republics of the former USSR (Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Belarusians, Chechens, etc.), who came to work - to develop the richest deposits, build roads, industrial facilities and cities. As a result, the major peoples in most autonomous okrugs (and the only autonomous region) constitute only a small percentage of their total population. For example, in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - 2%, in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug - 6%, Chukotka - about 9%, etc. Only in one Aginsky Buryat Autonomous Okrug do titular peoples make up the majority (62%).
The dispersion of many peoples and their intensive contacts with other peoples, especially Russians, contribute to their assimilation.
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