ABSTRACT
Before 1991, Moscow was the capital of the Soviet Union, which had nearly 300 million inhabitants of whom 147 million (49%) were Russians. It was also – and after 1991 it still was – the capital of Russia, a country with almost 150 million people of whom 122 million (81%) were Russians. Russia’s population peaked soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union and since then has been declining, the result of sharply lower life expectancy among Russian men, a low birth rate, and emigration. The negative demographic effects of poverty, the end of Soviet restrictions on alcohol, reduced access to basic health care, and AIDS are not balanced by continued immigration of ethnic Russians and others from the ex-Soviet ‘near abroad’.
