In the 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 of the 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 even reach one hundred and fifty million people. The problem is that most of the country's territory lies under the deserted steppes and taiga, for example, these are the most remote regions of Siberia.
However, this is offset by the number of peoples living here. So it was predetermined by the past. Historically, Russia is a multinational state, which it has become by absorbing neighboring peoples, attracting strangers with large territories and wealth. According to official data, almost two hundred peoples now live in the Russian state, differing sharply in number: from Russians (more than one hundred and ten million people) to Kereks (less than ten representatives).
How many of us?
How many peoples live on the territory of Russia? How to find out? The leading sources of useful information about the population of our country are statistical censuses, regularly conducted in recent years. At the same time, according to modern methods and according to democratic approaches, the data of the nationality of the inhabitants of Russia by origin are not noted in the documents, which is why the digital material for the census appeared on the basis of the self-identification of Russians.
In total, in recent years, a little more than 80% of the country's citizens declared themselves Russians by nationality, only 19.1% remained for representatives of other peoples. Almost six million census participants could not single out 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 the peoples of the country who do not consider themselves to be the 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 for the entire system.
Ethnic composition
The basis of the national composition of Russia is, of course, the Russians. This people comes with its historical roots from the 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 strata in a number of former Soviet republics, in the USA. This is the most significant European ethnic group. Today, more than one hundred and thirty-three million Russians live in the world.
Russians are the titular people of our country, their representatives dominate in 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 in the course of historical development led to the formation of dialects, as well as separate ethnic groups. For example, Pomors live on the coast of the White Sea, making up the sub-ethnos of local Karelians and Russians who came 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 the aggregate, representatives of nine large language families live in Russia, strongly diverging in language, culture, and way of life. With the exception of the Indo-European family, they are mostly of Asian origin.
This is the approximate ethnic composition of the Russian population today according to official data. What can be said for sure is that our country is distinguished by a significant diversity of nationalities.
The largest peoples of Russia
Nationalities living in Russia are quite clearly divided into numerous and small. The first include, in particular:
- 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, numbering two million people. The main part of the Ukrainian people lives 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 with a similar number that have played an important role in the past and, possibly, the future of the country.
Small peoples of Russia
How many peoples live on the territory of Russia from among the small ones? There are many such ethnic groups in the country, but they are poorly represented in the total volume, since they are very small in number. These national groups include the peoples of the Finno-Ugric, Samoyed, Turkic, 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 people), the Ults (almost three hundred people), the Chulyms (a little more than three and a half hundred), the Aleuts (almost five hundred) , Negidals (slightly more than five hundred), Orochi (almost six hundred). For all of them, the problem of survival is the most acute and everyday issue.
Map of the peoples of Russia
In addition to the strong dispersion in the number of national composition of Russia and the inability of many ethnic groups in modern times to maintain their numbers on their own, there is also the problem of distribution on the territory of the country. The population of Russia is settled very heterogeneously, which is caused primarily by economic motives both in the historical past and in the present.
The bulk is located in the area between the Baltic St. Petersburg, Siberian Krasnoyarsk, the Black Sea Novorossiysk and the Far Eastern Primorsky Territory, where all the big cities lie. The reasons for this are a good climate and a favorable economic background. To the north of this territory is permafrost caused by eternal cold, and to the south - vast expanses of lifeless desert.
In terms of population density, Siberia has received one of the last places in the modern world. Its vast territory has less than 30 million inhabitants permanently. This is only 20% of the total population of the country. While in its vast area, Siberia reaches three-quarters of the expanses of Russia. The most densely populated areas are Derbent - Sochi and Ufa - Moscow.
In the Far East, a significant population density runs along the length of the entire Trans-Siberian route. Increased population density rates are also distinguished in the region of the Kuznechny coal basin. All these areas attract Russians with their economic and natural wealth.
The largest peoples of the country: Russians, to a lesser extent Tatars and Ukrainians - are mainly located in the south-west 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 of the Slavic ethnic group, such as Poles and Bulgarians, do not create large compact groups and are scattered throughout the country. A rather compact group of the Polish population is located only in the Omsk region.
Tatars
The number of Tatars living in Russia, as noted above, has 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 regions of the Volga region, in the far north, and so on.
A significant part of the Tatars are supporters of Sunni Islam. Separate groups of Tatars have linguistic differences, culture and way of life. The common language is within the Turkic group of languages of the Altaic language family, it has three dialects: Mishar (western), more common Kazan (middle), slightly distant Siberian-Tatar (eastern). In Tatarstan, this language appears as an official one.
Ukrainians
One of the numerous 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 Europe and America.
Ukrainians living in Russia, including migrant workers, make up about five million people. A significant number of them are in cities. Particularly large groups of this ethnic group are located in the capital, in the oil and gas-bearing regions of Siberia, the Far North, and so on.
Belarusians
In modern Russia, Belarusians, taking into account their total number in the world, make up a large number. As the 2010 re-pi-s of the Russian na-se-le-niya shows, there are a little more than half a million Belarusians living in Russia. A significant proportion of be-lo-ru-sovs is located in the capitals, as well as in a number of re-gi-o-news, for example, in Karelia, the Kaliningrad region.
In the pre-revolutionary years, a large number of Belarusians moved to Siberia and the Far East, later there were national administrative units. By the end of the eighties, there were more than one million Belarusians in the territory of the RSFSR. Today their number has 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, however, according to various sources, their number diverges. Thus, according to the 2010 census, there were a little more than one million people in Russia, that is, less than one percent of the total population. According to the assumptions of the Armenian 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, the 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 areas of activity. There are regional organizations of the Union of Armenians of Russia in sixty-three regions of Russia.
Germans
The Germans living in Russia are representatives of an ethnic group that has experienced a controversial and in some ways even tragic history. Massively moving in the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries at the invitation of the Russian government, they mainly settled in the Volga region, the western and southern provinces of the Russian Empire. Life on the good lands was free, but in the twentieth century, historical events hit the Germans hard. First World War I, then the Great Patriotic War led to mass repressions. In the fifties and eighties of the last century, the history of this ethnic group was hushed up. It is not for nothing that in the nineties a mass migration of Germans began, the number of which, according to some reports, barely exceeds the number of half a million.
True, in recent years, episodic re-evacuation from Europe to Russia has begun, but so far it has not reached large scales.
Jews
It is not easy to say how many Jews live in Russia at the present time 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 the 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
This is a Turkic-speaking rather numerous people, the indigenous population of the region adapted to local conditions.
How many Yakuts are in Russia? According to the All-Russian census of the domestic population of 2010, there were slightly less than half a million people, mainly in Yakutia and nearby regions. The Yakuts are the most numerous (about half of 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, similar moments with the pastoralists of South Asia. On the territory of the Middle Lena, a variant of the Yakut economy was formed, combining nomadic cattle breeding and the most important extensive types of crafts (meat and fish), suitable for the local one. In the north of the region there is also an original form of draft reindeer herding.
Reasons for resettlement
The history of the ethnic composition of the population of Russia in the course of its development is extremely ambiguous. The accelerated settlement of the Russian state by Ukrainians occurred in the Middle Ages. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, according to the instructions of the state authorities, settlers from the southern lands were sent to the east to develop new territories. After some time, representatives of social strata from different regions began to be sent there.
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 make up the largest ethnic group in Russia in terms of the number of people after, of course, Russians.
At the other extreme are representatives of small nations. Kereks, having the smallest number, are in particular danger. According to the last census, only four representatives remained, although fifty years ago there were only a hundred Kereks. The leading languages for these people are Chukchi and common Russian, native Kerek is found only in the form of an ordinary passive language. The Kereks are very close to the Chukchi people in terms of culture and ordinary daily activities, which is why they were in constant assimilation with them.
Problems and the future
The ethnic composition of the population of Russia will undoubtedly develop in the future. In modern conditions, the revival of ethnographic traditions, the culture of peoples is clearly visible. However, the development of ethnic groups is experiencing a number of problems:
- poor fertility and the gradual decline of most peoples;
- globalization, and at the same time the influence of the culture and way of life of large peoples (Russian and Anglo-Saxon);
- general problems of the economy, undermining the economic base of the peoples, and so on.
Much in such a situation depends on the national governments themselves, including the Russian one, and on world opinion.
But I want to believe that the small peoples of Russia will continue to develop and increase in the following centuries.
I was also interested in this question. But he never found the time. Seeing that not only I was interested in this, I decided to look for information and tell you everything that I learned.
How many nationalities live in Russia
So what kind of peoples live in Russia? About 200 nationalities live in Russia! I think it’s not worth listing all 200, I’d rather talk about the most basic and memorable ones.
Tatar people (5.3 million live in Russia). Most often they live in villages and villages, and the region most populated by Tatars, oddly enough, is Tatarstan. In a Tatar family, children are always taught to respect their elders. And girls are taught to run a household from an early age.
Bashkir people (1.5 million live in Russia). Most (1 million) of these people live in Bashkortostan. It is worth talking about their main holiday, it is called Kargatuy - “rook holiday”. It is celebrated during the arrival of the rooks, and its purpose is to connect with the forces of nature.
Armenian people (0.6 million live in Russia). These are very friendly people. Their beautiful music appeared even before our era.
Chuvash people (1.4 million live in Russia). Lives in completely different cities, villages and villages of the country. Their main activity is agriculture.
And this (as I said above) is far from all nations. It is worth mentioning the following nationalities:
- Chechen people.
- Mordovian people.
- Yakut people.
- Buryat people.
- Kazakh people.
- Avar people.
Why are there so many nationalities in Russia
In such countries as Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus (and many others) there are much fewer nationalities than in our country. But why?
Russia is a very big country. Therefore, the Russian people alone will not be able to fill it. Thanks to this, we can live next door to people of other nationalities. For example, Tatars live next door to me. I really like to communicate with him and get new experiences.
Russia is rich in nationality. I think we can be proud of it.
Russia is famous as a multinational state, more than 190 peoples live on the territory of the country. Most of them ended up in the Russian Federation peacefully, thanks to the annexation of new territories. Each nation is distinguished by its history, culture and heritage. Let us analyze in more detail the national composition of Russia, considering each ethnic group separately.
Large nationalities of Russia
Russians are the most numerous indigenous ethnic group living in Russia. The number of Russian people in the world is equated to 133 million people, but some sources indicate a figure of up to 150 million. More than 110 (almost 79% of the total population of the country) millions of Russians live in the Russian Federation, most of the Russians also live in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus. If we consider the map of Russia, then the Russian people are distributed in large numbers throughout the entire territory of the state, living in every region of the country ...
Tatars, compared with Russians, make up only 3.7% of the total population of the country. The Tatar people have a population of 5.3 million people. This ethnic group lives throughout the country, the most densely populated city of Tatars is Tatarstan, more than 2 million people live there, and the most sparsely populated region is Ingushetia, where there are not even a thousand people from the Tatar people ...
The Bashkirs are the indigenous people of the Republic of Bashkortostan. The number of Bashkirs is about 1.5 million people - this is 1.1% of the total number of all residents of the Russian Federation. Of the one and a half million people, most (about 1 million) live on the territory of Bashkortostan. The rest of the Bashkirs live throughout Russia, as well as in the CIS countries ...
Chuvash are the indigenous inhabitants of the Chuvash Republic. Their number is 1.4 million people, which is 1.01% of the total national composition of Russians. According to the census, about 880 thousand Chuvashs live on the territory of the republic, the rest live in all regions of Russia, as well as in Kazakhstan and Ukraine ...
Chechens are a people who settled in the North Caucasus, Chechnya is considered their homeland. In Russia, the number of the Chechen people was 1.3 million people, but according to statistics, since 2015 the number of Chechens in the territory of the Russian Federation has increased to 1.4 million. This people makes up 1.01% of the total population of Russia ...
The Mordovian people have a population of about 800 thousand people (about 750 thousand), which is 0.54% of the total population. Most of the people live in Mordovia - about 350 thousand people, followed by the regions: Samara, Penza, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk. Least of all, this ethnic group lives in the Ivanovo and Omsk regions, and 5 thousand belonging to the Mordovian people will not gather there ...
The Udmurt people have a population of 550 thousand people - this is 0.40% of the total population of our vast Motherland. Most of the ethnic group lives in the Udmurt Republic, and the rest is dispersed in neighboring regions - Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Sverdlovsk Region, Perm Territory, Kirov Region, Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug. A small part of the Udmurt people migrated to Kazakhstan and Ukraine ...
The Yakuts represent the indigenous population of Yakutia. Their number is equal to 480 thousand people - this is about 0.35% of the total national composition in the Russian Federation. Yakuts make up the majority of the inhabitants of Yakutia and Siberia. They also live in other regions of Russia, the most densely populated regions of Yakuts are the Irkutsk and Magadan regions, the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Khabarovsk and the Primorsky District ...
According to statistics available after the census, 460,000 Buryats live in Russia. This is 0.32% of the total number of Russians. Most of the Buryats (about 280 thousand people) live in Buryatia, being the indigenous population of this republic. The rest of the people of Buryatia live in other regions of Russia. The most densely populated territory by Buryats is the Irkutsk Region (77 thousand) and the Trans-Baikal Territory (73 thousand), and the less populated territory is the Kamchatka Territory and the Kemerovo Region, even 2000 thousand Buryats cannot be found there ...
The number of the Komi people living on the territory of the Russian Federation is 230 thousand people. This figure is 0.16% of the total population in Russia. For living, this people chose not only the Komi Republic, which is their immediate homeland, but also other regions of our vast country. The Komi people are found in the Sverdlovsk, Tyumen, Arkhangelsk, Murmansk and Omsk regions, as well as in the Nenets, Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrugs ...
The people of Kalmykia are indigenous to the Republic of Kalmykia. Their number is 190 thousand people, if compared as a percentage, then 0.13% of the total population living in Russia. Most of these people, not counting Kalmykia, live in the Astrakhan and Volgograd regions - about 7 thousand people. And least of all Kalmyks live in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug and the Stavropol Territory - less than a thousand people ...
Altaians are the indigenous people of Altai, therefore they live mainly in this republic. Although some of the population has left the historical habitat, they now live in the Kemerovo and Novosibirsk regions. The total number of the Altai people is 79 thousand people, in percentage - 0.06 of the total number of Russians ...
The Chukchi are a small people from the northeastern part of Asia. In Russia, the Chukchi people have a small number - about 16 thousand people, their people make up 0.01% of the total population of our multinational country. This people is scattered throughout Russia, but most of them settled in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Yakutia, the Kamchatka Territory and the Magadan Region ...
These are the most common peoples that you can meet in the vastness of Mother Russia. However, the list is far from complete, because there are also foreigners in our state. For example, Germans, Vietnamese, Arabs, Serbs, Romanians, Czechs, Americans, Kazakhs, Ukrainians, French, Italians, Slovaks, Croats, Tuvans, Uzbeks, Spaniards, British, Japanese, Pakistanis, etc. Most of the listed ethnic groups make up 0.01% of the total, but there are peoples with more than 0.5%.
You can continue endlessly, because the vast territory of the Russian Federation is capable of accommodating many peoples under one roof, both indigenous and those arriving from other countries and even continents.
Russia has always been not just a densely populated state, but also a multinational one. More than one hundred and forty-five million citizens live in the country. Among them are representatives of about one hundred and sixty nationalities who speak their own language. There are few peoples who came from other countries of the world. Only seven nationalities living on the territory of our country, in terms of the number of people, exceed a million. So what peoples live on the territory of Russia? The answer is quite simple, they include: Russians, Tatars, Ukrainians, as well as Bashkirs, Chuvashs, Chechens, Armenians.
In general, Russia ranks seventh in terms of population after China, India, the United States of America, Indonesia, Brazil and Pakistan. But in terms of population density, our country occupies only the second place on the planet after the United States. Almost a fifth of the Russian population lives in large metropolitan cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Perm, Samara, Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Ufa, Kazan. If we talk about the population in the largest cities, then the indicators are as follows: more than ten million people live in Moscow, about five million people live in St. Petersburg. According to its population density, it is the capital that is one of the largest cities in the world.
What peoples live on the territory of Russia: naturally, the bulk of the population is Russian - eighty percent. But the rest of the percentage falls on such nationalities as: Tatars - 3.8; Ukrainians - 3; Chuvash - 1.2; Belarusians - 0.8; Mordva - 0.7; Chechens and Germans - 0.6; Avars, Jews, Armenians - 0.4 and so on. If you ask yourself what peoples live on the territory of Crimea, then basically they are Tatars. It is they who occupy the second place in our country in terms of their number.
Together with the Bashkirs, the Tatars represent a large group Muslim peoples, which are located almost in the center of Russia. The Chuvash are a completely different Turkic people, numbering more than two million people. The peoples of the Abkhaz-Adyghe group live in the Caucasus, they include: Adygs, Circassians, Kabardians, as well as peoples of the Neh-Dagestan group: Ingush, Chechens, Lezgins, Avars. The Yakuts, Khakasses and Altaians live in Siberia.
In addition, Finno-Ugric peoples live in Russia: Karelians, Saami, Finns, Komi. Mordovians, Maris also live in the north of Russia, in the Volga region Mansi and Khanty, who are engaged in reindeer herding and hunting. As for the Far North, the Nenets live here, and the Evenks live in Eastern Siberia. But the Chukchi live on the Chukchi Peninsula.
Naturally, every people living on the territory of Russia strives to preserve their native language, their traditions and customs, costumes, traditional activities, crafts. And what is most interesting, most peoples still retained their traditions.
A bit of history...
The diversity of nationalities living on the territory of the Russian Federation at the present time is the result of centuries of history. The most interesting thing is that to establish exactly how the peoples lived on the territory of our country in antiquity is not an easy task. Since archaeological data provide an opportunity to outline only the approximate boundaries of the territory on which the tribes lived, it is impossible to give an exact answer about how such settlements called themselves and what language they spoke. Such information can be found with the help of ancient monuments.
The work of the famous Gothic historian Jordan, which was written in the seventh century BC, has managed to reach our days. In it, the writer praised the Gothic kings, and the power, according to him, extended from the Baltic to the Crimea, and from the eastern side of its territory reached the Volga region. According to the historian, King Ermanaric, in the middle of the fourth century, managed to conquer the tribes of the Inaunks, Vasinabronx, Bubegens and many others. The descendants of the Vesians, the Veps, currently live in Karelia, the Vologda, Leningrad regions.
So, if you draw a map of the peoples who lived in the fourth century on the territory of modern Russia, there will be practically no blue on it, as well as red. Only from the western side of Ukraine, it will be possible to designate a small red spot and from it to direct a lot of arrows to the east, south and north. Since the Slavic tribes by that time began to populate the lands of the future Russia.
In general, linguists, historians, or rather their research showed that the north, the center of modern Russia, was inhabited by Finnish tribes by the beginning of the new era. A little later, they were "glorified" and played an important role in the formation of the Russian population. A little to the east and north lived other Finnish tribes, who were the ancestors of modern Finns, Estonians, Karelians, Mordovians. Siberia and the South Stole were occupied by the Ugric peoples, they were the future Mansi and Khanty. To the east, on a large territory, the ancestors of the Samoyed peoples, who today are the Selkups and Nenets, lived. Today, only a small number of people live in Siberia who belong to the Kets and Yukaghirs, but once these peoples occupied the whole of Eastern Siberia.
In the mountains of the North Caucasus, as they suggest, scientists lived exactly the same peoples as at the present time. The most interesting thing is that their way of life, culture did not change almost until the nineteenth century. Yes, religion has changed, from the fourth to the fifth century Christianity was widespread here, from the eighth to the sixteenth century Christianity was gradually replaced by Islam. Various ceremonies, pagan beliefs were in the new religion for a long time, and they have survived to this day. The ancient chronicles also mentioned the ancestors of the Abkhazians - obez, kasogim. The descendants of the ancient Scythians-Sarmatians wandered in the steppes of the North Caucasus to the Altai Territory.
Over the course of a whole millennium, from the fourth to the thirteenth centuries, the East Slavic tribes gradually settled in the forest-steppe and forest zone of the East European Plain. And here are the Turkic peoples along the steppe belt of Eurasia itself. The Slavs in those days settled from west to north, south, east, but the Turks moved mainly to the west. Naturally, it could not do without military clashes between the Slavs, the Turks. During truces between these peoples, weddings were played, alliances were concluded, and trade was also conducted.
Gradually, cities began to appear in which trade developed, as well as various crafts. Then states appeared: among the Turks and related peoples - the Volga Bulgaria, the Khazar Khaganate, among the Eastern Slavs - Kievan Rus. Volga Bulgaria was created on the banks of the Volgibulgara. Some of them decided to go to the Balkans, where later the First Bulgarian Kingdom was created together with the Slavs. The Khazar Khaganate included the Lower Volga region and the lands of the Caucasian peoples. In the middle of the tenth century, Kievan Rus defeated the Khaganate, as a result of which the Khazars, as well as its population, mixed with other peoples.
Of course, the state needed a religion that would help strengthen the unity of the state. Christians, Muslims, Jews lived in Turkic, Russian cities. From the middle of the eighteenth century to 1480, this is the era that is known in the history of our country as the era of the Tatar-Mongol yoke. In the "Golden Horde" era, the following peoples developed: Kumyks, Bashkirs, Karachays, Crimean, Astrakhan Tatars. The Polovtsy played a significant role in their formation. But the Polovtsy themselves ceased to exist as a people. It was then that the separation of the Russian people began. After the collapse of the Golden Horde, its lands and the khanate gradually joined the Russian state.
By the time when Peter the Great began to reign, and this is the end of the seventeenth century, the territory of Russia acquired the outlines that are characteristic of the modern borders of the Russian Federation. In the eighteenth-nineteenth century, the lands of the peoples of Ukraine, the Baltics, Belarus, Transcaucasia, and also Central Asia began to join Russia.
Modern Russia
Summing up, it should be noted that Russia is the most multinational state in the world. Here all nations live in peace and harmony. They exchange experience among themselves, but at the same time, each nationality retains its ethnic self-consciousness, identity.
Naturally, the traditions of the peoples of modern Russia are quite diverse. And they depend not only on the time of year, but also on the place of residence. The main feature that is characteristic of a particular nationality living in Russia is the cuisine. Even among those peoples who inhabit the northern part of our state, although it is similar, it is still not the same. So, each nationality has its own characteristics.
In addition to the cuisine, every nation living in Russia can boast of its own entertainment. Representatives of their nationalities are hospitable, which is why it is interesting to get acquainted with their cultures, customs and traditions. Knowing about the way of life of this or that people, each person will be able to live in peace and harmony.
The Russian Federation is considered the largest state in the world in terms of its territory. And in terms of the number of peoples, in the top ten among all countries on the planet. Of course, the demographic situation in this state has an impact on the development of Russian society as a whole.
Our country was and is a multinational state. The peoples of Russia are distinguished by their original culture and history. In general, according to various sources of information, about two hundred nationalities live on its territory. Currently, the nationality of a resident of our country is not indicated in the passport. Accordingly, the data of the census of peoples are based on self-determination. Therefore, indicators of nationalities may change from time to time.
The state language of Russia is Russian. Although different territories of the state have their own dialects. In general, our country is unique not only in its ethnic composition, but also in its religious one. Representatives of Buddhism, Islam, Christianity live on the territory. At the same time, most peoples adhere to their traditions and national beliefs.
Russia is a multinational state. How many peoples live in Russia? Which of them are the most numerous? How are they distributed throughout the country? We will learn about this further.
How many peoples live in Russia?
Russia covers a huge territory, stretching from Eastern Europe to Its area is 17,125,191 square kilometers, in this size the country ranks first in the world.
In terms of population, Russia is in ninth position, it is 146.6 million people. How many peoples live in Russia? It is difficult to give an exact figure, but there are approximately 190 of them, including the autochthonous population and small indigenous peoples.
The main source of data on the population of Russia is the 2010 census. The nationality of the citizens of the country is not indicated in the passports, so the data for the census was obtained based on the self-determination of the inhabitants.
Slightly more than 80% of the inhabitants indicated themselves as Russians, 19.1% accounted for other nationalities. Approximately five and a half million people did not indicate nationality. Based on these data, the total number of peoples of Russia who do not consider themselves Russians amounted to 26.2 million people.
Ethnic composition
Russians are the titular population of the country, they prevail in most subjects of the Russian Federation. They include Pomors, representing the sub-ethnos of Karelians and Russians in the White Sea region. The second largest people are the Tatars, which include the Mishars, Kryashens, Astrakhan and
The largest group of peoples are Slavs, mainly Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles and Bulgarians. They belong to the Indo-European family, which in Russia is also represented by the Romanesque, Greek, Germanic, Baltic, Iranian, Indo-Iranian and Armenian groups.
In total, peoples who belong to nine language families live on the territory of the state. In addition to Indo-European, these include:
- Altai;
- blue-Tibetan;
- Ural-Yukaghir;
- Chukchi-Kamchatka;
- Yenisei;
- Kartvelian;
- Eskimo-Aleutian;
- North Caucasian.
The small peoples of Russia are represented by Kereks (4 people), Vod people (64), Enets (227), Ults (295), Chulyms (355), Aleuts (482), Negidals (513), Orochs (596). These include peoples who belong to the Finno-Ugric, Samoyed, Turkic, Sino-Tibetan groups.
The largest peoples of Russia are presented in the table below.
People | Number in million |
Ukrainians | |
Azerbaijanis |
Map of the peoples of Russia
The country's population is not homogeneously distributed. How many peoples live in Russia and how they are located on its territory, the map below can clearly demonstrate. The vast majority live in the area between St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Novorossiysk and Primorsky Krai, where all the largest cities are located.
The largest Tatars and Ukrainians - mainly inhabit the southwestern part of the country. Ukrainians make up a large proportion of the population in the Chukotka and Khanty-Mansiysk districts, in the Magadan region.
As for the other peoples of the Slavic group, the Poles and Bulgarians do not form large groups and are dispersed. The compact Polish population lives only in the Omsk region. Belarusians in the majority inhabit the region of Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as the Kaliningrad region, Karelia, the Khanty-Mansiysk district.
Tatars
The number of Tatars in Russia is more than 3% of the total population. One third of them live in the Republic of Tatarstan. Focal settlements are also located in the Ulyanovsk region, in the Khanty-Mansiysk district, Bashkortostan, Tyumen, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, Penza regions and in other subjects of the state.
Most Tatars are Sunni Muslims. Different groups of Tatars have linguistic differences, and also differ from each other in traditions and way of life. Their language belongs to the Turkic languages \u200b\u200bof the Altai family, it has three dialects: Mishar (western), Kazan (middle), Siberian-Tatar (eastern). In the Republic of Tatarstan, Tatar is the official language.
The ethnonym "Tatars" appeared in the VI century among the Turkic tribes who called themselves that. After the conquest by the Golden Horde in the XIII century. the name is spreading and already denotes the Mongols and the tribes conquered by them. Later, the term was used in relation to nomads of Mongolian origin. Having settled in the Volga region, these tribes called themselves Meselmans, Mishers, Bolgrams, Kazanls, etc., until they consolidated under the definition of “Tatars” in the 19th century.
Ukrainians
One of the Eastern Slavic peoples - Ukrainians, lives mainly on the territory of the state of Ukraine, where its population is about 41 million people. Large Ukrainian diasporas are located in Russia, the USA, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Germany and other countries.
Including labor immigrants, approximately 5 million Ukrainians live in Russia. Most live in cities. Large centers of settlement of this ethnic group are located in Moscow and the Moscow region, the Tyumen, Rostov, Omsk regions, in the Primorsky and Krasnodar territories, the Yamalo-Nenets district, etc.
The history of the peoples of Russia is not the same. Large-scale settlement of Russian territories by Ukrainians began during the existence of the empire. In the XVI-XVII centuries, according to the royal decree, Cossacks, gunners, archers from Ukraine and the Don were sent to Siberia and the Far East for land development. Later, peasants, and townspeople, and representatives of the Cossack elders were exiled to them.
The intelligentsia voluntarily moved to St. Petersburg at a time when the city was the capital of the Russian Empire. At present, Ukrainians represent the largest ethnic group in it after Russians.
Bashkirs
The fourth largest people in Russia are the Bashkirs. The overwhelming majority lives in the Republic of Bashkortostan. They also inhabit the Tyumen, Kurgan, Orenburg regions. The Bashkir language belongs to the Altaic family and is divided into southern and eastern dialects and several dialects.
According to anthropological features, the people belong to the Subural and South Siberian (among the Eastern Bashkirs) racial types. They represent Caucasians with a share of Mongoloidity. By religion they are Sunni Muslims.
The origin is connected with the tribes of the Pechenegs (South Ural Bashkirs - Burzyans, Usergans), as well as the Polovtsians (Kipchaks, Kanly) and the Volga Bulgars (Bulyars). Their ancestors inhabited the region of the Urals, the Volga and the Urals. The Mongols and Tungus-Manchus had an influence on the formation of the people.
indigenous peoples
The indigenous population of the country includes 48 peoples. They make up approximately 0.3% of the total population of the country. Approximately 12 of them are small and number less than a thousand people.
The small peoples of Russia mainly inhabit the northern regions of the state, the Far East and Siberia. They often lead a traditional economy, engaged in reindeer herding, fishing, hunting and cattle breeding.
The largest indigenous people are the Nenets, they number almost 45 thousand people. They occupy the coastal zones of the Arctic Ocean and are divided into European and Asian. The people breed deer and live in tents - cone-shaped huts covered with birch bark and felt.
The Kereks are the smallest and are represented by only four people according to the census. Half a century ago there were about 100 of them. The main languages for them are Chukchi and Russian, their native Kerek remained as a traditional passive language. In terms of their way of life and culture, they are similar to the Chukchi people, therefore they were subjected to assimilation with them.
Conclusion
Russia stretched for many kilometers from west to east, affecting both the European and Asian parts of the continent. More than 190 peoples live on its vast territory. Russians are the most numerous and represent the titular nation of the country.
Other large peoples are Tatars, Ukrainians, Bashkirs, Chuvashs, Avars, etc. Small indigenous peoples live in the state. Most of them number no more than a few thousand. The smallest are Kereks, Enets, Ults, Aleuts, they inhabit mainly the region of Siberia and the Far East.
