Ethnic composition of the population. Indo-European language family

Racial composition Russia. Human races (H.R.) are collections of populations, that is, territorial communities of people, within which marriages take place over many generations much more often than with persons of other communities. Ch.r. are in a state of dynamic equilibrium, change in space and time and at the same time have a certain genetically determined stability. For all basic morphological, physiological and psychological characteristics similarities between all Ch. r. is large, and the existing differences do not relate to the biologically most important features structure and functions of the human body and are manifested in a relatively small number of signs. Fully viable and fertile offspring are born from marriages between representatives of any race. The complete biological and socio-cultural usefulness of mixed groups has been proven, which serves as proof of the anti-scientific essence of various racist theories.

The concept of division is widely accepted modern humanity into three races: “black”, “white” and “yellow”. However, skin color is not the only, and in some cases not the main feature for distinguishing races. Scientists use a set of characteristics to make this distinction.

Currently, some scientists deny the existence of races. However, they leave aside the characterization of morphological racial differences and do not fully illuminate those problems that in the past became the basis for racist perversions of science. On the scale of the genus, the racial differences known to us are striking at the first acquaintance with the diversity of modern humanity.

Among the races modern people, belonging to the island. This subspecies of Homo sapiens sapiens is primarily distinguished by the largest divisions, usually called large races. These are Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid and Australoid. The population of Russia is represented by the first two large races. In the contact zone of large races there are a number of mixed racial types.

Caucasians in general are distinguished by wavy or straight soft hair of different shades, light or dark skin, a wide variety of iris colors (from brown to light gray and blue), strong development of tertiary hair, weak or moderate protrusion of the cheekbones, slight protrusion of the jaws, a narrow, protruding nose with a high bridge, thin or medium-thick lips. Caucasians are divided into three main groups or branches: southern - with dark skin, predominantly dark eyes and hair; northern - with light skin, a significant proportion of gray and blue eyes, light brown and blond hair; intermediate, which is characterized by medium-intensive pigmentation. According to the color of the skin, hair and eyes, according to the structure of the facial skeleton and soft parts of the face, according to the proportions of the cerebral part of the skull, often expressed by the cephalic index, and according to some other characteristics, various races of the second order are distinguished among Caucasians.

To the east Within the boundaries of their range, Caucasians have been mixing with Mongoloids since ancient times. As a result of their early mixing, which probably began in the Mesolithic era (10-7 thousand years ago), the Ural race was formed in the north-west of Siberia and in the extreme east of Europe, which is characterized by a combination of intermediate Mongoloid-Caucasian features with some specific features. The laponoid race is close to the Ural race in many ways. Some anthropologists combine these races into one - the Ural-Laponoid races, the features of which are also expressed in a less dramatic form among some Volga peoples.

Ethnic and national composition of the population of the Russian Federation

* For the category “Avars” the figure is given without taking into account the number of Ando-Tsez groups and Archins, and for the category “Dargins” - without taking into account the Kaitags and Kubachi people.** In 1989, the Ando-Tses and Archins were included in the Avars; The Dargins include the Kaitag and Kubachi people.

There was a decrease in Russians by 3%, and the share of the country's population decreased by 2%. The main reason for the decline is the low birth rate and high death rate. A secondary factor in the reduction is migration outflow. In general, migration plays a positive role, compensating for the decline in the Russian population. An additional source of demographic replenishment is assimilation in favor of the Russian language and ethnic identity among other groups. In general, we can talk about the numerical stagnation of Russians with a tendency to decline due to demographic aging.

The census results once again confirmed that Russia is one of the most multinational states in the world.

National affiliation during the population survey was indicated in accordance with the Constitution Russian Federation by the respondents themselves on the basis of self-determination and was recorded by census workers strictly from the words of the respondents. The census received more than 800 various options responses of the population to the question of nationality, the spelling of which often differs from each other only because of the language dialect and the accepted local self-names of ethnic groups. When processing census materials, the population's answers about nationality were systematized into approximately 160 nationalities.

In 2002, there were 23 of the most numerous nationalities, the population of which exceeded 400 thousand people; in 1989, there were 17 such nationalities. Due to population growth, this group included Azerbaijanis, Kabardians, Dargins, Kumyks, Ingush, Lezgins and Yakuts, Jews dropped out due to population decline. As in 1989, the number of seven peoples exceeds 1 million people, however, changes have occurred in the composition of this group: during the intercensal period, Chechens and Armenians entered the group, Belarusians and Mordovians left.

So, according to Goskomstat data:

The Russian population is still the largest(about 116 million people) and is almost 80% total number population. Compared to 1989, its share in the entire population of the country decreased by 1.7 percentage points. This happened mainly due to natural loss, amounting to almost 8 million people, which could not be compensated by the slightly more than three million migration increase of Russians.

Second largest population in the country, as with the previous census, occupied by Tatars, whose number is 5.56 million people (almost 4% of the country's population).

Due to emigration and natural decline, it decreased during the intercensal period number of Jews(from 0.54 million people to 0.23 million people) and Germans(from 0.84 million people to 0.60 million people).

Mainly due to migration growth, the number of Armenians(from 0.53 million people to 1.13 million people), Azerbaijanis(from 0.34 million people to 0.62 million people), Tajiks(from 0.04 million people to 0.12 million people), Chinese(from 5 thousand people to 35 thousand people).

First after the 1926 population census, the number of people who classified themselves as Kryashens(about 25 thousand people). Also, for the first time since the 1897 census, the number of persons who called themselves Cossacks(about 140 thousand people), and a number of small peoples of Dagestan.

From approximately 1.5 million people, which not filled in answer to the question on the census form about nationality, almost two thirds are living in Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Moscow region.

49. Ethnic (national) composition of the world population

The study of the ethnic (national) composition of the population is a science called ethnology(from Greek ethnos - tribe, people), or ethnography. Formed as an independent branch of science in the second half of the 19th century, ethnology still maintains a close connection with geography, history, sociology, anthropology and other sciences.

The basic concept of ethnology is the concept of ethnicity. Ethnicity is a stable community of people that has developed in a certain territory, possessing, as a rule, a common language, some common features culture and psyche, as well as general self-awareness, i.e., awareness of its unity, in contrast to other similar ethnic formations. Some scientists believe that none of the listed characteristics of an ethnic group is decisive: in some cases main role territory plays, in others - language, in others - cultural features, etc. (In fact, for example, the Germans and Austrians, the British and Australians, the Portuguese and Brazilians speak the same language, but belong to different ethnic groups, and the Swiss, on the contrary, they speak four languages ​​and form one ethnic group.) Others believe that the defining feature should still be considered ethnic identity, which is also usually fixed in a certain self-designation(ethnonym), for example, “Russians”, “Germans”, “Chinese”, etc.

The theory of the emergence and development of ethnic groups is called theories of ethnogenesis. Until recently in national science The division of peoples (ethnicities) into three stage types prevailed: tribe, nationality and nation. At the same time, they proceeded from the fact that tribes and tribal unions - as communities of people - historically corresponded to the primitive communal system. Nationalities were usually associated with the slave and feudal system, and nations as the highest form ethnic community- with the development of capitalist and then socialist relations (hence the division of nations into bourgeois and socialist). Recently, due to the revaluation of the former formational approach, which was based on the doctrine of historical continuity of socio-economic formations, and with an increasing focus on modern civilizational approach, many previous provisions of the theory of ethnogenesis began to be revised, and in scientific terminology – as a generalizing one – the concept of “ethnos” began to be used more and more widely.

In connection with the theory of ethnogenesis, it is impossible not to mention one fundamental dispute that has long been waged by domestic scientists. Most of them adhere to the view of ethnicity as historical-social, historical-economic phenomenon. Others proceed from the fact that ethnicity should be considered a kind of bio-geo-historical phenomenon.

This point of view was defended by geographer, historian and ethnographer L. N. Gumilev in the book “Ethnogenesis and Biosphere of the Earth” and his other works. He considered ethnogenesis to be a primarily biological, biospheric process associated with passionarity a person, that is, with his ability to supercharge his forces to achieve a great goal. In this case, the condition for the emergence of passionary impulses that influence the formation and development of an ethnic group is not solar activity, but special condition The Universe from which ethnic groups receive energy impulses. According to Gumilyov, the process of existence of an ethnos - from its origin to its collapse - lasts 1200–1500 years. During this time, it goes through phases of rise, then breakdown, obscuration (from the Latin obscurous - darkened, in the sense of reactionary) and, finally, relict. When the highest phase is reached, the largest ethnic formations—superethnoses—emerge. L.N. Gumilyov believed that Russia entered a phase of recovery in the 13th century, and in the 19th century. moved into a phase of breakdown, which in the 20th century. was in its final stage.

After becoming familiar with the concept of ethnicity, you can move on to considering the ethnic composition (structure) of the world's population, that is, its distribution according to the principle of ethnicity (nationality).

First of all, naturally, the question arises about total number ethnic groups (peoples) inhabiting the Earth. It is usually believed that there are from 4 thousand to 5.5 thousand. It is difficult to give a more precise figure, since many of them have not yet been sufficiently studied, and this does not allow distinguishing, say, a language from its dialects. In terms of numbers, all nations are distributed extremely disproportionately (Table 56).

Table 56

GROUPING OF PEOPLES ACCORDING TO THEIR NUMBER (1992)

Analysis of table 56 shows that in the early 1990s. 321 nations, numbering more than 1 million people each, accounted for 96.2% of the total population globe. Including 79 nations with a population of more than 10 million people accounted for almost 80% of the population, 36 nations with a population of more than 25 million people accounted for about 65%, and 19 nations with a population of more than 50 million people each accounted for 54% of the population. By the end of the 1990s. the number of largest nations grew to 21, and their share in the world population approached 60% (Table 57).

It is not difficult to calculate that the total number of 11 nations, each of which numbers more than 100 million people, is about half of humanity. And at the other pole there are hundreds of small ethnic groups living mainly in tropical forests and in the regions of the North. Many of them number less than 1,000 people, such as the Andamanese in India, the Toala in Indonesia, the Alakaluf in Argentina and Chile, and the Yukaghir in Russia.

Table 57

NUMBER OF THE LARGEST NATIONS OF THE WORLD AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XXI CENTURY.

No less interesting and important is the question of the national composition of the population of individual countries of the world. In accordance with its characteristics, five types of states can be distinguished: 1) single-national; 2) with a sharp predominance of one nation, but with the presence of more or less significant national minorities; 3) binational; 4) with a more complex national composition, but relatively homogeneous ethnically; 5) multinational, with a complex and ethnically diverse composition.

First type states are quite widely represented in the world. For example, in overseas Europe about half of all countries are practically single-national. These are Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Italy, Portugal. In foreign Asia there are much fewer such countries: Japan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, and some small countries. There are even fewer of them in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Madagascar). And in Latin America almost all states are single-national, since Indians, mulattoes, and mestizos are considered parts of single nations.

Countries second type are also quite common. In foreign Europe these are Great Britain, France, Spain, Romania, and the Baltic countries. In foreign Asia - China, Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Syria, Turkey. In Africa - Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Zimbabwe, Botswana. In North America - the USA, in Oceania - the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand.

Third type countries is much less common. Examples include Belgium and Canada.

Countries fourth type with a rather complex, although ethnically homogeneous composition, are most often found in Asia, Central, Eastern and South Africa. They also exist in Latin America.

Most characteristic countries fifth type– India and Russia. This type also includes Indonesia, the Philippines, and many countries in Western and Southern Africa.

It is known that recently, in countries with a more complex national composition, interethnic contradictions have noticeably worsened.

They have different historical roots. Thus, in countries that emerged as a result of European colonization, oppression of the indigenous population (Indians, Eskimos, Australian aborigines, Maoris) continues. Another source of controversy is the underestimation of the linguistic and cultural identity of national minorities (Scots and Welsh in Great Britain, Basques in Spain, Corsicans in France, French Canadians in Canada). Another reason for the intensification of such contradictions was the influx of tens and hundreds of thousands of foreign workers into many countries. In developing countries, interethnic contradictions are associated primarily with the consequences of the colonial era, when the boundaries of possessions were drawn for the most part without taking into account ethnic boundaries, as a result of which a kind of “ethnic mosaic” arose. Constant contradictions on national grounds, reaching the point of militant separatism, are especially characteristic of India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, DR Congo, Sudan, Somalia, and many other countries.

The ethnic composition of the population of individual countries does not remain unchanged. Over time, it gradually changes, primarily under the influence of ethnic processes, which are divided into processes of ethnic division and ethnic unification. Separation processes include those processes in which a previously unified ethnic group either ceases to exist or is divided into parts. Unification processes, on the contrary, lead to the merging of groups of people of different ethnicities and the formation of larger ethnic communities. This occurs as a result of interethnic consolidation, assimilation and integration.

Process consolidation manifests itself in the merging of ethnic groups (or parts thereof) that are close in language and culture, which as a result turn into a larger ethnic community. This process is typical, for example, of Tropical Africa; It also happened in the former USSR. Essence assimilation lies in the fact that individual parts of an ethnic group or even an entire people, living among another people, as a result of long-term communication, assimilate its culture, perceive its language and cease to consider itself belonging to the previous ethnic community. One of the important factors of such assimilation is ethnically mixed marriages. Assimilation is more typical for economically developed countries with long-established nations, where these nations assimilate less developed ones national groups of people. And under interethnic integration understand the convergence of different ethnic groups without merging them into a single whole. It occurs in both developed and developing countries. It can be added that consolidation leads to the consolidation of ethnic groups, and assimilation leads to a reduction in national minorities.

Russia is one of the most multinational states in the world. It is inhabited by more than 190 peoples and nationalities. According to the 2002 census, Russians make up more than 80% of the total population. In second place in terms of numbers are the Tatars (more than 5 million people), the third are the Ukrainians (over 4 million), and the fourth are the Chuvash. The share of each of the other nations in the country's population did not exceed 1%.

Racial and ethnic (national) composition of the population

In resolving issues related to the justification of the location of productive forces, the study of the racial and ethnic (national) composition of the population, i.e., the ratio of representatives of individual races and peoples, their location, legal status, labor skills, etc., is of great importance.

All humanity by characteristics appearance People are usually divided into three large races: Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Equatorial.

Caucasians, making up 47% total number inhabitants of the Earth, before the great geographical discoveries, lived in Europe, North Africa, the Near and Middle East and India, and later settled throughout the world. People of the Mongoloid race, constituting 37% of the world's population, live mainly in the Eastern and South-East Asia. The Mongoloid race also includes indigenous people America - Indians. Representatives of the equatorial, or Negro-Australoid, race (about 5% of the Earth's population) live mainly in Africa.

The rest of the planet's inhabitants (about 11-12%) belong to mixed and transitional racial groups, formed as a result of migrations and mixing of racial types.

Large races, in turn, are divided into so-called small races. For example, the Caucasian race is divided into northern, Baltic, Alpine and a number of other small races.

Human races-- groups of people connected by a common origin and external physical characteristics (skin color, hair type, facial features, etc.), formed in the distant past under the influence of the natural environment. These traits are mainly of an adaptive nature, acquired by humans as a result of adaptation to the conditions of the natural environment.

Nations(peoples, ethnic groups) were formed as society developed, usually from representatives of several small or large races.

The characteristic features of an established nation are: common territory, language, economic life, national culture, a sense of patriotism.

Thus, peoples (ethnic groups) are groups of people united by the historically established unity of language, territory, economic life and culture, national identity. There are about 4 thousand peoples in the world, which can be classified according to various criteria, including size and language.

The numerous peoples (from 100 million or more people) include: Chinese - Han (representatives of the Han ethnic group live mainly in China and make up more than 95% of the population of this country), Hindustani (residents of India, make up about a quarter of the population of this country), Americans (USA), Bengalis (the main population of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal), Punjabis (mainly residents of Pakistan and the Indian state of Punjab), Biharis (residents of the Indian state of Bihar, Bangladesh, Nepal), Russians, Brazilians, Japanese, Mexicans, Javanese.

The number of most peoples is small - less than 1 million people.

The classification of peoples by language is based on the principle of their kinship, i.e., taking into account the relatedness of the origin of the language. On this basis, all peoples are united into linguistic families. There are about 20 such families in total. The most common of them is the Indo-European family, its languages ​​are spoken by almost half of all humanity. The Indo-European family includes Slavic, Romance, Germanic, Celtic, Baltic and other language groups. Sino-Tibetan, Altai, Uralic, Caucasian, Niger-Kordofanian, Semitic-Hamitic families of languages ​​are also widely spoken.

In accordance with the national composition of the population, all countries of the world are divided into single-national and multinational. In general, the world is dominated by multinational states, some of which are home to dozens and even hundreds of peoples. Representatives of such states can be India, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, the USA, and most African countries. Examples of single-national states are Poland, Hungary, Germany (in Europe), Chile (in Latin America), Japan, Korea, Bangladesh (in Asia), Australia.

Russian Federation - multinational state. The largest people are Russians, whose number is four times greater than all other peoples inhabiting the country. According to the 2002 census, there are 115,889 thousand Russians, which is 79.8% of the total population. According to the results of the census, the list published by the Federal State Statistics Service contains 182 ethnic names, and in the 1989 census there were 128. This difference is not due to a change in the number of peoples, but to the use of new census methods. But even a modern census cannot provide an absolutely accurate picture of ethnic diversity. For a variety of reasons, some of the peoples are included in the census with distortions. It is difficult to rewrite small communities, as well as those groups whose names are similar to each other: Arabs and Central Asian Arabs (the latter, apparently, were partially rewritten simply as Arabs), Gypsies and Central Asian Gypsies (many Central Asian Gypsies called themselves Gypsies), Turks and Turks -Meskhetians (most Meskhetians called themselves simply Turks). The majority of Rusyns, apparently, called themselves Ukrainians during the census (this is more familiar to them, since the name “Rusyns” was not recognized in Soviet times). Perhaps the information on the number of Taz, Kamchadals, Kereks, as well as peoples of immigrant origin (Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Moldovans, Azerbaijanis, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.) was also incomplete.

Sixteen small peoples of Dagestan (Andians, Botlikhs, Godoberins, Karatins, Akhvakhs, Bagulals, Chamalals, Tindals, Khvarshins, Didoys (Tsez), Ginukhs, Bezhta, Gunzibs, Archins, Kubachis, Kaytags) were counted in previous Soviet censuses as Avars and Dargins. In the 2002 All-Russian Population Census, these groups were counted separately, as well as together with the Avars and Dargins. Such calculations were carried out for the first time since the 1926 census. The large community of Kryashens, living mainly in Tatarstan, was also counted for the first time, and therefore inaccuracies were inevitable. The number of Kryashens is also included in the Tatars (in past censuses the Kryashens were recorded as Tatars).

The ethnic diversity of Russia is associated with linguistic diversity. Experts classify the languages ​​existing in Russia as belonging to the following language families: Indo-European, Uralic, or Ural-Yukaghir, Altai, North Caucasian, Kartvelian, Afroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Chukchi-Kamchatka, Austro-Asiatic, Eskimo-Aleutian and hypothetical Yenisei, including Ket language and several dead languages. In addition, one people - the Nivkhs - speaks an isolated language. This language, as well as the language of the Kets, the Chukchi-Kamchatka and Eskimo-Aleut languages, is usually conventionally combined into the Paleo-Asian group of languages. Sometimes the Yukaghir languages ​​are also included in this group, but here they are classified as part of the Uralic family of languages, which reflects the results of the latest linguistic research.

Indo-European language family

The most numerous in Russia language family- Indo-European. In Russia there are 8 of its branches: Slavic, Baltic, Germanic, Romanesque, Greek, Armenian, Iranian, Indo-Aryan. The Slavic branch includes Russians, Ukrainians and Rusyns (together - 2,943 thousand people), Belarusians (808 thousand people), forming an East Slavic group with the Russians, Poles (73 thousand people), Czechs (3 thousand) and Slovaks (0.6 thousand), part of the West Slavic group, as well as Bulgarians (32 thousand) and Serbs (4 thousand), belonging to the South Slavic group. Collectively, Slavic peoples make up 82.5% of the country's population.

Of the 83 subjects of the Russian Federation, Russians form an absolute majority in 78. Russians are a numerical minority only in Ingushetia (where they make up 1% - the lowest share in the entire federation), Chechnya (4%), Dagestan (5%). In several other regions, their share is less than half of the residents - in Tyva (20%), North Ossetia-Alania (23%), Kabardino-Balkaria (25%), Chuvashia (27%), Kalmykia (34%), Bashkortostan (36 %), Tatarstan (39%) and Mari El (47%). In two subjects of the federation, Russians, while not forming an absolute majority, still constitute a relative majority, since they are the largest people there (Mari El and Bashkortostan).

The Russian people include ethnic and ethnographic groups. The most famous of them - the Cossacks - is very original, since it represents an ethnic class formation that includes not only Russians (who are the vast majority), but also representatives of other peoples: Ukrainians, Kalmyks, Ossetians, Bashkirs, etc. Census materials indicate the preservation of the community in Russia Pomors and Mezenians close to them, although their number determined by the census is obviously lower than the actual one. Groups of so-called local Russians, or old-timers, have also been preserved in a number of regions of Siberia and the Far East: Kerzhaks, masons, Ob, tundra peasants, Karyms, Semeisk, Yakut, Lena, Indigirshchiki, Pokhochan, Kolyma, Russian-Ustinets. True, the total number of all these groups determined by the census is very small - only 269 people.

Ukrainians are the third largest people in the Russian Federation. They are mostly dispersed throughout Russia and, with rare exceptions, do not form compact habitats. The most large groups Ukrainians live in the following subjects of the federation: Moscow (254 thousand), Tyumen region(211 thousand, including in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Ugra - 123 thousand and Yamalo: Nenets Autonomous Okrug - 66 thousand), Moscow Region (148 thousand), Krasnodar Territory (132 thousand), Rostov Region (118 thousand), Primorsky Territory (94 thousand), St. Petersburg (87 thousand), Omsk (78 thousand), Chelyabinsk (77 thousand), Orenburg (77 thousand), Voronezh (74 thousand) regions, Krasnoyarsk Territory (69 thousand), Saratov Region (67 thousand), Komi Republic (62 thousand), Samara (61 thousand), Belgorod (58 thousand), Murmansk (57 thousand), Volgograd (56 thousand), Sverdlovsk (55 thousand) regions, Bashkortostan (55 thousand), Irkutsk region (54 thousand), Altai Territory (53 thousand).

Belarusians are equally dispersed throughout Russia. They live in Moscow (59 thousand), St. Petersburg (54 thousand), Kaliningrad (51 thousand), Moscow (42 thousand) regions, Karelia (38 thousand), Tyumen region (36 thousand) and in other places.

The two peoples of Russia belong to the Baltic (Leto-Lithuanian) branch of the Indo-European language family. These are Lithuanians (46 thousand) and Latvians (29 thousand). Together they make up 0.05% of the Russian population. Among the Latvians living in Russia (Siberia), there are Latgalians - an ethno-confessional group whose representatives profess predominantly Catholicism (most other Latvians are Lutherans). Latvians are settled throughout Russia in small groups (the largest group is in the Krasnoyarsk Territory - 4 thousand people), the largest number of Lithuanians is concentrated in the Kaliningrad region (14 thousand).

The Germanic linguistic branch includes Germans (597 thousand), Americans (1.3 thousand), British (0.5 thousand) and conditionally Ashkenazi Jews (230 thousand). The conditional nature of the inclusion of Jews in this group is due to the fact that Yiddish, which is close to the German language, was previously native to the vast majority of them, but now the majority of Russian Jews consider Russian to be their native language. Taken together, representatives of the German branch make up 0.6% of the Russian population. The largest number of Germans is in the Altai Territory (80 thousand) and the Omsk Region (76 thousand), where the German and Azov German national districts were created, respectively. There are also a lot of them in Novosibirsk (47 thousand), Kemerovo (36 thousand), Chelyabinsk (28 thousand), Tyumen (27 thousand), Sverdlovsk (23 thousand), Orenburg (18 thousand), Volgograd (17 thousand) .) regions, Krasnodar Territory (18 thousand). Among the Russian Germans, there are an ethno-confessional group of Mennonites (Orenburg and Omsk regions, Altai Territory and other regions) and a territorially isolated group of Golenders (Zalarinsky district of the Irkutsk region). Jews mostly live in Moscow (79 thousand) and St. Petersburg (37 thousand).

also in major cities Americans and British living in Russia are predominantly concentrated.

The Romance language branch in Russia is represented by Moldovans (172 thousand), Romanians (5 thousand), Spaniards (1.5 thousand), Cubans (0.7 thousand), Italians (0.9 thousand), French (0 ,8 thousand). In general, the peoples of this language family make up 0.1% of the Russian population and are concentrated mainly in large cities; Moldovans are also in rural areas. A significant number of Moldovans live in the Tyumen (18 thousand) and Rostov (8 thousand) regions, as well as in the Krasnodar Territory (7 thousand).

The Greek language branch includes only one people. Greeks (98 thousand, i.e. 0.07% of the Russian population) live primarily in the Stavropol (34 thousand) and Krasnodar (27 thousand) territories.

The Armenian branch unites Armenians with the Hemshils, who are close to them in origin, and who, unlike the Armenian Christians, profess Islam. The number of Armenians in Russia has grown greatly in the last two decades, and, according to the 2002 census, there are 1,130 thousand people. The largest number of Armenians is in the Krasnodar (275 thousand) and Stavropol (149 thousand) territories, the Rostov region (110 thousand), and also in Moscow (124 thousand). There are a significant number of Armenians in the Moscow (40 thousand), Volgograd (27 thousand), Saratov (25 thousand), Samara (22 thousand) regions, St. Petersburg (19 thousand), the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania (17 thousand), Republic of Adygea (15 thousand). There are very few Hemshils (1.5 thousand people), they are mainly concentrated in the Krasnodar Territory (1 thousand), as well as in the Rostov and Voronezh regions. In general, 0.8% of the country’s total population belongs to the Armenian language branch.

The Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family in Russia includes Ossetians, Tajiks, Pashtuns, Persians, Central Asian Gypsies, Central Asian Jews, Mountain Jews, Tats, Talysh, Kurds, Yezidis. Ossetians (515 thousand people) are concentrated mainly in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania (445 thousand), although there are a significant number of them in some other places: Moscow (11 thousand), the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (10 thousand). Ossetians are divided into two ethno-confessional groups: the Ironians, who mainly profess Orthodoxy, and the Digorians, who adhere to Islam (they live in the Digorsky and Irafsky regions of the republic). Between the 1989 and 2002 censuses. In Russia, the number of Pashtuns increased sharply, which was associated with the influx of refugees from Afghanistan into our country. According to the 2002 census, 10 thousand Pashtuns lived in Russia, 6 thousand of them in Moscow. Tajiks (120 thousand people) are dispersed throughout the country: in Moscow (35 thousand), Tyumen region (8 thousand) and a number of other places.

The majority speaks Tajik Central Asian gypsies. According to the 2002 census, there were 0.5 thousand of them, but their number probably should have been larger, since some of them, as noted, could call themselves simply Gypsies, and some avoided census registration altogether. Persians (4 thousand people) live mainly in the Republic of Dagestan (0.7 thousand), the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (0.5 thousand) and Moscow (0.7 thousand). The extreme small number of Central Asian (Bukharan) Jews (54 people) is most likely due to their undercounting, since during the census some of them could indicate themselves simply as Jews.

Mountain Jews (3 thousand people) live in the Republic of Dagestan (over 1 thousand), Moscow (about 1 thousand) and some other places. Perhaps some of them could call themselves Tatami, and some could simply call themselves Jews. Tats (2 thousand people), Muslims by religion, speak the same language with Mountain Jews, also live in Dagestan (0.8 thousand) and some other places. The Talysh (2.5 thousand people) live mainly in Moscow (0.5 thousand), St. Petersburg (0.3 thousand) and the Tyumen region (0.3 thousand). Probably their numbers are larger, since in Azerbaijan they tend to be classified as Azerbaijanis (and some of them could call themselves that).

The most significant groups of Kurds (20 thousand people) are in the Krasnodar Territory (5 thousand), the Republic of Adygea (4 thousand) and the Saratov Region (2 thousand). The Yezidis (31 thousand people) are settled very dispersedly; there are small groups of them in the Krasnodar Territory (4 thousand), Nizhny Novgorod (3 thousand) and Yaroslavl (3 thousand) regions. In total, the peoples speaking the languages ​​of the Iranian branch make up 0.5% of the total population in Russia.

The Indo-Aryan language branch includes gypsies (excluding Central Asians) and Indians living in Russia who speak Hindi. The number of Roma, according to the 2002 census, was 183 thousand people. Most of them are in the Stavropol Territory (19 thousand), Rostov Region (15 thousand) and Krasnodar Territory (11 thousand). As for Hindi-speaking Indians (5 thousand people), the bulk of them are concentrated in Moscow (about 3 thousand). In general, representatives of the Indo-Aryan branch make up 0.1% of the population in Russia.

The total number of peoples living in Russia belonging to the Indo-European language family is 84.7% of the country's population.

Ural-Yukaghir language family

The Ural-Yukaghir language family is represented in Russia by all three groups: Finno-Ugric, Samoyed and Yukaghir (some linguists do not recognize the existence of the Ural-Yukaghir family and consider the Uralic and Yukaghir families separately). The largest Finno-Ugric branch unites Karelians, Finns, Izhorians, Vodians, Estonians, Vepsians, Sami, Mordovians, Mari, Udmurts, Besermians, Komi, Komi-Permyaks, Khanty, living mainly in the north-west of Russia, the Volga region and Western Siberia. Mansi, Hungarians. There are 93 thousand people in Karel. Of these, 66 thousand live in the Republic of Karelia, 15 thousand - in the Tver region, the rest are dispersed throughout the country. Among the Karelians, two groups are distinguished by language and some elements of culture: Livviks and Ludics. The dialects of these groups are very different from the dialect of the bulk of Karelians, and some linguists consider them independent languages. Finns (34 thousand people) are represented in Russia mainly by a group of Ingrian Finns. The most significant groups of Finns in our country are in the Republic of Karelia (14 thousand), Leningrad Region (8 thousand), and also live in St. Petersburg (4 thousand). The small number of Izhorians (0.3 thousand people) are concentrated mainly in the Leningrad region (0.2 thousand), and also live in St. Petersburg (53 people).

Vod (73 people in total) live mainly in the Leningrad region (12 people), St. Petersburg (12 people) and Moscow (10 people). Estonians (28 thousand people) are dispersedly settled in Russia. Their groups are located in the Krasnoyarsk Territory (4 thousand), Omsk Region (3 thousand), St. Petersburg (2 thousand), Leningrad (1 thousand) and Novosibirsk (1 thousand) regions, Moscow (1 thousand) , Krasnodar Territory (1 thousand), Pskov Region (1 thousand). The Setos, closely related to the Estonians, live in the Pskov region (197 people). Vepsians (8 thousand people) are settled in Karelia (5 thousand), Leningrad (2 thousand) and Vologda (0.4 thousand) regions. The Sami living in Russia (2 thousand), are mostly concentrated in Murmansk region. The Sami dialects are very different from each other, and many linguists consider them to be different languages. Russian Sami are divided into four main groups: Skolt, Terek, Babinsky (the last representative died in 2003) and Kildinsky. The largest Finno-Ugric people - the Mordovians (843 thousand) - are settled very dispersedly, only a third of their total population is concentrated in the Republic of Mordovia (284 thousand). There are a significant number of Mordovians in Samara (86 thousand), Penza (71 thousand), Orenburg (52 thousand), Ulyanovsk (50 thousand) regions, Bashkortostan (26 thousand), Nizhny Novgorod region (25 thousand), Tatarstan (24 thousand), Moscow (23 thousand), Moscow (22 thousand), Chelyabinsk (18 thousand), Saratov (17 thousand) regions, Chuvash Republic (16 thousand). Mordva is divided into two groups: Erzya and Moksha, speaking closely related languages. The closest people to the Mordovians are the Mari (604 thousand). More than half of their total number (312 thousand) live in the Republic of Mari El. There is a large group of Mari (106 thousand) in Bashkortostan; they also live in the Kirov (39 thousand), Sverdlovsk (28 thousand) regions, and Tatarstan (19 thousand). The Mari, like the Mordovians, are divided into two groups: the meadow-eastern and mountain Mari, whose dialects are quite close, but still have two different literary forms. Another large Finno-Ugric people - the Udmurts (637 thousand people) - are concentrated mainly in the Udmurt Republic (461 thousand), also living in Perm region(26 thousand), Tatarstan (24 thousand), Bashkortostan (23 thousand), Kirov (18 thousand), Sverdlovsk (18 thousand) regions. The ethnographic division of the Udmurts into northern and southern has largely disappeared. The Udmurt language is also spoken by the Besermyans (3 thousand people). They are settled in the north of Udmurtia (along the Cheptse River) and in neighboring areas of the Kirov region. Two close peoples - the Komi (293 thousand people) and the Komi-Permyaks (125 thousand people) - are concentrated mainly within two subjects of the Federation - the Komi Republic and the Perm Territory (256 and 103 thousand people, respectively). Komi, otherwise called Komi-Zyryans, also inhabit the Tyumen region (11 thousand). The Komi-Zyryans, like the Komi-Permyaks, include different groups. Ethnographic group Komi-Zyryans - Komi-Izhemtsy differ from most Komi in their main economic occupation (reindeer husbandry). The Izhma Komi people live in the northern regions of the Komi Republic (along the Pechora River and its tributary Izhma), in the Tyumen region (mainly in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Ugra), as well as in the Murmansk region. Among the Komi-Permyaks, the Komi-Yazva people stand out (they live in the Perm region, along the Yazva River) and the Komi-Zyuzda people (settled in the Afanasyevsky district of the Kirov region). The Khanty (29 thousand people) and Mansi (11 thousand people) are predominantly settled within the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Ugra (17 and 10 thousand, respectively). A noticeable group of Khanty (9 thousand) also lives in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The Khanty language is divided into a number of dialects, mutual understanding between which is difficult. Literature has been created in several dialects of this language (Kazym, Shuryshkar, Central Ob). In terms of language, the Hungarians (4 thousand) are close to the Khanty and Mansi, but are not found in significant numbers anywhere in Russia. Taken together, the peoples of the Finno-Ugric branch of the Ural-Yukaghir language family form, according to the 2002 census, about 1.9% of the Russian population.

The Finno-Ugric branch is significantly inferior in number to the second branch of the Ural-Yukaghir language family - Samoyed. It includes the Nenets, Enets, Nganasans and Selkups. The Nenets (41 thousand people) live mainly in two autonomous okrugs: Yamalo-Nenets (26 thousand) and Nenets (8 thousand). Enets (0.2 thousand) are settled mainly in Taimyr. Nganasans (0.8 thousand people) mostly live there. The Selkups (4 thousand people) live mainly in two territorially separated regions: the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (about 2 thousand) and the Tomsk Region (about 2 thousand). The peoples of the Samoyed branch of the Ural-Yukaghir language family together make up only 0.03% of the Russian population.

The Yukaghir language branch is even smaller in number, to which only two peoples can be classified, and even then one of them is conditional: the Yukaghirs (1.5 thousand) and the Chuvans (1.1 thousand).

The fact is that the Chuvans used to speak a language close to Yukaghir, but they lost it, and one part of them now speaks Russian, and the other speaks Chukotka.

The Yukaghirs themselves speak two very different, poorly mutually intelligible dialects, which some linguists consider to be separate languages ​​- Northern Yukagir (Tundra) and South Yukaghir (Kolyma). The bulk of the Yukaghirs (1.1 thousand people) live in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the Chuvans are concentrated in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (about 1 thousand). The two peoples of the Yukaghir branch of the Ural-Yukaghir language family make up only 0.002% of the Russian population. In general, the Ural-Yukaghir family covers more than 1.9% of the country's population.

Altaic language family

The Altai language family is sometimes related to the Ural-Yukaghir language family. However, some linguists question the very existence of the latter, believing that the Altai languages ​​do not form a family, but a “linguistic union”, and believing that the similarity of these languages ​​is due not to the presence of common roots, but to long-term mutual influence. This family is divided into 5 branches: Turkic, Mongolian, Tungus-Manchu, Korean, Japanese (a number of linguists do not include the Korean and Japanese languages ​​in the Altai family and consider them isolated).

The most numerous of the named branches is Turkic. In Russia it includes the Chuvash, Tatars, Kryashens, Nagaibaks, Bashkirs, Kazakhs, Karakalpaks, Nogais, Kumyks, Karachais, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, Krymchaks, Karaites, Azerbaijanis, Turks, Meskhetian Turks, Gagauz, Turkmens, Uzbeks, Uighurs, Kirghiz, Altaians, Telengits, Teleuts, Tubalars, Chelkans, Kumandins, Chulyms, Shors, Khakassians, Tuvans, Tofalars, Soyots, Yakuts, Dolgans.

More than half of the Chuvash (their total number is 1,637 thousand people) live in the Chuvash Republic (889 thousand), there are large groups of them in Tatarstan (127 thousand), Bashkortostan (117 thousand), Ulyanovsk (111 thousand) and Samara (101 thousand) regions. 30 thousand Chuvash live in the Tyumen region (half in the Khanty: Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Ugra). The division of the Chuvash into three groups - Viryal in the north and northwest, Anat Enchi in the northeast and center, Anatri in the south - is now poorly traced. Tatars (5,555 thousand) are dispersed throughout the country. Only a little more than a third of them (2 million) live in the Republic of Tatarstan. 991 thousand Tatars live in Bashkortostan, they are also settled in Tyumen (242 thousand), Chelyabinsk (205 thousand), Ulyanovsk (169 thousand), Sverdlovsk (168 thousand) regions, Moscow (166 thousand), Orenburg region (166 thousand), Perm Territory (137 thousand), Samara Region (128 thousand), Udmurtia (109 thousand), Penza (87 thousand), Astrakhan (71 thousand), Saratov (58 thousand), Moscow (53 thousand), Kemerovo (51 thousand) regions. The majority of Siberian Tatars are concentrated in the Tyumen region. They are divided into a number of groups: Tyumen-Turin, Yaskolbinsk (swamp), Tobolsk, Tevriz, Tara Tatars, Barabinsk, Kalmaks, Chats, Eushta. Another group of Tatars, which is also sometimes considered a separate people, are the Astrakhan Tatars. They are concentrated mainly in the Astrakhan region (Kharabalinsky, Volga, Narimanovsky, Krasnoyarsk, Volodarsky districts). A small number of Astrakhan Tatars live in the Caspian region of Kalmykia. Astrakhan Tatars are divided into groups: Yurt, Kundrovtsy, Karagash (the latter consider themselves Nogais rather than Tatars), Alabugat, etc. The two most numerous groups of Volga Tatars are the Kazan Tatars and Mishars, who differ from the Kazan Tatars in their language and culture. The Mishars generally live somewhat to the west of the Kazan Tatars, in a number of regions of Tatarstan (Chistopol, etc.), as well as in the Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk, Samara, Penza, Saratov regions, Mordovia, Chuvashia and Bashkortostan.

The bulk of the Kryashens are concentrated in Tatarstan (Kazan and Naberezhnye Chelny, Zainsky, Mamadyshsky, Nizhnekamsky, Kukmorsky, Kaybitsky, Pestrechensky and other regions), but they also live in Bashkortostan (mainly in the Bakalinsky district), Udmurtia (mainly in the Grakhovsky district), Mari El (in Mari: Tureksky district), Kirov region (in Kilmezsky district) and other places. People close to the Kryashens - the Nagaibaks (about 10 thousand people) - also speak a dialect Tatar language. Almost all Nagaibaks live in the Chelyabinsk region (over 9 thousand), mainly in the Nagaibak and Chebarkul regions.

The largest people of the Turkic branch of the Altai language family are the Bashkirs (1,673 thousand people). The Bashkirs are not as dispersed as the Tatars. There are 1,221 thousand Bashkirs living in the Republic of Bashkortostan (more than three-quarters of their total number). There are significant groups of Bashkirs in the Chelyabinsk (166 thousand), Orenburg (53 thousand), Tyumen (47 thousand, including in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Ugra - 36 thousand) regions, Perm Territory (41 thousand), Sverdlovsk region(37 thousand).

Kazakhs (654 thousand people) are settled in those regions of Russia that are adjacent to Kazakhstan: Astrakhan (143 thousand), Orenburg (126 thousand), Omsk (82 thousand). Volgogradskaya (45 thousand), etc.

Among the Kazakhs, three very small groups are distinguished - the Russified Turatin and Steppe, as well as the Kosh-Agach. Turat Kazakhs, or in other words - baptized Kazakhs, live in the Altai Republic (Ust-Kansky district). Steppe Kazakhs according to the 2002 census in the Altai Territory,

where they previously lived has not been identified. Kosh-Agach Kazakhs are compactly settled in the region of the same name (numerically dominating the local Altaians), as well as in the Ulagansky region of the Altai Republic. The Karakalpaks (1.6 thousand) who are close to the Kazakhs live mainly in the border regions - Volgograd, Saratov, and Orenburg.

The Karachais (192.2 thousand) live mainly in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic (169.2 thousand) and the Stavropol Territory (15.1 thousand). The Balkars (108 thousand people) who speak the same language live in Kabardino-Balkaria.

The Nogais (91 thousand people) are settled in several regions that are territorially separated from each other: Dagestan (38 thousand), Stavropol Territory (21 thousand), Karachay-Cherkessia (15 thousand), etc. Kumyks (422 thousand people) are concentrated mainly in Dagestan (366 thousand), there are also in North Ossetia - Alania (13 thousand) and the Tyumen region (12 thousand, including in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Ugra - 10 thousand). Crimean Tatars currently live in Crimea and the Krasnodar Territory (about 3 thousand). The Krymchaks, similar in language to them (157 people), professing Judaism, after most of them left for Israel, remained in small groups in the Krasnodar Territory (32 people), Moscow and the Moscow Region (36 people), St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region ( 21 people) and in some other places. There are few Karaites left in Russia (366 people, including 117 in Moscow and 53 in St. Petersburg).

Azerbaijanis (622 thousand people) are spread throughout Russia very widely; there are significant groups of them in Dagestan (112 thousand), Moscow (96 thousand), Tyumen region (42 thousand, including in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Ugra - 25 thousand), in the Krasnoyarsk Territory (19 thousand), St. Petersburg (17 thousand), Rostov (16 thousand), Saratov (16 thousand), Sverdlovsk (15 thousand) regions, Stavropol Territory ( 15 thousand), Samara (15 thousand), Moscow (15 thousand), Volgograd (14 thousand) regions, Krasnodar Territory (12 thousand). Due to the active migration influx of Azerbaijanis in the Russian Federation, there is much more than the 2002 census showed. Turks and Meskhetian Turks are close to the Azerbaijanis in language (according to the 2002 census, 92 thousand and 3.3 thousand people, respectively) . According to the census, the most significant groups of Turks live in the North Caucasus: in the Krasnodar (13 thousand) and Stavropol (7 thousand) territories, Kabardino-Balkaria (9 thousand).

The Gagauz (12 thousand people) are also distributed throughout Russia, mostly dispersed. The largest number of Gagauz people in Russia live in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Ugra (1.6 thousand people) and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (0.9 thousand), in Moscow and the Moscow region (1.7 thousand) .

Turkmen in Russia - 33 thousand. Among them, a compact rural group in the Stavropol region stands out, the so-called Stavropol Turkmen, or Trukhmen, of whom there are 14 thousand people. 3.5 thousand Turkmen also live in Moscow and 2.1 thousand in the Astrakhan region. Uzbeks (123 thousand) are widely settled in Russia, the most significant groups are in Moscow and the Moscow region (28.5 thousand), Samara region (5.5 thousand), Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Ugra (5.2 thousand .), Bashkortostan (5.1 thousand) and Tatarstan (4.9 thousand). The Uighurs close to them (3 thousand people, including 2 thousand in Moscow and the Moscow region) do not form large groups anywhere. The Kyrgyz are also dispersed throughout Russia (32 thousand people), the most noticeable groups of which are in Moscow (4 thousand), Krasnoyarsk Territory (4 thousand) and Tyumen Region (3 thousand).

The 2002 census takes into account the Altai peoples who united in previous censuses under the name of Altaians, living mainly in the Altai Republic and neighboring regions: Altaians themselves, or Altai-Kizhi (67 thousand), Telengits (2.4 thousand), Teleuts (2 .6 thousand), Tubalars (1.6 thousand), Chelkans (0.9 thousand) and Kumandins (3.1 thousand). The Altai-Kizhi are concentrated in the Altai Republic (62 thousand), almost all Telengits, Tubalars and Chelkans are also in the Altai Republic, the vast majority of Teleuts are in the Kemerovo region (mainly in the Belovsky district), the Kumandins are in the Altai Territory, the Altai Republic and Kemerovo region. The Chulyms (0.7 thousand), who were included in the Tatars or Khakasses, were not previously distinguished. The Chulym people are settled along the Chulym River (where their name comes from) in the Tomsk region (0.5 thousand) and Krasnoyarsk Territory (about 0.2 thousand). Another small Turkic-speaking people - the Shors (14 thousand) - live in the neighboring Kemerovo region (about 12 thousand), mainly in the area known as Mountain Shoria. 1 thousand Shors live in Khakassia. Khakassians (76 thousand) are settled mainly in the Republic of Khakassia (65 thousand), where they make up 12% of the population. The former division of the Khakass into four or five groups - Kyzyls, Kachins, Sagais, Koibals, and sometimes also Beltirs - has largely been erased, although most Khakass still remember which group they belong to. More than 4 thousand Khakass live in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, another 1 thousand are settled in neighboring Tyva. The Tuvans themselves (243 thousand people) are overwhelmingly concentrated in the Republic of Tyva (235 thousand), where they form about 4/5 of the population. In terms of their economic and cultural way of life, the Tuvans-Todzha are distinguished, living mainly in the Todzha region of the republic. Close to the Tuvans are the Tofalars (0.8 thousand people), concentrated mainly in the Irkutsk region (0.7 thousand), mainly in the Nizhneudinsky district. Sometimes the Soyots (2.8 thousand people), who in the past spoke Turkic language, but now switched to the Buryat language. The Soyots are compactly settled in the Okinsky district of Buryatia.

Yakuts (444 thousand people) - one of the most significant in number Turkic-speaking peoples Russia - almost exclusively (97%) are concentrated in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and make up about half of the population there. The Dolgans (7 thousand people), speaking a language very close to Yakut, are concentrated mainly in the Krasnoyarsk Territory (about 6 thousand), and, above all, in the former Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) Autonomous Okrug (now municipal district), mainly in the Khatanga and Dudinsky districts. They also exist in the Anabar region of Yakutia. In general, the peoples of the Turkic branch of the Altaic language family make up 8.4% of the population of all of Russia.

The Mongolian branch of the Altai language family is represented in Russia by the Buryats, Kalmyks and Mongols. Buryats (445 thousand people) live mainly in the Republic of Buryatia (273 thousand), the Aginsky Buryat Autonomous Okrug of the Trans-Baikal Territory (45 thousand) and the Ust-Orda Buryat Autonomous Okrug of the Irkutsk Region (54 thousand). In addition, there are a significant number of Buryats in the Irkutsk region and Trans-Baikal Territory outside these autonomous okrugs (27 thousand and 25 thousand, respectively). In the Republic of Buryatia and the Aginsky District, the Buryats make up approximately 3/5 of the population; in the Ust-Ordynsky District they do not form a majority, being inferior in number to the Russians. Kalmyks (174 thousand people) are concentrated mainly in the Republic of Kalmykia (156 thousand, i.e. 90% of all Kalmyks). 7 thousand Kalmyks live in the Astrakhan region, mainly in the areas adjacent to Kalmykia. Kalmyks are divided into several groups: large Derbets, small Derbets, Torguts, Khoshuts, Buzavs (Don Kalmyks). Mongols (2.7 thousand people) are dispersed in Russia: in Moscow (0.5 thousand), Irkutsk region (0.5 thousand), Buryatia (0.3 thousand) and other places. 0.4% of the Russian population belongs to the Mongolian language branch.

The Tungus-Manchu branch of the Altai language family in the Russian Federation includes the Evenks, Evens, Negidals, Nanais, Ulchi, Uilta, Orochi, Udege and (conditionally) Tazy. The largest of the listed peoples are the Evenks (36 thousand people). Only a small part of them (1/10) is concentrated in the former Evenki Autonomous Okrug (now a region of the Krasnoyarsk Territory) (3.8 thousand). Half of all Evenks (18 thousand) live in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Evenks are also settled in the Khabarovsk Territory (4.5 thousand), Buryatia (2.3 thousand), Amur (1.5 thousand), Irkutsk (1.4 thousand) regions and other places. Evens (19 thousand people) live in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) (2.5 thousand), in particular in the Eveno-Bytantaysky national region, as well as in the Kamchatka Territory (1.8 thousand), Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (1 .4 thousand), Khabarovsk Territory (1.3 thousand). The Negidals (0.6 thousand people) are concentrated mainly in the Khabarovsk Territory (0.5 thousand), along the Amgun River. The overwhelming majority (90%) of the Nanais (12 thousand people) live in the Khabarovsk Territory (11 thousand), mainly along the Amur River. There are small groups of Nanais in the Primorsky Territory (0.4 thousand) and the Sakhalin Region (0.2 thousand). Ulchi (2.9 thousand people) are settled mainly in the Ulchsky district of the Khabarovsk Territory (2.7 thousand). Uilta, or, in other words, Oroks (0.3 thousand people), live in the Sakhalin region. Orochi (0.7 thousand people) live in the Khabarovsk Territory (0.4 thousand), in the Vaninsky, Komsomolsky and Sovetsko-Gavansky districts. The Udege (1.7 thousand people) are settled in the Primorsky (0.9 thousand) and Khabarovsk (0.6 thousand) territories. The Tazy (0.3 thousand people) - of mixed origin, previously spoke the Nanai and Udege languages, but later switched to Chinese and then to Russian - now mainly live in the Primorsky Territory, in the village of Mikhailovka, Olginsky district.

Koreans (149 thousand people, 0.1% of the country's population) form a separate Korean branch of the Altai language family. The largest number of Koreans in Russia is in the Sakhalin region (30 thousand), they also live in the Primorsky Territory (18 thousand), Rostov Region (12 thousand), Khabarovsk Territory (10 thousand), Moscow (9 thousand), Stavropol Territory (7 thousand), Volgograd Region (6 thousand), Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (5 thousand) and other places. Like the Korean language branch, which is formed by one people, the Japanese branch consists of only Japanese (0.8 thousand people in Russia).

There are very few Japanese in Russia; they mainly live in the Sakhalin region (0.3 thousand) and Moscow (0.2 thousand). In general, 9% of the Russian population belongs to the Altaic language family.

North Caucasian language family

The third largest (after Indo-European and Altaic) language family is North Caucasian, divided into two branches: Abkhaz-Adyghe and Nakh-Dagestan. The Abkhaz-Adyghe branch unites Abkhazians, Abazas, Kabardians, Circassians, Adygeis and Shapsugs. Abkhazians live mainly in Abkhazia, but there are few of them in Russia (11 thousand people). They are distributed dispersedly in the Russian Federation and do not form compact habitats anywhere. Most of all Abkhazians are in Moscow (4 thousand) and Krasnodar Territory (2 thousand). The Abazins (38 thousand people) are close to the Abkhazians in language, mainly living in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic (32 thousand people). Four closely related peoples - Kabardians, Circassians, Adygeans and Shapsugs - are sometimes called by the common name Adygs. The largest of them - Kabardians (520 thousand people) - mainly live in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (499 thousand, i.e. 96% of their total number). There are noticeable groups of Kabardians in the Stavropol Territory (7 thousand) and North Ossetia-Alania (3 thousand). Among the Kabardians, there is a group of Mozdok Kabardians who live in the Mozdok region of North Ossetia - Alania and profess Christianity, unlike the majority of Kabardians who adhere to Islam. Speaking the same Kabardian-Circassian language as the Kabardians, the Circassians (61 thousand people) live mainly in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic (50 thousand people). 4 thousand Circassians are settled in the Krasnodar region. Adygeans (129 thousand people) live mainly in the Republic of Adygea (108 thousand) and make up 24% of the population. The small Shapsug people (3 thousand people) are almost entirely concentrated in the Krasnodar Territory, in the Tuapse and Lazarevsky districts. The peoples of the Abkhaz-Adyghe branch make up 0.5% of the population of our country.

The second branch of the North Caucasian language family - Nakh-Dagestan - unites Chechens, Ingush, Avars, 13 Andocesian peoples, as well as Archins, Laks, Dargins, Kubachi, Kaytags, Tabasarans, Lezgins, Aguls, Rutuls, Tsakhurs, Udins. The largest of these peoples are the Chechens (1,360 thousand people), who mostly live in Chechen Republic(1,032 thousand), there are also noticeable groups of Chechens in Ingushetia (95 thousand), Dagestan (88 thousand), Rostov region (15 thousand), Moscow (14 thousand), Stavropol Territory (13 thousand), Volgograd (12 thousand), Tyumen (11 thousand), Astrakhan (10 thousand) regions. The Chechens of Dagestan form a group of Akkintsy (Aukhovtsy), inhabiting mainly the Novolaksky, Kazbekovsky, Khasavyurt and Babayurt districts of the republic. The Ingush (413 thousand people) are settled mainly in the Republic of Ingushetia (361 thousand). The most visible group of Ingush outside the republic lives in North Ossetia-Alania (21 thousand).

Indigenous Dagestan peoples are concentrated mainly in the Republic of Dagestan. There are 814 thousand Avars, including Ando-Tsez and Archins, in Russia. Of these, 758 thousand are in Dagestan. The number of the second largest people of Dagestan - the Dargins - is 489 thousand. Like other Dagestan peoples, the Dargins live mainly on the territory of the Republic of Dagestan (405 thousand). There is a noticeable group of them in the Stavropol Territory (40 thousand). As for the number of Kubachi and Kaitag residents, according to some Dagestan scientists, there are 4 thousand and 17 thousand people, respectively, although the 2002 census counted much less. Another 6 peoples are settled primarily in Dagestan. These are Laks (157 thousand people in Russia, of which 140 thousand are in Dagestan), Tabasarans (132 and 110 thousand, respectively), Lezgins (412 and 337 thousand), Aguls (28 and 23 thousand), Rutuls ( 30 and 24 thousand), Tsakhur (10 and 8 thousand). There are noticeable groups of Tabasarans (5 thousand) and Lezgins (7 thousand) in the Stavropol Territory. Lezgins also live in the Tyumen (11 thousand, including in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Ugra - 9 thousand) and Saratov (5 thousand) regions.

The Nakh-Dagestan group also includes the Udins (there are 3.7 thousand of them in Russia). There are groups of Udins in the Rostov region (1.6 thousand) and Krasnodar region (0.8 thousand). The Udins also live outside of Russia - in Azerbaijan and Georgia, as do the Lezgins and Tsakhurs, many of whom are settled in the regions of Azerbaijan bordering Russia. 2.7% of the population of the Russian Federation belongs to the Nakh-Dagestan language branch. In general, 3.2% of the country’s residents belong to the North Caucasian family.

Scientists conventionally call 10 peoples of Russia Paleo-Asian. These are probably the descendants of the most ancient, pre-Tungusic population of Eastern Eurasia. Of these, only 5 peoples of the Chukotka-Kamchatka language family speak related languages. Some linguists also distinguish the Yenisei and Eskimo-Aleut language families, but this division is not generally accepted. The Chukchi-Kamchatka family includes the Chukchi, Koryaks, Kereks, who form the Chukchi-Koryak language branch, and the Itelmens and Kamchadals, who form the Itelmen language branch. The most numerous of them are the Chukchi (16 thousand people), who are settled within the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (13 thousand). In addition, 1.5 thousand Chukchi live in the neighboring Kamchatka Territory. Koryaks (9 thousand people) are also settled mainly within the Kamchatka Territory (7 thousand). There are Koryaks in the neighboring Magadan region (0.9 thousand people). Among the Koryaks, there is a group of Alyutors (number, according to one estimate, about 3 thousand people, while the census counted only 12 people), living mainly along the eastern coast of the Kamchatka Isthmus.

Some ethnologists consider the Alyutor people to be an independent people. Kereks related to the Koryaks (8 people) - the smallest indigenous people of Russia - lived in the village of Maino-Pilgino, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Now most of them have dispersed to different regions of our country, and only 3 people remain in Chukotka. The Itelmen branch of the Chukchi-Kamchatka language family includes the Itelmens (3.2 thousand people). They live mainly in the Kamchatka Territory (2.3 thousand), and half of them are settled in the territory of the former Koryak Autonomous Okrug. 0.6 thousand Itelmen live within the neighboring Magadan region. As for the Kamchadals (2.3 thousand people), they can be attributed to the Itelmen branch, and to the entire Chukchi-Kamchatka language family conditionally, since this people, formed as a result of the mixing of Russians and Itelmens, now speaks Russian language. The vast majority of Kamchadals (1.9 thousand people) are concentrated in the Kamchatka Territory, 0.3 thousand live in the Magadan Region. There are 1.8 thousand Eskimos in Russia. Russian Eskimos live mainly in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (1.5 thousand). They are divided into three groups (Naukans, Chaplins and Sirenikis), whose languages ​​are very different from each other. The Naukans live in the city of Anadyr, as well as in the villages of Lorino, Lavrentiya and Uelen in the northeast of the Chukotka Peninsula, the Chaplinians live in the villages of New Chaplino, Sireniki, Provedeniya and Uelkal in the southeast of the Chukotka Peninsula, the Sireniki people live in the village of Sireniki (their language has almost disappeared) .

Aleuts (0.5 thousand people) live in the Kamchatka region (0.4 thousand), mainly on the Commander Islands. Russian Aleuts are divided into two groups: Beringians and Mednovites. The Bering people are concentrated in the village of Nikolskoye on Bering Island (one of the Commander Islands). Nowadays their Aleut language has almost disappeared, and the vast majority of them speak Russian. The second group of Russian Aleuts - Mednovtsy - until the end of the 1960s. lived on Medny Island (Commander Islands), in the village of Preobrazhenskoye. Then they were resettled to the village of Nikolskoye on Bering Island, where Bering Aleuts and Russians live. The Mednovites can be included in the Aleut group only conditionally, since they did not speak one of the Aleut languages, but a kind of “mixed” language, formed as a result of mixing a number of Aleut dialects with the Russian language. Now this language, like the Bering language, has almost disappeared, and the majority of Mednovites speak Russian.

The Kets (1.5 thousand people), which some linguists attribute to the hypothetical Yenisei language family, are settled mainly in the Krasnoyarsk Territory (1.2 thousand) along the Yenisei River. The extremely small yugas (19 people) are not compactly settled anywhere: in their old place of residence in the village of Vorogovo, Krasnoyarsk Territory, only three people remained, the rest dispersed to different settlements in Russia. Nivkhov in Russia 5 thousand people. They live in the Khabarovsk Territory (2.5 thousand) and the Sakhalin Region (2.4 thousand).

Kartvelian language family

Georgians (198 thousand people) and Georgian Jews (53 people) form the Kartvelian language family. In Russia, Georgians are dispersedly settled. There are most of them in Moscow (54 thousand), Krasnodar Territory (20 thousand), the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania (11 thousand), Rostov Region (11 thousand), St. Petersburg (10 thousand), Moscow Region ( 10 thousand), Stavropol Territory (9 thousand). Georgians also include a number of groups that some scientists recognize as separate peoples - Mingrelians, Laz, Svans, Adjarians, Ingiloys.

Afroasiatic language family

Among the small families in Russia is the Afroasiatic (Semitic-Hamitic) language family, to which the Arabs, Central Asian Arabs (conditionally) and Assyrians belong. During the census, about 11 thousand Arabs were counted. Apparently, there are somewhat fewer of them, since they included part of the Central Asian Arabs, who, on the contrary, are actually more numerous than the census showed (less than 0.2 thousand people). The majority of Arabs are in Moscow (3 thousand) and the Rostov region (2 thousand); Central Asian Arabs live in small groups throughout the country. Assyrians (total number - 14 thousand people), as well as Arabs, most of all in Moscow (about 4 thousand)

Sino-Tibetan language family

The Sino-Tibetan language family is represented in Russia by the Chinese and Dungans. Dungans speak one of the dialects Chinese language, but unlike the Chinese they profess Islam. According to the 2002 census, there are only 35 thousand Chinese in Russia, but not all of them were counted during the census. Most of the Chinese are in Moscow (13 thousand people), in the Primorsky (4 thousand) and Khabarovsk (4 thousand) territories, Sverdlovsk (2 thousand), Irkutsk (1 thousand) and Rostov (1 thousand) regions , St. Petersburg (1 thousand people) and other regions. As for the Dungans, representatives of this people in our country are very small in number (0.8 thousand people) and do not form compact areas anywhere. The most noticeable group is in Ingushetia (0.2 thousand).

Austroasiatic language family

There are also representatives of the Austroasiatic family in Russia; these are the Vietnamese living in our country, whose number is last years has increased noticeably. The census recorded slightly more than 26 thousand Vietnamese. The majority of Vietnamese (about 16 thousand people) are concentrated in Moscow.

The Caucasus is the place at the “junction” of the Christian and Muslim worlds, with the numerical predominance of the latter. Of all the peoples of the Caucasus, only Armenians, Georgians and Ossetians are Christians, almost all the rest are Muslims.
Central Asia is a meeting place of such different cultures as Parthian and Turkic, Arab and Chinese, Iranian and Mongolian and many others. The Muslim religion (and relatively small Russian Orthodox communities) predominate here. The cultures of sedentary farmers (their descendants are most of the Tajiks and Uzbeks) and nomads (Turkmen, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs) have always interacted in this territory. There are also a few Chinese (Dungans are Chinese Muslims) and Baluchis (immigrants from Balochistan - at the junction of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan) who live here. In this region, as in the Caucasus, state borders cut ethnic territories: several million Tajiks and about 2 million Uzbeks live in Northern Afghanistan (which makes it very likely that Afghan civil strife will penetrate into the territories of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), about a million Turkmen live in Iran, China - about a million Kazakhs.
Modern Kazakhstan has a particularly “butt”, “transitional” situation, the entire northern part of which is inhabited by Russians. They are slightly less than half of the total population of the republic, and some of them appeared on this territory earlier than the Kazakhs. There are many Germans (expelled in 1941 from the territory of the European part of Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic states), in the south there are Uzbeks, Dungans, Uighurs (Muslim Turkic people, the main part of which lives in the west of China), etc. Therefore, any manifestations are especially dangerous for Kazakhstan interethnic tension. Apparently, this country can exist within its modern borders only with the “transparency” of these borders and a very “soft” national policy.
The Far North of Russia is sometimes called part of the “Fourth World”.
In other words, this is a region of peoples whose way of life is associated mainly with appropriating economy (hunting, fishing, gathering) or with reindeer herding. In total, there are 26 such peoples in Russia with a total population of 180 thousand people.
If we compare the settlement areas of these peoples with a map of the natural living conditions of the population, it turns out that they live
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ut in territories with “unfavorable” natural conditions. This once again speaks to the conditionality of any human assessments: the map was compiled from the point of view of a resident Central Russia, for whom, for example, life in Taimyr is not at all attractive. But for the Nenets, the indigenous inhabitants of this area, this is precisely the nature to which they have adapted over many centuries. In other conditions, “better” from the point of view of a European, they would not be able to live, because they would not have the opportunity to do their own thing. traditional farming- pasture reindeer husbandry (and even if they had survived in other conditions, they would have become a completely different people).
Currently, the Far North for the Russian economy serves as a “storehouse of natural resources,” primarily minerals. This is where most of the oil and gas, all diamonds, gold, and many other non-ferrous metals come from. Industrial development of the territory destroys the natural basis of life of these peoples: it disables reindeer pastures and fishing grounds. Therefore, the protection of the natural environment in these areas is a very acute problem: otherwise small nations will simply disappear from the face of the Earth.
Factors of transformation of the ethnic structure of Russia in the post Soviet period. Changes in the ethnic composition of the population of Russia in the post-Soviet period occur under the influence of several factors: differences in the natural movement among various ethnic groups, processes of external migration due to political conflicts after the collapse of the USSR and labor migrations, changes in ethnic self-awareness among representatives of various ethnic groups.
Higher rates of natural growth of the peoples of the North Caucasus, compared to other ethnic groups in Russia, influenced the growth of both their absolute numbers and relative weight in the ethnic structure of the country's population.
External ethnic migrations in Lent Soviet time also became one of the significant factors in changing the ethnic structure of the Russian population. In the early 1990s. ethnic emigration to Germany and Israel significantly reduced the absolute and relative number of Germans and Jews in our country.
At the same time, return migrations of the Russian-speaking population from the former republics of the USSR compensated for the demographic
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physical decline in Russia's population. The collapse of the USSR, social conflicts and economic difficulties in the Transcaucasus were one of the main reasons for the mass immigration of Armenians and Azerbaijanis to Russia. Also, the formation of the CIS countries entailed the return of the titular ethnic groups of the former Soviet republics from the Russian Federation to their countries.
In the period from 1989 to 2002, the number of titular ethnic groups in those former USSR republics where ethnic and social conflicts took place increased. The number of Tajiks, Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians has more than tripled.
Data from the 2010 population census show that the active growth in the number of representatives of the Transcaucasian countries in the period 2002-2010. stopped. The number of Georgians and Azerbaijanis in Russia decreased compared to 2002, the number of Armenians increased by 4.6%.
New trend there was an increase in the number of titular ethnic groups Central Asian countries, which is a consequence of active labor migration from Central Asia to Russia, which intensified in the first decade of the 21st century. (Table 2).
Researchers believe that a change in ethnic identity, especially in families where there are representatives of Russian and other ethnic groups, led to a significant decrease in the number of Germans in Russia in the period from 2002 to 2010; similar processes of change in ethnic identity occur in mixed Russian-Mordovian and Russian-Ukrainian families.
The 2010 census recorded the 22 most numerous ethnic groups in Russia, the number of which in Russia exceeds 400 thousand people; in 2002 there were 23 such ethnic groups, and in 1989 - 17. Due to population growth, by 2002 this group included Azerbaijanis, Kabardians, Dargins, Kumyks, Ingush, Lezgins and Yakuts, but dropped out due to a decrease number - Jews. In the period from 2002 to 2010, the Germans left this group due to a decrease in numbers, all other ethnic groups retained a population of more than 400 thousand people.
The number of seven peoples in Russia exceeds 1 million people: Russians, Tatars, Ukrainians, Bashkirs, Chuvashs, Chechens and Armenians. There were changes in the composition of this group in the post-Soviet period: in 2002, Chechens and Armenians entered the group, and left it

Changes in the number of titular ethnic groups of the republics of the former USSR,
as well as Germans and Jews in Russia in 1989-2010.

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Belarusians and Mordovians. The same picture was preserved according to the 2010 census.
In accordance with the linguistic classification of languages, the peoples of Russia belong mainly to four language families: Indo-European (81.3% of the population), Altai (8.9%), Uralic (1.7%) and Caucasian (3.6%), which, in turn, are divided into groups. About 4% of Russian residents, according to the 2010 population census, did not indicate their nationality.
The largest in number is the Slavic group of the Indo-European family, which includes 79.5% of the Russian population.
The number of the most numerous among Slavic peoples- Russians - amounted to 111.02 million people in 2010, this is 77.7% of the population of Russia. The number of Russians compared to 1989 by 2010 decreased in Russia by 8.85 million people. This happened mainly due to natural decline, which could not be compensated by the migration influx of Russians from neighboring countries, which was active in the first decade after the collapse of the USSR and amounted to more than 3 million people during that period.
Russians are settled everywhere, but most of them are concentrated within the main settlement zone. The most mononational are the central and northwestern regions of the European part, where the Russian state originated. Here the share of Russians in the population exceeds 93%. As a result of long migrations, Russians settled in the areas inhabited by other peoples of Russia, and now in most republics and almost all autonomous okrugs Russian population numerically predominant.
The area of ​​settlement of the Russian ethnic group does not coincide with the state borders of Russia. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, about 25 million (about 17% of all Russians in the USSR) ethnic Russians who had moved from Russia at various times or were born in a new place remained outside the Russian Federation on the territory of other union republics. A distinctive feature of the Russian population of the former republics of the USSR is that most of them are predominantly urban residents and in Soviet times traditionally had a higher social status compared to the titular population of the union republics.
Most Russians outside of Russia live in Ukraine. According to the 1989 population census, there were 11 million people, or 22% of the country's population, and according to the latest Ukrainian census (2001) - a million people. (17.3% of the population of Ukraine). Russians in Ukraine live in the eastern regions, where heavy industry is developed, as well as in the central and southern regions.
There are many Russians in Kazakhstan: in 1989 there were one million, or 38% of the population, according to the 2009 Kazakhstan census - one million, or 24% of the population (the main reason for the decrease in the number of Russians in Kazakhstan is migration outflow to Russia). A significant part of the Russians in Kazakhstan are descendants of settlers from the tsarist era, who plowed the fertile lands of Northern Kazakhstan, or who arrived in the 1950s. develop virgin and fallow lands in the same areas. In 2009, Russians made up a significant share of the population in North Kazakhstan, East Kazakhstan, Karaganda, Kustanai, Pavlodar and Akmola regions.
After the collapse of the USSR, there were 1.3 million Russians in Belarus; according to the 2009 census, their number decreased to 785 thousand; in Uzbekistan in 1989, 1.6 million lived, according to various data at the beginning of the 2000s. - 1.2 million; in Kyrgyzstan - 0.9 million, according to the 2009 census - 0.4 million.
A special situation arose in Latvia, where in 1989, out of a total population of 2.6 million people. slightly less than 1 million were Russians. The Latvian government seeks to maintain a number of advantages for the indigenous population and limit the rights of “migrants”, which, first of all, concerns obtaining citizenship and the possibility of studying in Russian. A similar situation has developed in Estonia, although there are fewer Russians there (0.5 million, or 30%).
In other republics of the former USSR, the number of Russians who ended up there ranged from 50 thousand (Armenia) to 500 thousand (Moldova), and their share in the population is much smaller.
The Slavic group of the Indo-European family also includes a million Ukrainians, 521 thousand Belarusians and 47 thousand Poles. A significant part of Ukrainians live in regions bordering Ukraine
Chernozem region and Krasnodar region. Agrarian migrations of the late XIX - early XX centuries. formed an increased share of Ukrainians in the population of the Primorsky Territory; during the Soviet period, the main direction of migration became the northern areas of new development - from Vorkuta to Magadan. The most massive migration was to the oil and gas producing regions of Western Siberia: in the population of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the share of Ukrainians in 1989 was 17%, Khanty-Mansiysk - 12%, while the Russian average was 3%. Currently, due to external migrations and changes in ethnic identity, the share of Ukrainians in the Russian population has decreased to 1%, and in these regions to 9.4% and 6%, respectively.
TO Indo-European family Also include peoples of the Germanic group - Germans (394 thousand), living mainly in the south of Western Siberia, and Jews (156 thousand), living mainly in large cities of the European part of the country (their share in the population of the Jewish Autonomous Region is less than 1%). The number of these peoples has decreased significantly over the past 20 years due to emigration to Germany and Israel.
Armenians are included in a separate language group, whose number in Russia in the 1990s. more than doubled and amounted to 1.13 million in 2002; by 2010, the active growth in the number of Armenians in Russia stopped, and their number amounted to 1.18 million. Most of Armenians live in the North Caucasus.
The largest people of the Iranian group in Russia are the Ossetians (528 thousand). The languages ​​of the Iranian group are spoken by Tajiks (there are 200 thousand of them in Russia), Tats living in the North Caucasus (1.6 thousand) and Mountain Jews (0.7 thousand). The number of peoples of the Baltic group (Latvians (19 thousand), Lithuanians (31 thousand) in Russia is relatively small; there are more Moldovans (156 thousand), whose language belongs to the Romance group.
The Altai language family is represented by several groups, the largest of which is Turkic. The settlement areas of the peoples of the Turkic group are located in the Ural-Volga region, Siberia, and the North Caucasus. This group includes the second largest people in Russia - the Tatars (5.3 million). 38% of all Tatars in Russia live in Tatarstan, a significant proportion of them are settled in Bashkiria, in the Volga regions and in the south of Western Siberia. The same group includes the Chuvash (1.44 million), living in the Middle Volga, and the Bashkirs (1.58 million), inhabiting the south of the Urals.
In the North Caucasus, the Turkic peoples include the Kumyks (503 thousand) and Nogais (104 thousand), living mainly in Dagestan, as well as the Karachais (218 thousand) and Balkars (113 thousand). In Siberia and the Far East, the Turkic group is represented by Yakuts (478 thousand), Tuvinians (264 thousand), significantly smaller Khakassians (73 thousand), Altaians (74 thousand), Shors (13 thousand), as well as Dolgans living in the Far North (8 thousand).
Of the Turkic peoples of the near abroad, the largest number of people in Russia are Kazakhs (648 thousand); they are concentrated in the regions of the Ural-Volga region and the south of Western Siberia bordering Kazakhstan. Central Asian peoples are represented by Uzbeks (290 thousand), Kyrgyz (103 thousand) and Turkmen (37 thousand). The number of Azerbaijanis living in Russia is noticeably higher - 603 thousand; their settlement area is also very wide: less than 1/3 live in the border North Caucasus region.
The Mongolian group of the Altai language family is represented by two related peoples - the Buryats (461 thousand) and the Kalmyks (183 thousand), who migrated from the south of Siberia to the Lower Volga in the 17th century. The Tungus-Manchu group of the same family includes small peoples Siberia and the Far East - Evenks (38 thousand), Evens (22 thousand) and Amur peoples (Nanai, Ulchi, etc.). Koreans (153 thousand) form a separate language family, the bulk of them live in the Far East.
Peoples Ural family They live mainly in the north of the European part of Russia, in the Volga-Vyatka region and the Urals. In the Finno-Ugric group, the largest and most widely settled ethnic group is the Mordovians (744 thousand), whose numbers are constantly declining due to assimilation. This group also includes Udmurts (552 thousand), Mari (548 thousand), Komi (228 thousand), Komi-Permyaks (94 thousand) and Karelians (61 thousand). The number of Karelians has decreased by almost a third over the past 30 years due to rapid assimilation; their share in the Republic of Karelia is less than 7%. 18 thousand Estonians and 20 thousand Finns live in Russia, very few Hungarians, Vepsians and Sami, who also belong to this group language group. Beyond the Urals, the Finno-Ugric peoples are the Khanty (31 thousand) and Mansi (12 thousand), whose share in their autonomous region decreased to 1.5% after

mass migration of the Slavic population during the development of major oil and gas fields. The Samoyed group of the Ural family includes the Nenets (45 thousand), the small Selkups (3.6 thousand) and Nganasans (0.9 thousand) living in the Far North.
The peoples of the North Caucasian language family are represented by two groups. In the northwestern part live the Adygeis (125 thousand) and related Kabardians (517 thousand), Circassians (73 thousand) and Abazas (43 thousand). All of them belong to the Abkhaz-Adyghe group. It also includes Abkhazians living mainly in Transcaucasia. The Nakh-Dagestan group unites the peoples of the southeastern part of the region. The largest people of the North Caucasus are the Chechens (1.43 million); There are 445 thousand Ingush, close to them in language. In the Dagestan subgroup, the largest people in number are the Avars (912 thousand), followed by the Dargins (589 thousand), Lezgins (474 ​​thousand), Laks (179 thousand) and Tabasarans ( 146 thousand), in addition to them, Dagestan is inhabited by many ethnic groups and subethnic groups (Rutulians, Aguls, Tsakhurs, Udins, etc.).
The Chukchi-Kamchatka language family is extremely small; it includes the Chukchi (16 thousand), Koryak (8 thousand) and Itelmen (3 thousand). There are even fewer Eskimos (1.7 thousand) and Aleuts (0.5 thousand) in Russia, united in a separate family. The languages ​​of two small peoples (Kets and Nivkhs) do not belong to any of the existing language families and stand out as isolated.
Ethnic structure of Russian regions. Of the 83 regions - subjects of the Federation - 26 are national-territorial entities: 21 republics, 1 autonomous region, 4 autonomous districts.
Of the 21 republics of Russia, in 10 titular peoples make up more than half of all residents. This is the majority of the North Caucasus republics: Dagestan (more than 80%), Chechnya (95%), Ingushetia (94%), Kabardino-Balkaria (70%), North Ossetia (65%), Karachay-Cherkessia(53%), as well as Kalmykia (57%), Chuvashia (68%), Tatarstan (53%) and Tuva (82%). The minimum shares of titular ethnic groups are in Karelia (7.4%) and Khakassia (12%).
In autonomous okrugs, titular peoples make up a minority of the population. Minimum values ​​due to the influx of new settlers in last decades have Khanty-Mansi (2.1%) and Yamalo-Nenets (about 6%) districts.
The dispersed distribution of many peoples, their intensive contacts with each other and especially with the Russians contributed to the process of assimilation (“dissolution” of some peoples among others). Among the Finno-Ugric peoples, the ethnic territory of the Mordovians is the most dispersed: 45% of the Mordovians live on the territory of Mordovia. Among the population of Mordovia, Mordovians make up 40%, the rest of the population is mainly Russian, with a few Tatars and Chuvash. The share of the titular nation in Karelia is even smaller: there Karelians make up 7.4% of all residents. The number of Karelians and Mordovians has been declining in recent decades due to assimilation among Russians.
The meaning of the Russian language for the peoples of Russia. According to the 2002 census, the Russian language is spoken not only by almost all Russians living in Russia (99.8%), but also by representatives of other nations. Out of 29 million people. The non-Russian population of Russia is 27 million people. stated that they speak Russian. In total, 98.4% of the Russian population speak Russian.
Thus, the vast majority of the Russian population can communicate with each other in Russian. This is especially important for regions where people speak different languages, for example, in Dagestan, where the Russian language serves as a language of interethnic communication. This is also important for other republics where the titular peoples speak very different languages, for example, for Kabardino-Balkaria (where the Kabardian language belongs to the North Caucasian family, and Balkar to Turkic group Altai family).
In addition, knowledge of the Russian language by representatives of non-Russian peoples allows them to join Russian culture (and through it to the world), receive education not only at home, but also in any region of Russia, and participate in solving all-Russian problems.
At the end of the 1980s. Numerous national movements appeared that set as their goal the revival of their native language and culture. Often their activities were accompanied by increased ethnocentrism and nationalism, and ethnic conflicts. In the struggle of the Russian republics for sovereignty and increased status, ethnic reasons were not always the main ones. Most often, the main driving force behind the conflict with the federal authorities was the desire of the republican elites for greater independence from the Center, for which purpose the national map.
The real manifestations of separatism were strongest in Chechnya, where the conflict lasted for more than 10 years. In the early 1990s. Separatism was also noticeable in Tuva, which for several decades had its own statehood and only in 1944 was annexed to Soviet Union. A positive example of reaching a compromise between the federal and republican authorities was the Republic of Tatarstan, which was the first to conclude an agreement on the division of powers, which put an end to the confrontation.
Another reason for the emergence of conflicts is interethnic contradictions, which were the result of the deportations of some peoples during the war years (see the section “Population migrations”) and the repeated redistribution of the borders of the republics. The most acute were the armed clashes between the Ingush and Ossetians over the Prigorodny region, which belongs to North Ossetia, but was previously part of the Chechen-Ingush Republic. Similar contradictions exist between the peoples of Dagestan, but they are resolved peacefully. The change in the borders of the republics led to the transfer to their composition of part of the flat lands inhabited by the Cossacks. The growing agrarian overpopulation of the republics of the North Caucasus has increased competition for land, which is now leading to the displacement of Russians from these areas and increasing contradictions between different ethnic groups.
Conflicts related to the numerical predominance of one of the two ethnic groups and the concentration of power in the hands of its representatives exist in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia. Somewhat different problems are typical for Bashkiria, where until recently the Bashkirs were only the third largest people after the Russians and Tatars (the 2002 and 2010 censuses recorded a slightly larger number of Bashkirs in Bashkiria than Tatars).
Most interethnic conflicts have roots in ancient and recent Russian history, aggravated by ethno-demographic and economic problems, so there are no simple paths to agreement. To resolve interethnic problems, it is necessary to improve national policy, strengthen real federalism, create conditions for free development languages ​​and cultures, strengthening guarantees that exclude infringement of the rights of citizens on ethnic grounds, taking into account the vital interests of small peoples when implementing large projects in the main territory of their residence.
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The confessional (religious) composition of the population of Russia is characterized by the absolute predominance of Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is professed by the overwhelming majority of believers among the East Slavic peoples - Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia - Mordovians, Udmurts, Maris, Komi, Komi-Permyaks, Karelians, a number of Turkic peoples - Chuvash, Khakass, Yakuts. Among the peoples of the North Caucasus, only Ossetians profess Orthodoxy.
The second largest religion in Russia is Islam. It is professed by Tatars, Bashkirs and almost all peoples of the North Caucasus (except Ossetians).
Buddhism became widespread among the Mongol-speaking peoples - the Buryats, Kalmyks, and also among the Tuvans.
The majority of believers among representatives of small nationalities of the North, Siberia and the Far East (Nenets, Khanty, Mansi, Shors, Evenks, Nanais, etc.) are officially considered Orthodox, but in most cases they also profess tribal, pagan beliefs (shamanism).
The number of religious supporters of other faiths in Russia is small. Recently, there has been active missionary activity by representatives of non-traditional faiths in Russia.
Questions and tasks Define ethnicity. Describe the main approaches to ethnicity. What ethnic processes do you know? Give examples of ethnic
ical processes. Describe the ethnogeographical position of Russia. Indicate the main factors for changing the ethnic structure in
villages of Russia in the post-Soviet period. The number of which ethnic groups in Russia has changed due to mass
new ethnic migrations after 1991? Which ethnic groups in Russia are most actively affected by the AS process?
simulation? Give an ethno-linguistic classification of the ethnic groups living
in Russia. List five most numerous peoples Russia. Give a description of the ethnic structure of Russian regions.

168. What are the main causes of ethnic contradictions? What religions predominate in Russia?
Literature http://demoscope.ru - demographic weekly "Demoscope" http://www.perepis-2010.ru - portal "All-Russian census of
leniya 2010". http://www.gks.ru - official website of the Federal State Service
gift statistics. http://www.cisstat.com - interstate statistical company
CIS meeting. http://www.iea.ras.ru - website of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology
RAS. http://www.ethnology.ru - site “Ethnography of the Peoples of Russia”. http://socioline.ru - site “Sociology in a new way.”