Business News Russia | Page 23

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March of Suvorov through the Alps by Vasily Surikov. A scene from Generalissimo Suvorov's Italian and Swiss expedition.

* 1 autonomous oblast (the Jewish Autonomous Oblast): originally autonomous oblasts were administrative units subordinated to krais. In 1990, all of them except the Jewish AO were elevated in status to that of a republic.

* 2 federal cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg): major cities that function as separate regions.

Federal subjects are grouped into 8 federal districts, each administered by an envoy appointed by the President of Russia. Unlike the federal subjects, the federal districts are not a subnational level of government, but are a level of administration of the federal government. Federal districts' envoys serve as liaisons between the federal subjects and the federal government and are primarily responsible for overseeing the compliance of the federal subjects with the federal laws.

Demographics

Ethnic Russians comprise 79.8% of the population; however the Russian Federation is also home to several sizeable minorities. In total, 160 different other ethnic groups and indigenous peoples live within its borders. Though Russia's population is comparatively large, its density is low because of the country's enormous size. Population is densest in European Russia, near the Ural Mountains, and in southwest Siberia. 73% of the population lives in urban areas while 27% in rural ones. The population of Russia is 141,927,297 as of 1 January 2010.

In 2008, the population declined by 121,400 people, or by −0.085% (in 2007 – by 212,000, or 0.15% and in 2006 – by 532,600 people, or 0.37%). In 2008 migration continued to grow by a pace of 2.7% with 281,615 migrants arriving to the Russian Federation, of which 95% came from CIS countries, the vast majority being Russians or Russian speakers.

The number of Russian emigrants declined by 16% to 39,508, of which 66% went to other CIS countries. There are also an estimated 10 million illegal immigrants from the ex-Soviet states in Russia. Roughly 116 million ethnic Russians live in Russia and about 20 million more live in other former republics of the Soviet Union, mostly in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

The population of Russia peaked at 148,689,000 in 1991, just before the