MOSCOW (AP) - Russia will conduct its first census since the breakup
of the Soviet Union in October of next year, a government commission said
Wednesday.
Russian law requires a population report every 10 years, but the count
has been postponed twice, apparently for lack of funds. The last census
in Russia was in 1989, two years before it became independent with the
collapse of the Soviet Union.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov urged parliament to adopt
amendments to legislation needed to conduct the census, the ITAR-Tass news
agency said. The changes are on the agenda for the fall session of the
parliament's lower house, or State Duma.
The population survey will take place Oct. 9-16, 2002 across all 11
of Russia's time zones, Tatyana Razbash, a spokeswoman for the prime minister,
told reporters after a Wednesday meeting of the state census commission.
The census was originally scheduled for 1999, but was put off until
2000 and then postponed indefinitely, reportedly because the government
could not or would not spare the $120 million to conduct it.
The U.S. census in 2000, by comparison, cost about $3 billion.
Demographers, economists and other analysts have expressed concern at
the lack of the comprehensive data a census provides, particularly given
the jarring social and economic changes that Russia has seen over the past
decade.
Russia's population has been falling steadily since the Soviet demise,
an extremely rare development for an industrialized country not at war.
Worsening economic conditions and alcoholism have been key factors leading
to a high death rate, drop in life expectancy and declining birth rate.
The population is estimated at about 145 million.
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