Question: You have been studying demographic problems for several decades and spoke on this problem at the session of the Russian Security Council. What conclusions do you draw from your decades-long studies?

Answer: Here is what famous scientist Pitirim Sorokin wrote on this score: "The fate of any society depends above all on the qualities of its members." He analysed the consequences of giant human losses Russia sustained in 1914-21 and concluded that only the talents of Russian ancestors allowed them to create "a powerful state and a number of great global human values." Now that all countries - including Russia -have been drawn into the globalisation processes, the human and intellectual potential is becoming an irreplaceable social resource.

Regrettably, the past decade had a most negative effect on the bulk of population in Russia. The balance of birth rate and death rate was negative in 1992, producing the effect of natural depletion. 

On the whole, the current birth rate in Russia is only a half of what is necessary for the replacement of the parents' generation with the generation of children. There is such an extremely negative factor as the excessive death rate of men in Russia. Men constitute 80% and women 20% of those who die at the able-bodied age. The average life expectancy of men is 60 years, while women live 12 years longer. But these are mean figures for the population as a whole. It is a paradox but women have a lower potential of individual health than men do. In general, if the current death rate persists, only 58% of those who are 16 years old now will live to the ripe age of 60. 

Just think, the country lost about 7 million people as a result of depopulation in the past nine years. A part of these losses was made up, to a degree, by the positive migration balance. But even despite this, we had a population of 148.3 million in 1992 and only 144.8 million at the beginning of 2001.Forecasts show that in the first 15 years of the 21st century Russia might lose another 12 million, which would slash its population to only 132 million. I believe this is a phenomenon of not just socio-political, but also of a serious geopolitical importance. 

According to UN forecasts, if current trends persist, Russia will have a population of only 55 million by the year 2055. For whom is the bell tolling? Judge for your yourself. 

Question: Does this mean that Russia is heading towards self-destruction?

Answer: Of course, the diminution of the population is a direct threat to national security and, worse still, to the preservation of Russia as a state. But I think that an even more alarming factor is the fall of quality of human resources, which is registered in all spheres.

Back in the 1970s I studied the health of the population, but not in terms of hospital beds, doctors and the like per thousand of the population. These are branch characteristics. I was interested in what was happening to the people. For health is a human state. Later, when I created the institute in 1988, I headed a laboratory of quality characteristics of the population.

We have compiled a unique data bank in the past 30 years, which testify to major and, regrettably, negative trends. 

Each new generation in Russia has a worse health potential than the preceding one. This may seem strange, because we had been marching towards a bright and better future. There is an extremely close link between the health of children and the health of their mothers. In 1990-97, pregnancy anemia went up 3.1 times. Today 40% of future mothers are anemic. Moreover, diseases and ill health are quickly moving closer and closer towards childhood. Health is quickly deteriorating during the first year of life, and this deterioration continues, albeit not so fast, during the rest of life. As a result, absolutely healthy are only 10-12% of children in primary school, 8% in general school and only 5% in high school. 

As for social health, the picture is very alarming.According to the latest research, a total of 15 million Russian citizens - or 10% of the population - suffer from social diseases - alcoholism, drug addiction, tuberculosis and HIV. Another 10% of urban population are struggling to survive at the social bottom. 

The figures of psychic health, moral state, literacy level and state spending on education also testify to the falling quality characteristics of human potential in this country. The trouble is also that the mean figures do not reveal the truth, because there is a vast gap between regions, on the one hand, and society is being divided into economic poles, on the other hand.

In fact, we can speak about "two Russias" now, and they are moving further away from each other, hearing and understanding each other worse and worse. The population of these "Russias" lead different lives; they have different shops, different schools and different priorities. 

Question: So, it turns out that the results of the reforms...

Answer: Regrettably, the social development programmes and the liberal economic strategies that are very popular now were elaborated to meet only the demands and to care only for the concerns of the top 20%. Those 20% that have the possibility to live actively, to develop, to work effectively, and to satisfy their various requirements. The other 80% seem to be non-existent in the liberal strategies. They are remembered only when a certain minimum requisite for elementary survival is granted to them. 

Meanwhile, ill mothers bear ill babies and the poor families are reproducing poverty. Society is being sucked ever deeper into a kind of "social vortex." It will take the efforts of several generations to get out of it, and then only on the condition that this will become the priority concern of the state and society. 

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