Dilemmas of the Russian Diaspora
According to current estimates there are 20 to 30 million Russians speaking peoples living outside of Russia. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union an estimated 30 million lived in CIS and Baltic nations. Currently the largest Russian community lives in Ukraine, with 8.3 million identifying themselves as Russian, while another 14.3 call Russian their mother tongue. Kazakhstan (4.1 million), Belarus (1.2 million) and Uzbekistan (1 million) are also CIS nations with large Russian populations.
The CIS is not the only place in the world Russians reside. There is an estimated 5 to 9 million living in countries outside the CIS. This number includes the some 12 million that left between 1917 and 1991 and their descendants. The largest communities exist in Germany (about 3 million), the United States (2.9 million) and Israel (1.2 million). Since 1991, 1.2 million Russians ..read more
