EDITORIAL
Russia, the Incredible Shrinking Country
Businessweek magazine recently published a list of the 25 countries that are losing population most rapidly, in other words shrinking the fastest. In this most basic test of national success, Russia is #18. That means that only 17 countries on the entire planet are shrinking faster than Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
The data indicates that in the next four decades Russia’s population will fall by a shocking 15 million people, or 10.7%. While there are 17 nations who are losing population at a faster rate than Russia, only one of them, Japan, will lose more people than Russia over this period. Poland, South Korea and Bulgaria all rank ahead of Russia in terms of rate of loss, but Russia will lose more people than all three of them combined.
What’s also stunning about the BW list is that only four of the 17 countries who are even worse than Russia (Japan, South Korea, Cuba and Germany) are outside the former USSR’s sphere of enslavement. In other words, a jolting fourteen of the top eighteen population losers in the world, nearly 80% of the total, are in former Soviet space, a space that was until quite recently dominated by Russian policy. The absolute failure of the USSR, spearheaded by Russia, has doomed not only Russia itself by a whole vast array of other nations bludgeoned by Russian aggression.
The chickens of Communism are coming home to roost, even in Cuba. Yet, the benighted, bean-brained citizens of Russia are rushing to recreate the USSR, and have chosen to be led by a proud KGB spy. Little wonder, then, that these poor idiotic wretches cannot manage even the most basic task of maintaining their population.
As BW notes: “A declining population impacts a country’s economic growth, labor market, pensions, taxation, health care, and housing. Globally by 2050, the number of older persons in the world will exceed the number of young for the first time in history. The imbalance will create havoc in the pension systems and make it difficult to support retired and elderly persons.”
So Russia’s failure has wide and deep consequences, and stands to destabilize and destroy not only Russia but the outside world as well. We are reminded of the movie Dr. Strangelove, in which Russia devised a “doomsday” weapon that would destroy the planet even as Russia was destroyed.
La Russophobe 
@Despite the arrival of millions of immigrants, Russia’s population has fallen by 6.6 million since 1993, according to a U.N. report. I
What the didn’t mention is this: there are also tens of millions of Muslim minorities in Russia, and their birth rate is actually usually very high.
They also live longer, not drinking themselves to death. Actually the the oldest person alive are in Chechnya, like http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3110525.stm and http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/122-year-old-chechen-has-seen-a-lot/232837.html (and she had EVEN OLDER sister, but she died in 1999 of heart attack after learning the so-called “federal” bandits murdered her 80-year-old daughter).
That’s ironic. Russians killed so many Chechens repeatedly through their shared history (like a large part in the XIXth century, 1/3 to half in the 1940s, and up to 1/5 or so in the 1990s-2000s – and of course also sent many more around the world), but it’s them who are dying out, and the statistics for the ethnic Russians alone would be DEVASTATING.
[Female] One soldier who was standing with his back to me punched me . . . and I fell to the floor. Two other soldiers started kicking me. I had my children’s documents with me, and the soldiers told me I had given birth to many children. The soldiers told me, “You will never have children again,” and beat me in the genital area.
(…)
[Male] Then they banged my head against the wall. The last time I regained consciousness, I started sitting up and I saw the feet of the soldiers, and they said, “He’s coming to. They asked me if I had children. I said I did and they answered, “You won’t have any more,” and they kicked me in my private parts.
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,HRW,,RUS,,3ae6a8750,0.html
And yet, it will be the Russians who will vanish. Meanwhile: http://rt.com/Top_News/2006-12-25/Chechnya_tops_birth_rate_in_Russian_Federation.html
@What’s also stunning about the BW list is that only four of the 17 countries who are even worse than Russia are outside the former USSR (Japan, South Korean, Cuba and Germany).
Um, Poland used to in the USSR (1939-1941, eastern Poland), but Serbia, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Croatia never were.
The problems of countries like Serbia, Georgia or Poland are mostly from economic emigration and lack of immigration, not birth rates (as opposed to Japan) or death rates.
But Russia is overflowing with immigrants (ethnic Russian and otherwise) and still it’s not helping at all (also they literally hate the immigrants, and dozens of them are brutally murdered every year for only being there – I guess it’s Russian for “thanks”, or maybe actually “you’re welcome”).
But why not compare the Russian “superpower” to their supposed rivals? Meanwhile, population of the USA exceeded 310,000,000 (up more than 10 million from 2006’s 300 million milestone).
@ Um, Poland used to in the USSR (1939-1941, eastern Poland), but Serbia, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Croatia never were.
Neither was Romania. But how dare you, ape, to expect LR, our self-proclaimed”expert” on Russia, to know which European countries were part of the USSR and which weren’t? Be thankful that she can tell Europe from Australia (can she?) in fewer than 3 tries.
Hi ReTaRd, how are you today?
BTW, all countries in the Communist bloc in Europe took their orders from Moscow, and were defacto in the USSR, llok at what happened when they did not toe the line, Czechoslovakia and Hungary spring to mind.
I do wish you would grow a brain, but alas, you being a Russophile makes that terribly unlikely.
If instead of hurling insults you concentrate on reading, you would see just as we all saw, that the opinion never said that those countries were or were not a part of the U.S.S.R. It only mentioned “outside the former USSR’s sphere of enslavement.” So, I am not sure if former Yugo territories (Serbia, Croatia etc.) were outside this sphere, but Poland and Romania were definitely enslaved, vassal states of the U.S.S.R.
Reply to Laszlo Tooth, Jr.
Obviously, this is another KGB agent using, this time a hungarian name, [your real name is probably vania podsierob – retired hungry , dirty drunk invalid with wounds received probably during the numerous Soviet cover operations – including Budapest AN 1956. I am impressed with your insightful analysis – you miss though one rather important element – Russia is drawning in its own excrement – got it ape???
The planet is massively over-populated, and some of the worst areas are Japan, Britain and Western Europe.
We should be congratulating Russia and Japan on their falling populations, and hoping that other countries will soon follow. There is no way this planet can support six billion humans in any kind of civilised comfort.
Most of the “problems” of a falling population can be solved by raising the retirement age.
@Most of the “problems” of a falling population can be solved by raising the retirement age.
Because elderly people are excellent workers.
“The data indicates that in the next four decades Russia’s population will fall by a shocking 15 million people, or 10.7%. While there are 17 nations who are losing population at a faster rate than Russia, only one of them, Japan, will lose more people than Russia over this period. Poland, South Korea and Bulgaria all rank ahead of Russia in terms of rate of loss, but Russia will lose more people than all three of them combined.”
Could that by any chance be due to the fact that Russia has and will continue to have more people than Poland, South Korea and Bulgaria combined? If you are not sure – ask somebody with at least 3 years of elementary school education.
NOTE TO LR
You are a disgrace to journalism, that’s why you have to hide your ID. You’re a disgrace to America too, they are looking for you everywhere but can’t find you :( The pilgrim psychiatric hospital is bored without you. I understand that Putin expelled you from some business in Russia because you were useless and now, having been unemployed for years, you have decided to do something to return him a favour with the stupid website.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
Do you also call the Russophile blogging at “A Good Treaty” or the Russophile blogging at “Kremlin Stooge” a disgrace to journalism? They also are anonymous. Or are you simply an ignorant, nasty little anonymous troll who’s infuriated by the power of our content and has no other way to hash out against it except truly insane hypocrisy? Is anonymity only a problem for you when you disagree with the anonymous person?
@ that’s why you have to hide your ID
Pot, meet kettle.
What a hypocrite.
I don’t know what you mean, but LR has clearly stated her name many times here. By the way, if you are so unhappy with her, I believe nobody forces you to read this. Simply say good bye and leave
I do not “repress” you, I have neither the power nor desire to do so. I didn’t accuse you of anything at all, much less of being a spy, an agent, a marionette or a lobbyist. I merely said that your accusation that the mistress of this website “hides” her identity was factually incorrect because she has stated what her actual name is many times and you can see her name, Kim Zigfeld, in the right hand column on this very page. What’s the problem?
Finally, I am surprised by this very odd comparison of myself with the Soviet Politburo. I said that in the free marketplace of ideas you are free not to read any of this if you don’t like it and to read something that you do like. Did the Soviet Politburo give you this choice?
Boy the kremlin shills do get worked up, do they not.
“Barbaric” is actually gentle compared to reality. I have heard the phrase at Christmas time about Russians, “Wake the town and kill the people”.
When I was young I heard an old lady say, “Russians are natural born cruel”.
Except for comments about girls who look like Anna Chapman, I have never hear a nice word about Russians. Not once. Not ever.
I never, ever thought that I would be saying this – but there are people actually more psychotic than rooshans.
There is a cove in Japan, where every year, dolphins are herded close to shore via nets. The place is heavily guarded – cameras are verboten, and the Japanese government denies anything goes on there. There are multiple fences with razor wire, and heavily guarded tunnels. If you have a camera of any kind, locals immediately intercept you and stand in front of your camera.
Every year, in September, over 21,000 dolphins are simply slaughtered by a few fishermen. They then sell the meat as whale meat, not dolphin meat – and it is full of mercury.
The Japanese claim that killing dolphins is a “tradition”. They also buy up the support of small, poor countries on the International Whaling Commission – ah, but that’s a sovok technique.
In order to gain support for the killing slaughter, the locals passed out the dolphin meat to schoolchildren for a lunch program.
There is a documentary that came out about this, and excerpts are shown at this web site:
http://www.takepart.com/thecove
They do use the sovok technique of cover-up and intimidation (the local police follow you around).