1. By: Liz Anderson, Wesley Hamada, Sarah Kerns and Shannon Stapley

2.  The current population of Russia as of April 1, 2012 is estimated to be about 143,100,000.  Russia’s population peaked at 148,689,000 people in 1991, just before the break up of the Soviet Union.  After the breakup of the Soviet Union, there began a 10 year decline in the population falling about 0.5% per year due to declining birth rates, rising death rates and emigration.  The Russian population grew in 2009 about 23,300. This brought the total population up to 141.9 million.  The growth is said to be due to a falling death rates and increase in migration.

4.  The decline of population growth in Russia has been mainly blamed on emigration, alcoholism, poor healthcare and poverty.  Because of low population predictions, Russia is expected to have slower economic growth over the next 20 years than other countries such as China, Brazil and India.

5.  Mikhail Gorbachev instituted an anti-alcohol campaign, but the effect of it was felt only temporarily.  As part of his 2006 Presidential campaign, Vladimir Putin brought forward legislation to help cut back the decline of the population. A national program was developed with the goal to reverse the declining trend by 2020.  In April of 2011, the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised to spend 1.5 trillion rubles or $54 billion dollars on various programs and measures to boost Russia’s ever declining birth rate over the next 4 years to 30 percent.

6.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8468185.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8468185.stm  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_o f_Russia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_o f_Russia