Specialists in the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources have prepared the State report "On the Condition and Environmental Protection of the Russian Federation in 2011." The report contained the list of most polluted cities in Russia. The dirtiest cities in the country, as the list says, are: Achinsk, Beloyarsky, Bratsk, Volzhsky, Dzerzhinsk and Zarinsk.
Moscow was ranked 14th, whereas Azov, Barnaul, Blagoveshchensk, Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Kurgan, Naberezhnye Chelny, Nizhnekamsk, Rostov-on-Don, Stavropol, Sterlitamak, Tver, Ussuriysk and Chernogorsk were excluded from the list.
In total, the list includes 27 cities with very high levels of air pollution. The number of residents in the cities totals 16.3 million (2010 - 36 cities, 2009 - 34).
The data on air pollution in Russian cities, according to regular observations in 2011 showed that the level of air pollution in the country is high today. According to surveys conducted in 252 Russian cities, there as many as 55.1 million people living in the cities with high levels of air pollution, accounting for 53 percent of the urban population in Russia.