National Census Results to Be Published in Early April

National Census results in the constituent regions of Russia are due to be made public in early April, Vladimir Sokolin, head of the State Statistics Committee, Goskomstat, told parliament during the "government hour" at the plenary session of the State Duma, or lower house of parliament, on Wednesday.

The Goskomstat head pointed out that the nationwide population count had registered a total of 145 million citizens in the country, which he said had "exceeded the projected figure of 143 million people for the permanent population of Russia." Preliminary data, Sokolin disclosed, indicates that figures in some regions differ by 15-20 percent from ongoing statistics.

He announced that around 7 percent of the population did not respond to census enumerators' queries directly, with information about them supplied by their families or housing maintenance offices.

In the Chechen Republic, the Goskomstat head said, the census had revealed population growth to do with the return of once-deported Chechens, mostly from Kazakhstan. Furthermore, said Sokolin, population growth in Chechnya was partly due to a higher birth rate. He said no serious violations had been detected during the conduct of the population count in the republic.

The national census for the first time in Russia's history yielded a database on the ethnic makeup of the Russian Federation. Sokolin said the census would further yield reliable data on migration flows in the country, as well as enabling improvement to the migrant registration system.

Some $8 million were disbursed from the federal budget for the census, the Goskomstat head announced.