Procreation Russian Style

Russian population is slowly dying out… Everyone is talking about it-from Russian national patriots to Chechen separatists. Russian government was the only one to completely ignore such issue. 
The last population census had to shed some light on the current situation in Russia and prove the fact that Russian population is in no way decreasing. On the contrary, it is growing. One of the representatives of the State committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Surikov has made a sensational announcement. He said that every woman needs to give birth to a minimum of five children. According to Surikov, current birth factor equals to approximately 1,5 children per woman. This however is not enough in order to preserve Russian population on the present-day level.
The collapse of the soviet system, implementation of paid medical services, education, unemployment, all of these factors resulted in a significant social disintegration. People started loosing their life values. Crime rate is constantly rising in the country. Statistically, every fourth Russian man has been convicted at least once. Russia is number one in the world in the amount of premeditated murders, states A. Kudimov in his report.
Increase of the amount intoxicated people tends to promote social degradation. The amount of registered drug addicts in the country has risen by 9 times in the course of 1991-2000. Also, the amount of people who died from alcoholism has increased as well. More than 4 million Russian citizens are mentally ill. More than 3 million women are prostitutes. The amount of homeless people reaches several million. Instances of suicide attempts are constantly on the rise and equal to several tens of thousands.
The list is endless. What lies behind all of these factors is people's complete physical degeneration, family degradation as well as people’s loss of their natural functions. Statistically, every fifth Russian family is childless. About half of families have only one kid. Death rate exceeds birth rate 1,5 times. Every deceased person ought to leave behind a successor in order to support demographic population. According to experts, in case no attempts will be made to change current situation, the population will most likely decrease by 25 % in 50 years.
Today, the overall quantity of Russians is being maintained by immigrants from various soviet republics. This however is temporary. The main problem, says Surikov, is that "women have changed their attitudes towards motherhood and towards family in general." 
Population census of 2002 has traced the following tendency: the overall amount of married couples in the country has decreased in comparison with 1989. The amount of couples simply living together, on the contrary, has increased by 2 million. Couples no longer wish to tie an eternal knot. There is also another factor. Women simply refuse to give birth. There exist several reasons for this. Some of them are uncertain of their own future as well as their child's future. Not every woman is capable of feeding her child herself. There is hardly a guarantee that her boyfriend will not leave her. As a result, there is a significant rise of the amount of abortions which can permanently damage a woman's reproductive function. There is hardly any hope for the government. Due to today's unemployment a child simply becomes a real burden.
Interesting as it may seem, many politicians understand the situation perfectly fine. Nevertheless, they urge women to give birth and that every woman needs to be married. Let's wait and see wait the President's reaction is going to be. What will he say?  

Igor Kulagin
Source: Pravda.ru