Moscow's population to make up 16 million by 2020

There will be 16 million people living in Moscow by 2020, a report from the Russian Center for Migration Research said. Native Muscovites, whose grand-grandparents were Moscow residents, already make up less than two percent of the city’s population, Noviye Izvestia newspaper said.

Photo: Moscow's population to make up 16 million by 2020

There are about 13 million people living in Moscow today. The population of Russia’s capital had a tenfold increase over 100 years – from 1.04 million in 1897 to 10.5 million in 2008. This is not the limit. Moscow’s population will continue to grow by at least one million people every decade. About 12 million people will live in Moscow permanently by 2020 and at least 4 million – temporarily.

Three million people have moved to Moscow during the recent 20 years. Nearly a half (46 percent) of Russia’s domestic migration falls on Moscow and the Moscow region. Many others move to St. Petersburg, the Krasnodar and the Tyumen regions.

Moscow attracts the majority of the active population of the European part of Russia. Forty-six percent of Moscow’s current residents were born in other cities. Native Muscovites make up to 180,000 people. In addition to natural loss, the native population of the capital diminishes because of emigration: not less than 100,000 Muscovites left Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The number of Russian-born citizens in Moscow has dropped from 90 to 84 percent during the recent 20 years. Britons, for example, make 80 percent of the population of London. About 300,000 people living in Moscow come from far-foreign countries such as China, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Serbia and Turkey. About one million foreign guest-workers come to Moscow every year during the winter period (2 million in summer time).

There is not even one city in Russia that would be able to compete with Moscow at this point, specialists say.