Baltic Russians - Current Situation

Current Situation

Baltic Russians live mainly in the cities.

In the Lithuanian capital Vilnius Russians make up 14,43% of the population, in Lithuania's third largest city Klaipėda 28%. Other Lithuanian cities, including the second-largest city Kaunas, have lower percentages of Russians, while in most small towns and villages there are very few Russians (with the exception of Visaginas town). In all, 4,9% of Lithuania's population are ethnic Russians.

Russians make up almost a half of the population of Riga, the capital of Latvia. In the second largest city Daugavpils, where already before World War I Russians were the second biggest ethnic group after Jews, Russians now make up the majority. Today about 27,6% of Latvia's population are ethnic Russians.

In Estonia, most Russians live in Tallinn (as of year 2011, 38,5% of the city's population were ethnic Russians, while even higher number - 46,7% spoke Russian as their mother tongue) and in the north-eastern county of Ida-Virumaa, particularly such cities as Narva (82,02% of its inhabitants were ethnic Russians as of 2011), Sillamäe (about 82%) and Kohtla-Järve (69,68% respectively). In the second largest city of Estonia - Tartu - ethnic Russians constitute only about 16% of the population. In rural areas the proportion of ethnic Russians is very low (13 of Estonia's 15 counties are over 80 percent ethnic Estonian). Overall, ethnic Russians make up 25,5% of Estonia's population (the proportion of Russophones is, however, much higher, because Russian is the mother tongue of many ethnic Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews who live in the country).

Russians settled in the larger cities because of the need for industrial workers there. In all three countries, the rural settlements are inhabited almost entirely by the main national ethnic groups, except some areas in eastern Estonia and Latvia with a longer history of Russian and mixed villages. The Lithuanian city of Visaginas was built for workers at the Ignalina nuclear power plant and therefore has a Russian majority.

After the accession of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to the European Union on May 1, 2004, many Baltic Russians have moved to other EU countries. In particular, tens of thousands of Baltic Russians (especially those with EU citizenship) moved to the United Kingdom and to Ireland, who were the first 'old' EU countries to open up their labour markets to the new members of the EU. Thousands of Russians from Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius, holding EU passports, now live in London, Dublin and other cities in the UK and Ireland. They make up a substantial part of the Russian-speaking community in London. Unfortunately, no reliable statistics on their exact numbers exist, as in the UK they are counted as nationals of the Baltic countries, and not as Russians.