Russia
The Belarusian minority in Russia consists mainly of emigrants from Belarus during Soviet times and the times of the Russian Empire as well as of remainders of the indigenous Belarusian population of the regions of Smolensk and Bryansk, now largely assimilated. According to official 2002 census, over 800 thousand Russians identified themselves as people of Belarusian descent. The number drastically declined from over 1 million just a decade before (the 1991 Soviet Census) due to processes of assimilation, and factors affecting the population decline in Russia such as low birthrate and high death rate caused by the economic hardships of the 1990s. Most Russian Belarusians live in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Siberia.
Read more about this topic: Belarusian Diaspora
Famous quotes containing the word russia:
“In Russia there is an emigration of intelligence: émigrés cross the frontier in order to read and to write good books. But in doing so they contribute to making their fatherland, abandoned by spirit, into the gaping jaws of Asia that would like to swallow our little Europe.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“In my opinion it is harmful to place important things in the hands of philanthropy, which in Russia is marked by a chance character. Nor should important matters depend on leftovers, which are never there. I would prefer that the government treasury take care of it.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Today’s difference between Russia and the United States is that in Russia everybody takes everybody else for a spy, and in the United States everybody takes everybody else for a criminal.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)