Sarmatian Review Index

Demography

United Nations projections of population decrease in Central and Eastern Europe over the next 50 years:

Belarus - down from 10.3 million to 8.3 million, or minus 19.4 percent.

Bulgaria - from 8.3 to 5.7 million people, or minus 31.3 percent.

Croatia - from 4.5 to 3.7 million, or minus 20 percent.

Czech Republic - down from 10.3 million to 7.8 million, or minus 24.3 percent.

Estonia - down from 1.4 to 900,000, or minus 35.7 percent.

Latvia - down from 2.4 to 1.6 million people, or minus 33.3 percent.

Lithuania - from 3.7 to 3 million, or minus 18.9 percent.

Poland - from 38.7 to 36.3 million people, or minus 6.2 percent.

Romania - down from 22.5 million to 16.4 million, or minus 27.1 percent.

Russia - down from 147.4 million people to 121.3 million, or minus 17.7 percent (Note: see below for 1999 data).

Slovakia - down from 5.4 million to 4.8 million, or minus 11.1 percent.

Ukraine - down from 50.9 million to 39.3 million, or minus 22.8 percent.

Source: Robert Lyle, "World: Populations Shrinking In Eastern Europe, Russia," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 12 March 1999.

Estimated population of the Russian Federation as of 1 January 1999: 146.3 million.

Population decreases in 1997 and 1998, respectively: minus 755,900 and minus 705,100 persons.

Average monthly wages in 1997 and 1998, respectively: $204 and $73.

Source: Statisticheskoe Obozrenie: Ezhekvartal'nyi Zhurnal, No. 1/28 (1999).

Estimated decrease in the population of the Russian Federation between January-May 1999: minus 346,700 persons.

Source: Russian statistics agency, as reported by Paul Goble in "Democracy and Development," RFE/RL, 2 August 1999.

Estimated percentage decrease in the population of Poland in 1998 (as compared to 1997): minus 0.04 percent.

Source: The World Factbook 1998 (http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook).

Population of Kazakhstan in 1989 and 1999, respectively: 16.4 million and 15.6 million.

Source: "Central Asia: the shrinking hordes," The Economist, 3 April 1999.

Estimated number of detainees and prison inmates in Russian prisons who die each year due to physical abuse, overcrowding, inferior sanitary conditions, disease and lack of medical care: between 10,000 and 20,000 (estimate provided by independent human rights groups).

Source: The U.S. State Department report, as reported by Agence France-Presse, 26 February 1999.

Number of registered drug addicts in St. Petersburg in 1999: 500,000, or one person in every ten in this city of five million.

Source: Marina Korinova of AFP, 14 March 1999.

Number of pensioners in Russia in 1998: 28 million, or one out of five citizens.

Source: Novye Izvestiia, 29 April 1999.

Nationhood

Percentage of young Belarusians for whom Belarusian identity is important: 66 percent.

Source: Larissa Titarenko, Professor of Sociology at Belarus State University in Minsk, in a lecture given at the Kennan Institute (Meeting Report, vol. XVI, No. 11, 1999).

Economy

Polish GDP increase in 1998: 4.8 percent.

Source: Central Statistical Office (GUS), as reported by Donosy, 23 March 1999.

Percentage increase in investment outlays in 1998 (compared to 1997): 21 percent.

Source: Central Statistical Office (GUS), as reported by Donosy, 30 March 1999.

Percentage decrease in foreign investment in Russia in 1998: 37 percent, to a total of $3.36 billion.

Percentage decrease in portfolio investment in Russia in 1998: 71.9 percent, to a total of $191 million.

Accumulated foreign investment in Russia since 1992: $35.34 billion.

Source: AFP, 25 February 1999.

Names of American companies that pulled out of Russia following the August 1998 economic meltdown: Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dunkin Donuts, and others, making a total of 50 U.S. companies.

Names of the American companies that stayed: McDonald's and Baskin-Robbins.

Source: UPI, 1 March 1999; Houston Chronicle, 6 April 1999.

Economy cont.

Amount of money which west Germany sent to east Germany each year between 1991-1998: between 106 and 141 billion DM (1 DM=approximately $1.80).

Inflation-adjusted cost of the Marshall Plan between 1948-51: 150 billion DM.

Source: The Economist, 6-12 February 1999.

Percentage increase in Lithuania's GDP in 1998: 4.4 percent, to a total of $10.5 billion.

Source: Lithuanian Department of Statistics, as reported by AFP, 31 March 1999.

Percentage of U.S. job holders who work in services: 80 percent.

Source: James Flanigan, "High tech's effects seen in economy," Houston Chronicle, 3 April 1999.

Percentage of Russian domestic debt (GKOs) restructured into security papers paying five cents on the dollar: 95 percent, on a debt originally worth 40 billion dollars, shrunk down to 10 billion dollars after the August 1998 meltdown, and further reduced to the new papers' total worth of $500,000.

Source: Russian Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov, as reported by AFP (Moscow), 30 April 1999.

Wealth

Net worth of U.S. households at the end of 1988 and 1998, respectively: $18.38 trillion and $36.79 trillion (includes real estate, pensions, bank deposits, stocks and bonds, insurance).

Source: The Federal Reserve Bank, as reported by Houston Chronicle, 16 March 1999.

President Boris Yeltsin's tax declaration in 1998: income of 183,837 rubles ($7,000), consisting of a monthly stipend of 10,000 rubles plus interest on a savings account at state-owned Sberbank; a 323-sq. m. apartment in Moscow; a dacha of 450 sq. m. with a four-hectare plot; and a BMW.

President Yeltsin's declared income in 1997: 1.95 million rubles, or $300,000 (the figure reflects additional income from book sales and 75 percent drop in ruble value between the two tax declarations).

Source: Argumenty i fakty, as reported by AFP, 15 April 1999.

Trade

Russian trade surplus in 1998: $14.4 billion.

Value of Russian imports in 1998: $59.5 billion.

Value of Russian exports in 1998: $73.9 billion.

Source: AFP, 25 February 1999.

Crime

Percentage increase of reported thefts in Warsaw in 1998 (as compared to 1997): 21 percent.

Percentage increase of car thefts in Warsaw in 1998: seven percent.

Source: AFP (Warsaw), 3 March 1999.

Number of prisoners in federal and state prisons and local jails in the United States in 1999: two million, or almost double the number a decade ago, and triple the number of two decades ago.

Percentage of prisoners in federal jails who are drug offenders: 60 percent.

Percentage of prisoners in state and local jails who are drug offenders: 22 percent.

Source: Houston Chronicle, 7 March 1999.

Crimes

Number of surviving Polish Gentile prisoners of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps on whose behalf a lawsuit was filed in 1999 in the law court in Bonn asking for reparations from the German government: 22,000.

Source: Donosy, 2 April 1999.

Number of Polish Christian Nazi victims still alive in Poland and hoping for German compensation for being forced into slave labor during World War II: 500,000.

Source: Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek, as reported by AFP (Gdansk), 30 April 1999.

Russian-Chinese Relations

Number of Chinese presently living in the Russian Far East: 300,000.

Total population of the Russian Far East: 7.4 million.

Total population of the three Chinese provinces across the border: 300 million.

Source: Neela Banerjee in The Christian Science Monitor, 29 April 1999.

World Wide Web

Revenue earned from the Internet in Russia in 1998: $160 million dollars, or triple the figure for 1997.

Number of customers who have access to Internet: 1.5 million, or a 50 percent increase over 1997.

Source: Vremya daily, as reported by AFP (Moscow), 15 April 1999.

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Last updated 10/11/99