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.
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.
Estimated decrease in the population of the Russian Federation between January-May 1999: minus 346,700 persons.
Estimated percentage decrease in the population of Poland in 1998 (as compared to 1997): minus 0.04 percent.
Population of Kazakhstan in 1989 and 1999, respectively: 16.4 million and 15.6 million.
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).
Number of registered drug addicts in St. Petersburg in 1999: 500,000, or one person in every ten in this city of five million.
Number of pensioners in Russia in 1998: 28 million, or one out of five citizens.
Nationhood
Percentage of young Belarusians for whom Belarusian identity is important: 66 percent.
Economy
Polish GDP increase in 1998: 4.8 percent.
Percentage increase in investment outlays in 1998 (compared to 1997): 21 percent.
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.
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.
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.
Percentage increase in Lithuania's GDP in 1998: 4.4 percent, to a total of $10.5 billion.
Percentage of U.S. job holders who work in services: 80 percent.
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.
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).
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Back to the September 1999 issue
The Sarmatian
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Last updated 10/11/99