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Total population
129 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
 Russia: 111,016,896[2] (2010)
 Ukraine7,170,000 (2018) including Crimea[3]
 Kazakhstan3,644,529 (2016)[4]
(including Russian Jews and Russian Germans)
(excluding ethnic German repatriates)[5][6]
 United States3,072,756 (2009)
(including Russian Jews and Russian Germans)[7]
 Israel938,500 (2011)
(including Russian Jews)[8]
 Belarus785,084 (2009)[9]
 Uzbekistan750,000 (2016)[10]
 Canada622,445 (2016)
(Russian ancestry, excluding Russian Germans)[11]
 Latvia487,250 (2018)[12]
 Moldova369,488 (2004)[13][14]
 Kyrgyzstan352,960 (2018)[15]
 Estonia328,299 (2019)[17]
 Argentina300,000 (2018)[18]
 Turkmenistan150,000 (2012)[19]
 Lithuania129,797 (2017)[20]
 Azerbaijan119,300 (2009)[22]
 Franceapprox 96,000 (1999)[23]
 Australia67,055 (2006)[25]
(Russian ancestry)[26]
 Romania36,397 (2002)
 Czech Republic35,759 (2016)[28]
 Tajikistan35,000 (2010)[29]
 South Korea30,098 (2016)[30][31]
 Georgia26,453 (2014)[32]
 Hungary21,518 (2016)[33]
 Sweden20,187 (2016)[34]
 China15,609 (2000)[35]
 Bulgaria15,595 (2002)[36]
 Armenia14,660 (2002)[37]
 New Zealand5,979 (2013)[38]
Predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christianity
(Russian Orthodox Church)
Related ethnic groups
Other East Slavs (Belarusians and Ukrainians),[39] Eastern South Slavs (Bulgarians, Serbs, Macedonians, and Montenegrins)

Russians (Russian: русские, tr. russkiye, IPA: ˈruskʲɪje) are an East Slavic ethnic group and nation native to European Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe (some territories of the former Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire), the most numerous ethnic group in Europe. The majority of ethnic Russians live in the Russian Federation, notable minorities exist in other former Soviet states such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Ukraine and the Baltic states. A large Russian diaspora (sometimes including Russophones, i.e. Russian-speaking non-Russians) also exists all over the world, with notable numbers in the United States, Germany, Brazil, and Canada. The culture of the ethnic Russian people has a long tradition and it is a foundation for the modern culture of the whole of Russia. The Russian language originally was the language of ethnic Russians. They are historically Orthodox Christians by religion.

The ethnic Russians formed from East Slavic tribes and their cultural ancestry is from Kievan Rus'. The Russian word for ethnic Russians is derived from the people of Rus' and the territory of Rus'. The Russians share many historical and cultural traits with other European peoples and especially with other East Slavic ethnic groups, specifically Belarusians and Ukrainians. Many ethnic groups had a common history within the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire, which was influential in the spreading of Russian culture and language. The Russian language is official in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and also spoken as a secondary language in many former Soviet states.

The ethnic Russians is the one of 194 ethnic groups who live in Russia, according to the 2010 census. Despite of 80.90% (111,016,896 people) of the population voluntarily declared themselves as ethnically Russian, the Constitution declared Russia a multinational (multiethnic) state and named "multinational people of Russia" as a sovereign nation (i.e. not ethnic Russian, officially Russia is not a nation state). The Russian word used for citizens of Russia is different from the word for ethnic Russian (see Citizenship of Russia), other languages often do not distinguish these two groups. The Tsardom of Russia became a multiethnic state in the 16th century (see History of Russia). The number of ethnic Russians living outside the Russian Federation is estimated at roughly between 20 and 30 million people (see Russian diaspora).


There are two Russian words that are commonly translated into English as "Russians". One is "русские" (russkiye), which most often means "ethnic Russians" (the subject of this article). Another is "россияне" (rossiyane), which means "citizens of Russia". The former word refers to ethnic Russians, regardless of what country they live in and irrespective of whether or not they hold Russian citizenship. Under certain circumstances, this term may or may not extend to denote members of other Russian-speaking ethnic groups from Russia, or from the former Soviet Union. The latter word refers to all people holding citizenship of Russia, regardless of their ethnicity, and does not include ethnic Russians living outside Russia. Translations into other languages often do not distinguish these two groups.[40]

The name of the Russians derives from the Rus' people (supposedly Varangians). According to the most prevalent theory, the name Rus', like the Finnish name for Sweden (Ruotsi), is derived from an Old Norse term for "the men who row" (rods-) as rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and that it could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of Roslagen (Rus-law) or Roden, as it was known in earlier times.[41][42] The name Rus' would then have the same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden: Ruotsi and Rootsi.[43] Although Russian history and culture is shaped also by Germanic people like Vikings there are also theories that Rus' is of a non-Germanic origin. According to the historian Lydia Groth, Roslagen in IX—XII centuries was unsuitable for life, as it was then under water at a depth of 6–7 meters. Furthermore, the name in the form of Roslagen first appeared only in 1493.[44][45] According to other theories the name Rus' is derived from Proto-Slavic *roud-s-ь ( from *rъd-/*roud-/*rуd- root), connected with red color (of hair)[46] or from Indo-Iranian (ruxs/roxs — «light-colored», «bright»).[47]

Until the 1917 revolution, Russian authorities never specifically called them "Russians", calling them "Great Russians" instead, a part of "Russians" (all the East Slavs).



The modern Russians formed from two groups of East Slavic tribes: Northern and Southern. The tribes involved included the Krivichs, Ilmen Slavs, Radimichs, Vyatiches and Severians. Genetic studies show that modern Russians do not differ significantly from Belarusians and Ukrainians. Some ethnographers, like Dmitry Konstantinovich Zelenin, affirm that Russians are more similar to Belarusians and to Ukrainians than southern Russians are to northern Russians. Russians in northern European Russia share moderate genetic similarities with Finnic peoples,[39][48] who lived in modern north-central European Russia and were partly assimilated by the Slavs as the Slavs migrated northeastwards. Such Finnic peoples included the Merya[49] and the Muromians.[48][50]

The territory of Russia has been inhabited since 2nd Millennium BCE by Indo-European, Ural-Altaic, and various other peoples; however, not much is known about them.[51] Slavic people are native to the western part of Russia.[52] Outside archaeological remains, little is known about the predecessors to Russians in general prior to 859 AD when the Primary Chronicle starts its records.[53] It is thought[by whom?] that by 600 AD, the Slavs had split linguistically into southern, western, and eastern branches. The eastern branch settled between the Southern Bug and the Dnieper Rivers in present-day Ukraine; from the 1st century AD through almost the turn of the millennium, they spread peacefully northward to the Baltic region, forming the Dregovich, Radimich and Vyatich Slavic tribes on the Baltic substratum, and therefore experiencing changed language features such as vowel reduction. Later, both Belarusians and South Russians formed on this ethnic linguistic ground.[54]


Kievan Rus'[edit]

Kievan Rus' was a loose federation of states that existed from the late 9th to the mid-13th century. Modern Russians derive their name and cultural ancestry from Kievan Rus'.

Russian Empire[edit]


The percentage of ethnic Russians throughout the former Soviet Union according to last censuses




Former Soviet states[edit]

Ethnic Russians in former Soviet Union states in 1994

After the Dissolution of the Soviet Union an estimated 25 million Russians began living outside of the Russian Federation, most of them in the former Soviet Republics.


Ethnic Russians historically migrated throughout the area of former Russian Empire and Soviet Union, sometimes encouraged to re-settle in borderlands by the Tsarist and later Soviet government.[56] On some occasions, ethnic Russian communities, such as Lipovans who settled in the Danube delta or Doukhobors in Canada, emigrated as religious dissidents fleeing the central authority.



There are also small Russian communities in the Balkans, including Lipovans in the Danube delta,[57] Central European nations such as Germany and Poland, as well Russians settled in China, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Australia. These communities may identify themselves either as Russians or citizens of these countries, or both, to varying degrees.



Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery in Paris, the resting place of many eminent Russian émigrés after 1917

Significant numbers of Russians emigrated to Canada, Australia and the United States. Brighton Beach, Brooklyn and South Beach, Staten Island in New York City is an example of a large community of recent Russian and Russian Jewish immigrants. Other examples are Sunny Isles Beach, a northern suburb of Miami, and in West Hollywood of the Los Angeles area.


After the Russian Revolution in 1917, many Russians who were identified with the White army moved to China — most of them settling in Harbin and Shanghai.[59] By the 1930s, Harbin had 100,000 Russians. Many of these Russians had to move back to the Soviet Union after World War II. Today, a large group of people in northern China can still speak Russian as a second language.




Russian culture is varied and unique in many respects. It has a rich history and a long tradition in all of the arts,[62] especially in fields of literature[63] and philosophy, classical music[64][65] and ballet,[66] architecture and painting, cinema[67] and animation, all of which had considerable influence on world culture.



  Russian has official status.
  Russian is not official but is spoken by more than 30% of the population











As of a different sociological surveys on religious adherence, from 41% to over 80% of the total population of Russia adhere to the Russian Orthodox Church.[68][69][70][71][72] It has played a vital role in the development of Russian national identity. In other countries Russian faithful usually belong to the local Orthodox congregations which either have a direct connection (like the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, autonomous from the Moscow Patriarchate) or historical origin (like the Orthodox Church in America or a Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia) with the Russian Orthodox Church.


Other world religions have negligible representation among ethnic Russians. The largest of these groups are Islam with over 100,000 followers from national minorities,[68] and Baptists with over 85,000 Russian adherents.[73] Others are mostly Pentecostals, Evangelicals, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union various new religious movements have sprung up and gathered a following among ethnic Russians. The most prominent of these are Rodnovery, the revival of the Slavic native religion also common to other Slavic nations,[74] Another movement, very small in comparison to other new religions, is Vissarionism, a syncretic group with an Orthodox Christian background.

Notable achievements[edit]

Yuri Gagarin, first human in space (1961)

Russians have greatly contributed to the fields of sports, science and technology, politics, business, and the arts.



Vladimir Bekhterev, Russian neurologist and the father of objective psychology

Russian Literature representatives like Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Anton Chekhov, Alexander Pushkin, and many more, reached a high status in world literature. Prominent Russian novelists such as Tolstoy in particular, were important figures and have remained internationally renowned. Some scholars have described one or the other as the greatest novelist ever.[75]

Russian composers who reached a high status in the world of music include Igor Stravinsky, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Sergei Prokofiev, Modest Mussorgsky, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Russian people played a crucial role in the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. According to the British historian Richard Overy, the Eastern Front included more combat than all the other European fronts combined—the Wehrmacht suffered 80% to 93% of all of its total World War II combat casualties on the Eastern Front. Russia's casualties in this war were the highest of all nations, and numbered more than 20 million dead (Russians composed 80% of the 26.6 million people lost by the USSR), which is about half of all World War II casualties and the vast majority of Allied casualties.[76]

See also[edit]


  1. ^ "журнал "Демоскоп Weekly" № 571 - 572 14 - 31 октября 2013. А. Арефьев. Тема номера: сжимающееся русскоязычие. Демографические изменения - не на пользу русскому языку".
  2. ^ Ethnic groups in Russia, 2010 census, Rosstat. Retrieved 15 February 2012 (in Russian)
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  4. ^ "Численность населения Республики Казахстан по отдельным этносам на начало 2016 года".
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  6. ^ "Regarding Upcoming Conference on Status of Russian Language Abroad". Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 24 June 2014.
  7. ^ "American FactFinder - Results". Data Access and Dissemination Systems (DADS).
  8. ^
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  11. ^ Missing or empty |title= (help)
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  13. ^ "Moldovan Population Census from 2004". Moldovan National Bureau of Statistics. Archived from the original on 14 November 2010.
  14. ^ "2004 Census data for Transnistria: PMR urban, multilingual, multicultural". Archived from the original on 17 February 2007.
  15. ^
  16. ^ Maria Stella Ferreira Levy. O papel da migração internacional na evolução da população brasileira (1872 to 1972). inRevista de Saúde Pública, volume supl, June 1974.
  17. ^
  18. ^
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  20. ^ "Gyventojų pagal tautybę dalis, palyginti su bendru nuolatinių gyventojų skaičiumi". Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  21. ^ "2006 census".
  22. ^ "The State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan". Archived from the original on 7 January 2012.
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  25. ^ "Australian Bureau of Statistics". Retrieved 22 July 2012.
  27. ^ Informatii utile | Agentia Nationala pentru Intreprinderi Mici si Mijlocii (2002 census) (in Romanian)
  28. ^ "(number of foreigners in the Czech Republic)" (PDF) (in Czech). 31 December 2016. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  29. ^
  30. ^ "출입국·외국인정책 통계월보". 출입국·외국인정책 본부 이민정보과.
  31. ^ The source is not Russian but Russian Koreans.
  32. ^
  35. ^ "(2000 census)". Retrieved 22 July 2012.
  36. ^ "(2002 census)". Retrieved 22 July 2012.
  37. ^ "(2002 census)" (PDF). Retrieved 22 July 2012.
  38. ^ "Census ethnic group profiles: Russian". Stats NZ. 2013.
  39. ^ a b "Two sources of the Russian patrilineal heritage in their Eurasian context". American Journal of Human Genetics. 82 (1): 236–50. January 2008. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2007.09.019. PMC 2253976. PMID 18179905.
  40. ^ Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  41. ^ Blöndal, Sigfús (16 April 2007). The Varangians of Byzantium. Cambridge University Press. p. 1. ISBN 9780521035521. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
  42. ^ The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text Translated by O. P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor ISBN 0-910956-34-0
  43. ^ "Online Etymology Dictionary".
  44. ^ "Топонимические следы руссов-славян в Рослагене : Доисторическая история славян : Александр Козинский". Retrieved 14 August 2019.
  45. ^ "Руслаген". поисковая система. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
  46. ^ Максимович К.А. (2006). "Происхождение этнонима Русь в свете исторической лингвистики и древнейших письменных источников". КАNIEKION. Юбилейный сборник в честь 60-летия профессора Игоря Сергеевича Чичурова. М.: ПЕТГУ: сс.14–56.
  47. ^ Седов В.В. Древнерусская народность. Русы
  48. ^ a b "Новости :: Учёные завершили масштабное исследование генофонда русского народа (Фотороботы)". Retrieved 22 July 2012.
  50. ^ Мурома, мещера [Murom, Meschera]. (in Russian). Archived from the original on 23 May 2008.
  51. ^ "Russia - History". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  52. ^ Kunstmann, Heinrich. (1996). Die Slaven : ihr Name, ihre Wanderung nach Europa und die Anfänge der russischen Geschichte in historisch-onomastischer Sicht. Steiner. p. 214. ISBN 3515068163. OCLC 231684405.
  54. ^ Pivtorak. Formation and dialectal differenciaton of the Old Rus language. 1988
  58. ^ Bigg, Claire (15 August 2006). "Latvia: Ethnic Russians Divided On Moscow's Repatriation Scheme". Retrieved 22 July 2012.
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  62. ^ "Russia". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 31 January 2008.
  63. ^ Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2007. Russian Literature. Archived from the original on 20 August 2009. Retrieved 7 January 2008.
  67. ^ "Russia::Motion pictures". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Retrieved 27 December 2007.
  68. ^ a b "Арена".
  71. ^ Опубликована подробная сравнительная статистика религиозности в России и Польше (in Russian).
  73. ^ "statistics". Retrieved 22 July 2012.
  75. ^ "Russian literature." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 16 July 2007 <[1]>.
  76. ^ Leaders mourn Soviet wartime dead, BBC News

External links[edit]