Abstract
"The paper...analyzes the characteristics of 27 million non-Russians who constituted 18 percent of the population of the Russian Federation and its 31 ethnic homelands in 1989. Utilizing data from all Soviet censuses (from 1926), it reviews long-term historical trends; growth patterns related to urban-rural differences, family size, regional contrasts in rates of natural increase, and specific ethnic traits; migration patterns; factors influencing language shifts to the Russian; effect of location inside or outside homeland; and the influences of transportation, cities, and economic development in individual homelands."