Moscow, 21 October: Russia's population numbers more than 143.3m
people, according to the preliminary data of the all-Russian census. The
figure is close to that which has been calculated by statisticians, the
head of the Statistics Committee's department for census and demography,
Irina Zbarskaya, has said.
The census questionnaires are being counted and encoded now, she told
ITAR-TASS today. Automated processing of the data will begin in 2003 and
last for a year. The results will take up 12 volumes. According to the
census data, Moscow, St Petersburg, Rostov-na-Donu and Volgograd remain
"million cities" (whose population numbers over a million), Zbarskaya said.
More than 10m people are residents of Moscow. And together with visiting
people, the number is up to 12m. The census is officially over today. But
in some remote regions, it will last until next December.