History of Germans in Russia and The Soviet Union - Demographics

Demographics

In the 2010 Russian census, 394,138 Germans were enumerated, down from 597,212 in 2002, making Germans the 20th largest ethnic group in Russia. There are approximately 300,000 Germans living in Siberia. In addition, the same census found that there are 2.9 million citizens who understand the German language (although many of these are ethnic Russians or Yiddish-speaking Jews who had learned the language). Prominent ethnic Germans in modern Russia include Viktor Kress, governor of Tomsk Oblast since 1991 and German Gref Minister of Economics and Trade of Russia since 2000. Out of the 597,212 Germans enumerated in 2002, 67.54% lived in Asian Federal Districts and 32.46% lived in European Federal Districts. The Federal District of Siberia, at 308,727 had the largest ethnic German population. But even in Siberia, they formed only 1.54% of the total population. The Federal Subjects with largest ethnic German populations were Altay Krai (79,502), Omsk Oblast (76,334), Novosibirsk (47,275), Kemerovo (35,965), Chelyabisk (28,457), Tyumen (27,196), Sverdlovsk (22,540), Krasnodar (18,469), Orenburg (18,055), Volgograd (17,051), Tomsk (13,444), Saratov (12,093)and Perm Krai (10,152). Although emigration to Germany is no longer common, and some Germans move from Kazakhstan to Russia, the number of Germans in Russia continues to fall, mainly due to assimilation with the majority Russians as younger Germans marry Russians and count their children in the census as Russian.

According to the 1989 census there were 100,309 Germans living in Kyrgyzstan. According to the most recent census data (1999), there were 21,472 Germans in Kyrgyzstan. The German population in Tajikistan was 38,853 in 1979.

In 2011, the Kaluga Oblast included ethnic Germans living in the former republics of USSR, under the federal program for the return of compatriots to Russia.