Population of Eastern Europe

Tsar-Russia				Soviet Union
1500 1550 1600 1650	6.0 11.0 13.0 - 15.0 15.0	1820 1830 1840 1850	48.6 56.1 62.4 68.5	1917 1926 1931 1939	184.6 147.0 161.0 170.5
1722 1750 before 1789	14.0 23.0 25.0	1860 1870 1880	74.1 84.5 97.7	1940 1950 1960	191.7 181.0 214.2
1795 1800 1810 1815	29.0 35.5 40.7 45.0	1890 1900 1910	11.,8 132.9 160.7	1970 1980 1990 2000	242.8 265.5 288.6 (290.5)

In this section Eastern Europe is defined as the territory of old Tsar-Russia and the former Soviet Union. This Russia was a large but scarcely populated country on the outskirts of Europe until the 18^th century. It was Peter the Great who transformed Russia into a major European power and he and his successors expanded Russia to the west. But Russia did not have the largest population in Europe at that time, it was the rapid population growth during the 19^th century that made Russia to the giant state that dominated Europe’s modern history. The First World War ended in disaster with great losses of territory and the communist revolution 1917 transformed the country into the Soviet Union. This state re-conquered several of the lost territories during the Second World War, but a chronic bad economy prompted its dissolution 1991. The Soviet Union was then replaced by the considerably smaller Russian Federation.

Russian Federation

1926 1931 1939 1960 1970 1979 1990 1991 2000 2010

93.5 111.2 109.3 118.9 130.1 137.6 148.0 148.6 146.0 142.9

The state that today is Russia was originally a part republic of the Soviet Union. It is an independent state since 1992. Russia population is decreasing despite of a large immigration from the other former Soviet republics and there are no signs that this trend is going to change.

Russian Provinces and Soviet Republics

	1811	1838	1851	1863	1885	1897	1914	2000	2010
Bessarabia Caucasus Turkestan	0.300	0.790	0.874 2.7	1.0 4.2	1.5 7.3 3.7	1.9 9.3 5.3	2.7 12.7 7.1
	1926	1931	1939	1960	1970	1979	1990
Belarus Ukraine Moldavia	5.0 29.0	5.2 31.4	5.6 40.0 3.4	8.1 41.9 2.9	9.0 47.7 3.6	9.5 49.8 3.9	10.3 51.8 4.4	10.4 49.2 4.5	9.8 46.4 4.1
Georgia Armenia Azerbaijan	2.7 0.9 2.3	2.9 1.0 2.5	3.5 1.3 3.2	4.0 1.8 3.7	4.7 2.5 5.1	5.0 3.0 6.0	5.5 3.3 7.1	5.0 3.4 7.9	4.7 3.3 9.0
Kazakhstan Uzbekistan Turkmenistan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan	6.1 4.6 1.0 1.0 1.0	7.1 4.7 1.1 1.1 1.2	6.1 6.3 1.3 1.5 1.5	9.3 8.1 1.5 2.1 2.0	13.0 11.8 2.2 2.9 2.9	14.7 15.4 2.8 3.5 3.8	16.7 20.3 3.6 4.4 5.3	16.8 24.1 4.3 4.5 6.1	15.2 27.4 5.0 5.4 6.9

Most of Bessarabia became the Soviet republic of Moldavian. Caucasus consisted of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Turkestan consisted of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.