2002 Russian census

The census was primarily intended to collect statistical information about the resident population of the Russian Federation. The resident population included:

• Russian citizens living in Russia (including those temporarily away from the country, provided the absence from the country was expected to last less than one year);
• non-citizens (i.e. foreign citizens and stateless persons) who were any of the following:
  • legal permanent residents;
  • persons who have arrived in the country with the intent to settle permanently or to seek asylum, regardless of whether they have actually obtained the appropriate immigration status;
  • authorized foreign workers or students, provided the period of temporary residence in Russia was expected to last at least one year.

All detailed census tables are for the resident population.

All (resident) participants were asked questions on their gender, birth date, marital status, household composition, birthplace, citizenship, ethnic or tribal self-identification (национальность), education level, language competence, sources of income, and employment status. A sample of the participants was also asked more detailed questions about their economic and housing situation.

The census also counted two more groups of people:

• Russian citizens currently living abroad for more than one year in connection with employment with the federal government.
• Persons (regardless of their citizenship) permanently residing abroad but temporarily present in Russia (as tourists, short-term foreign workers, or students, etc.).

Foreign citizens present in Russia as employees of foreign diplomatic missions or international organizations and members of their household were excluded from the census altogether.

Census participants were asked what country (or countries) they were citizens of. 142,442,000 respondents reported being Russian citizens; among them, 44,000 also had citizenship of another country.

Among Russia's resident population, 1,025,413 foreign citizens and 429,881 stateless persons were counted.

1,269,023 persons did not report their citizenship.

Among the questions asked was, "Are you competent in the Russian language?" (Владеете ли Вы русским языком?) and "What other languages are you competent in?" (Какими иными языками Вы владеете?). As the census manual explained, "competence" (владение) meant either the ability to speak, read and write a language, or only the ability to speak it. The questions did not distinguish native and non-native speakers, nor did they try to measure the degree of language competence. For small children, presumably, the recorded answer was based on the language(s) spoken by the parents.

142.6 million (98.3%) of the responders claimed competence in Russian. Other widely reported languages (more than 500,000 speakers each) are listed in the table below.

1.42 million responders did not provide language information.

For a more detailed list, see List of languages of Russia.