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RUSSIA’S PEOPLE AND THEIR NEIGHBORS
By PROF. MICHAEL A. DE SHERBININ
RUSSIA occupies one-sixth part of the whole land surface of the
globe. Its area equals 660,000 square miles. Time will not
permit me to enumerate all the peoples which compose the 182,-
000,000 of Russia’s population. It is sufficient to say that the majority
of the population consists of Russians and of nations which are akin to
them. Aside from the six and a half million Jews living in Russia, five-
sixths of the population belong to the Aryan race, that is, to the same
white race which inhabits most of Europe, Persia and parts of India.
Those who speak the three main dialects of the Russian language
comprise eighty-six millions. Besides these there are less than a
million of Slavic immigrants, and from two and a half to three million
German colonists in different fertile zones of the land. The Moham-
medans number seventeen million and according to their own claim
there are thirty million in Russia, including Siberia.
The population of the Caucasus, numbering ten millions, presents a
great variety of nations and languages. The most numerous of these
nations are the Georgians, the Armenians and the Tartars.
Illiteracy is great and, on the average, people who can both read
and write are approximately thirty per cent of the population. The
prohibition of the sale of vodka has worked a revolution. In 1914, one
hundred forty-six million gallons of vodka were sold. In 1915 only eight
and seven-tenths million. In proportion to this reduction the influx
of deposits in the savings banks has increased. The deposits in 1914
were $45,000,000 and the crops were good. In 1915 the deposits rose to
$278,000,000.
Approximately one-sixth of Russia’s population belongs to the yellow,
or Mongolian, race. It comprises all the aborigines of the north of
Siberia. The many Fennic or Finnish tribes on the Volga and its
tributaries belong to that race and they speak languages akin to those
of the Finns and Esthonians, living on either side of the Gulf of
Finland. These Finnish nations, although related to the Mongolians
by blood, have been so much mixed with the white race, that their
complexion cannot be distinguished from that of the Aryans.
The Early History
Once these Fennic tribes, belonging to the Turanian stock, covered
the greater part of what is now Russia, but they were gradually pushed
off to the north by the Slavs. We have no historic record of this fact,
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