Millions, or millionaires, are called such cities, the population of which exceeds 1 million people. Due to the increased population, these cities have enjoyed a number of advantages since the Soviet era. For example, the metro in Russia is available only in millionaire cities, though not in all.
List of millionaires in Russia
Cities with a population of over one million, which can also be called megacities, are the largest points where people come to for a variety of purposes. Someone goes to study, someone to work, someone is looking for entertainment that cannot be found in smaller cities. Others, on the contrary, sell apartments in metropolitan areas and move to small and quiet towns, so as not to get stuck in traffic jams, not jostling in crowds and not breathing exhaust gases.
All million-plus cities in Russia are the centers of their regions, and the two largest of them - Moscow and St. Petersburg - have the status of cities-regions, since their population is very large.
According to the results of the 2010 census, there are 12 cities in Russia with a population of more than a million. This is Moscow, the capital of Russia, its official population is 11.5 million people. Next on the list is St. Petersburg, with a population of 4.880 million. Further Novosibirsk, its population is 1.474 million, Yekaterinburg, whose population is 1.350 million people, Nizhny Novgorod (population 1.251 million), Kazan is in fifth position (population 1.44 million), followed by Samara with a population of 1, 165 million people, then Omsk (population 1, 154 million), Chelyabinsk (population 1, 130 million), Rostov-on-Don (population 1.089 million), Ufa (population 1.062 million) and Volgograd closes the list, whose population 1.012 million.
Not so long ago Perm and Volgograd were millionaires, but their population fell below a million. There are also three more cities, whose population is close to a million, but does not reach it: these are Krasnoyarsk, Voronezh and Saratov.
It is interesting that the number of million-plus cities in Russia is steadily decreasing. Of all the above, none of the cities have positive natural dynamics. This means that the birth rate in each of them is lower than the death rate. But the population of some cities is still growing at the expense of visitors.
St. Petersburg
Petersburg was the first million-plus city in Russia. Its population exceeded this mark in about 1890. A significant increase in the number of residents in St. Petersburg, as well as in other Russian cities, happened due to the abolition of serfdom and the reforms that followed. Shortly before this date, in 1858, the population of St. Petersburg was only 520 thousand people, which is almost half the size. By 1917, the city's population increased to 2.4 million inhabitants, but the events that followed (revolution, transfer of the capital to Moscow, white emigration and others) led to the fact that in 1920 there were only about 722 thousand inhabitants in St. Petersburg. During the NEP, the population again increased to 3.25 million people, but during the Second World War, the blockade and evacuation led to its reduction by almost 1 million. Further, the city's population only increased, and this continued until the onset of the 90s. Since then, the situation has been somewhat unstable.
Moscow
Moscow had become a millionaire city by about 1897, its population grew rapidly and by 1917 it was already 1.9 million people. At this time, the city was still inferior to St. Petersburg in size. But then the capital was moved to Moscow, and its population did not experience such sharp jumps as in St. Petersburg. It grew steadily at an even, albeit rapid, pace.
