The Waves of Internal Migration in Russia

For the several centuries the population of the European part of Russia has been migrating to the Eastern and North-Eastern peripheral regions of the vast country. The comfortable areas were colonized as well as the deserted ones with severe climate conditions. The cossacks were the first who populated new lands. Some decades after it the peasants followed such strategy. Forced migration of Gulag prisoners and convicts played an important role in migrations during the Soviet period (although the resettlement of prisoners were in pre-revolutionary times too). In the 2-nd half of 20-th century the internal migration in Russia experienced a dramatic change. Since then a massive escape from recently occupied lands has been observed. The fall of the Soviet Union has accelerated the return migrations. In the paper the basic patterns of internal migration in Russia are specified and analyzed on the data of Russian Censuses. Russian regions are also classified by their migration characteristics.