If it´s true that demographie is the fate of the people, Russia is looking for a taff century ahead.
With a population of some 145 million people, the state has to manage the by far biggest country on earth. Despide that, during the last century, Russia had to pay a huge price in the currency of blood, from the First Worldwar, the revolution and the following civil-war to various famines, Stalin and the Second Worldwar till the chaos following the disintegration of the Sowjet Union. And to this day, the population of the country is in decline.
Adding to that, there are 17 million ethnic russians living in other successor states of the former USSR. That Moscow feels itself, at least to some degree, responsible for these peoples, is comprehensible and will cause a lot of trouble.
On top of that, the weight of the different peoples is also changing inside the borders of the country. The number of muslims is increasing permanently, in total as well as in relative numbers, so that they may count for a third of the entire population at some point in the next decades. As they are living in their home areas for centuries now, they may call for independence one day. This concerns primarily the caucasus-republics, but may spread into Tatarstan as well.
The way Russia is going to deal with this will be one of the major questions of the decades ahead of us.
Simon Dierich 