Russian population

Mir wrote:@Azi

I still don't see anything remotely close to the figures you and Karl mention from Rosstat?

You say you know the numbers and that the stats from Worldometer's wrong? The stats you show below from Rosstats seems to indicate 1.7 which is the same as from Worldometer? Interesting!

Where is the 1,7 coming from? You thnk I'm a american or chinese troll and i have dreamt about 1,5???

Please check it out by yourself if you don'T believe me. My link seems dead at moment but Rostat is online....you can check the numbers by yourself. 1,5 was the number for 2020...i was not refering to prior numbers.

miketheterrible wrote:
Check dates.

As well, statistics uses their calculation method based upon birth rates per year and the numbers rosstat provides in that. So depends on how they calculate it between them. Statistica uses same sources.  Rosstat hasn't done a census since 2010, it's presumed it's tough estimates all around.

I know here in Canada a census is done every couple of years. Russia hasn't done one in a long time.

Death rates will decline in near future since baby boomer era starts to die off naturally.  The Covid scare did no help though for even the people who want children.

Births must or at least should be registered...Russia is not Africa!!! The same for deaths. I hope Rostat is doing the business right and correct...if not send them to Siberia!

You are right with the whole population...sometimes it's a mystery and the correct data are available after a census (people move in and out, migrants etc...).

Hey...by the way I was not negative about the 1,5 in 2020, because the numbers the years before were much higher and after this Covid chaos year will be higher again for sure. And 1,5 is exact the middle of the EU for 2018, so Russia would perform in this statistic in the upper half.

And as I wrote...the main problem for demographics is the hedonistic western lifestyle. Get rid off it and everything will be better...and the population will be happier too!

flamming_python wrote:

Karl Haushofer wrote:

flamming_python wrote:

Invite several million Europeans, Americans to live in Russia, if necessary declare for them their own national districts within Siberian regions

I don't see that many westerners moving to Russia until Russia can offer at least similar or better salaries than the Western countries.

The only source that Russia realistically can get more population from is the FSU countries. And frankly I don't want to see Russia get any more Uzbeks or Tajiks or Azeris that it currently has.

The only lasting solution for Russia's demographic challenges is to somehow get ethnic Russian women to have more babies. Right now there are very small number of women in childbearing age in Russia due to collapsed birth rate in the 1990s.  Those bigger age groups born in the 1980s are passing their fertile years and the younger age groups born in the 1990s and early 2000s are very small in comparison. Because of this there are smaller and smaller number of potential mothers in Russia each year.

And with these women in those small age groups having very few children themselves we are witnessing Russian demographics falling off the cliff. The population fell by more than 700,000 people last year alone. This year the decline could be even bigger. We are going back to 1990s.

I can see a whole bunch of people from Europe and America running to Russia from the Globalhomo craziness and racial tensions. Mainly traditional and rural-minded people. Let them buy some cheap land in Siberia, off they go. Salaries are not a problem, neither is even the language, if their ambitions are just to have their own farmstead and be left to their own devices.

FSU countries are a constant source. If anything I'm kind of more worried about getting more Ukrainians as opposed to Uzbeks, Tajiks and Azeris; they could potentially try to sell out Russia much as they did their ancestral homeland. At the very least I know some Ukrainians here who have very anti-Putin views.

Imports can also happen from the student population as I mentioned. Russia at the moment is in something like 6th place worldwide by the amount of foreign students - albeit most of them are from FSU countries as well. This is set to expand over the next few years owing to massive investments into many huge new university campuses and so on.

And about raising fertility rates of Russian women - of course that is the main thing. Along with lowering mortality rates. I've already talked about how.

Azeris, tadjiks and Ukrainians shouldn't be welcome in Russia at all. I know they do dirtiest and low paid jobs mostly, but they bring so much crime and their own country problems in a baggage with them. Especially Ukrainians. Even the ones who hate Russia come there to work and with their presence alone they pose a national threat.

Also, no Euros or Americans, they will bring their disgusting globohomo with them, even the ones running away from it are tainted. Even political dissidents there are just different shade of GH. Not to mention that westerners have terrible genes (inbred brits, irish and southern Americans), they are not suited to cold weather, their health is compromised by GMO and fast foods. To be honest, it would be burden and enormous security risk to keep them. Imagine how easy it would be for CIA to infiltrate there or use NATO/EU/USA pressure to bully Russia by claiming that their rights are infringed and etc.

Plenty of Russians live abroad that are pro-Russia, not just liberals. Also, I know plenty of liberals who as the time went changed their thinking (it seems that allegiances change with the age and maturity and it seems that homesickness is a special thing for Russians) I think Russia should create a Russian card that would help expats to come back, give them some social support and it would be much cheaper than moulding some westerner fed on McDonalds grub to acclimatise to Russia too.

And to raise the fertility - Russia needs to ban all non-health/rape related abortions and then promote anti-alcohol campaigns. Culture of drinking is still quite bad and still can be improved.

The 1.5 rate is correct and came from Rosstat directly.
It was already there in 2019, you can find it in table 2.2.2 of BRICS Joint Statistical Publication 2020.
What came up as a surprise, was again official figures from Rosstat, with 146.2 mln citizens as of Jan 2021. It was the biggest decline in 15 years, 510 000.
Still, nothing unusual. Poland faced the biggest death rate since WWII, a 129 000 in 2020. The birth rate was the lowest in 15 years, too.
Similar data were presented for UK if I am not mistaken.

jhelb wrote:Germany had record number of births this year. But guess what ...most of these kids were born to colored immigrants like Africans and Asians.

This is not something that should be tolerated in Russia. Already cities after cities across Russia are being filled up by Central Asians. These immigrants tend to have very high birth rate.

I read about this and said Germany is fucked.

There is a reason the EU cocksuckers are going after Hungary.

I think I the Russian population will increase with all the things the government has done.

I think Russia's population will stagnate. Not grow but not decline. It will mostly grow due to migrants coming in. While its been mostly post Soviet states, we may see an inflow from non former Soviet states whom are more interested in Russia's mix of concervative and liberal values while not being insane like it is here in the west

miketheterrible wrote:I think Russia's population will stagnate. Not grow but not decline.  It will mostly grow due to migrants coming in. While its been mostly post Soviet states, we may see an inflow from non former Soviet states whom are more interested in Russia's mix of concervative and liberal values while not being insane like it is here in the west

I hope to god that Russia stays away from immigrants( I read on the Stalker Zone, that when Russia locked down and closed the borders and sent most of immigrants home), that the crime rate in Russia went down. And I think the government saw this.

I think the Russian population will increase because the Russian government has made so many positive changes in helping raising families. The free hot meals in schools, tax breaks for large families(I like what Hungary is doing, if you have 3 or more children, you pay little taxes), support for single mothers and fathers and various other things, on top of what was already in place.

I hope things are taken a little further and parents that 3 or more children are given discount on flying inside Russia, this way the large families can have vacations and Russian tourism will get a boost and it encourages people to have large families.

China has the best immigration policy, it is amazing, how fast they can get their own people to have babies and it is amazing how fast they can lock things up immigration wise.

The west is justing going down the toilet, maybe it is meant to be this way.

par far wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:I think Russia's population will stagnate. Not grow but not decline.  It will mostly grow due to migrants coming in. While its been mostly post Soviet states, we may see an inflow from non former Soviet states whom are more interested in Russia's mix of concervative and liberal values while not being insane like it is here in the west

I hope to god that Russia stays away from immigrants( I read on the Stalker Zone, that when Russia locked down and closed the borders and sent most of immigrants home), that the crime rate in Russia went down. And I think the government saw this.

I think the Russian population will increase because the Russian government has made so many positive changes in helping raising families. The free hot meals in schools, tax breaks for large families(I like what Hungary is doing, if you have 3 or more children, you pay little taxes), support for single mothers and fathers and various other things, on top of what was already in place.

I hope things are taken a little further and parents that 3 or more children are given discount on flying inside Russia, this way the large families can have vacations and Russian tourism will get a boost and it encourages people to have large families.

China has the best immigration policy, it is amazing, how fast they can get their own people to have babies and it is amazing how fast they can lock things up immigration wise.

The west is justing going down the toilet, maybe it is meant to be this way.

The TFR increase between 2000 and 2020 was the direct result of the improvement of living conditions in Russia. It was not driven
by immigrants or Muslims or some other trope. The drop over the last year is directly related to Covid-19. The TFR is the only thing
I would look at since the mortality variations mean nothing. Longevity in Russia has gone up since the 1990s. Men live 70 years on
average after living only 58 years in the mid-late 1990s. The longevity progression is clear and is also driven by improving conditions.
So the death rate will drop off while the birth rate will not. Ideally a TFR of over 2 is needed, but 1.82 was moving towards 2 and
I think it will resume this trend.

I think Hungarian style tax breaks for young families are needed. Crank up the taxes on corporations and resource exports to offset
any income tax reductions.

kvs wrote:

par far wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:I think Russia's population will stagnate. Not grow but not decline.  It will mostly grow due to migrants coming in. While its been mostly post Soviet states, we may see an inflow from non former Soviet states whom are more interested in Russia's mix of concervative and liberal values while not being insane like it is here in the west

I hope to god that Russia stays away from immigrants( I read on the Stalker Zone, that when Russia locked down and closed the borders and sent most of immigrants home), that the crime rate in Russia went down. And I think the government saw this.

I think the Russian population will increase because the Russian government has made so many positive changes in helping raising families. The free hot meals in schools, tax breaks for large families(I like what Hungary is doing, if you have 3 or more children, you pay little taxes), support for single mothers and fathers and various other things, on top of what was already in place.

I hope things are taken a little further and parents that 3 or more children are given discount on flying inside Russia, this way the large families can have vacations and Russian tourism will get a boost and it encourages people to have large families.

China has the best immigration policy, it is amazing, how fast they can get their own people to have babies and it is amazing how fast they can lock things up immigration wise.

The west is justing going down the toilet, maybe it is meant to be this way.

The TFR increase between 2000 and 2020 was the direct result of the improvement of living conditions in Russia.   It was not driven
by immigrants or Muslims or some other trope.    The drop over the last year is directly related to Covid-19.  The TFR is the only thing
I would look at since the mortality variations mean nothing.   Longevity in Russia has gone up since the 1990s.   Men live 70 years on
average after living only 58 years in the mid-late 1990s.   The longevity progression is clear and is also driven by improving conditions.
So the death rate will drop off while the birth rate will not.    Ideally a TFR of over 2 is needed, but 1.82 was moving towards 2 and
I think it will resume this trend.  

I think Hungarian style tax breaks for young families are needed.   Crank up the taxes on corporations and resource exports to offset
any income tax reductions.

Very well said, I think natural birth will go up in Russia.

Technological progress is a constant feature but it's hard to imagine how sentient robots will make their way into the rural outback any time soon.

You are confusing androids for robots... there are already plenty of robots used on farms... modern tractors use sat navigation for ploughing and for fertilising and for insecticide distribution... they almost drive themselves... and ensure patches don't get missed or done twice...

There are automated cow milking machines... but nothing that looks like an artificial human as I said.

Working on a farm on your own can be dangerous.... there are often cases of farmers found here up the high country... nobody saw them for a week so someone went looking and found them pinned under a tractor or something... sometimes still alive but most often dead because it takes so long for people to notice they haven't seen them around and start to get worried.

The point is that machinery that allows fewer or one person to do a job that previously took rather more is already being used in some places (not suggesting they are used everywhere) and that is only going to increase and become more common.

(I like what Hungary is doing, if you have 3 or more children, you pay little taxes)

The biggest problem in the west is that the rich pay accountants to use loopholes so they pay little to no tax... and these are the people earning the most who can afford to pay the most... I fully agree on tax reductions for people with large families... I come from a large family but do not intend on having a big one of my own at any stage.

Personally I think being a full time mother to more than one child should be considered a full time job... which it was when I was young. These days one salary is not enough to afford to pay for what we need to just get by.

It is like big powerful sports clubs who pay one or two players huge money, but the average wage is much much less... most companies in the west are the same but it has nothing to do with skill or performance... the owner gets the huge money and the top executives too and the rest get minimum wage or as close to that as they can negotiate.

It would not be so bad if the bare essentials were cheap and affordable like food and rent.

In some cultures newly married couples live with the inlaws essentially rent free and save up to buy either a new house of the inlaws house so they can buy a smaller house for the two of them to live in. Not the west, though that will change. House prices (especially for a single person) is going to force change.

I hope things are taken a little further and parents that 3 or more children are given discount on flying inside Russia, this way the large families can have vacations and Russian tourism will get a boost and it encourages people to have large families.

Good idea... you could create a domestic family oriented tourism industry that caters to big families.

China has the best immigration policy, it is amazing, how fast they can get their own people to have babies and it is amazing how fast they can lock things up immigration wise.

Things are so much easier to decide when you don't have to win popular opinion on something and keep getting voted in long enough to fully implement programmes that can take a while to take effect.

But if it doesn't kill you, then it makes you stronger

Sounds great, but is not true in every sense... if a shark bites both your legs off then you arms will get stronger simply moving yourself around, but that does not make you a physically stronger and more capable person. It probably stops you from being a wuss.... it likely gives you an inner strength... a strength of character... possibly the attitude that a great white shark couldn't kill me, so I am pretty strong.

Just as an example Polio put an American president into a wheelchair and did eventually lead to his death.

Banning abortions is a bad idea.

The ones with money will simply do the abortions in Germany, while the ones without money will do it illegally and unsafely.

Totally agree... it never stops the practise and it never leads to anything good... even if you have organisations like the catholic church who takes on what become essentially orphans or unwanted children... the stories of abuse and neglect and in fact children trafficking... there is no other term for it.... making money selling children.

Obviously there were plenty with the right intention, but I have had friends before they had kids who said they would never use a TV as a babysitter and within months Frozen comes on and gets replayed 100 times because mommy needs a break... and to be fair the first 50 times mommy watches with the kid.

I don't throw that in their faces because I fully understand what they are going through... being an uncle and great uncle you get glimpses of what having children is like... but of course it is different when they are your own... in both good and bad ways... it is a life sentence just waiting for that call.... crashed the car... caught stealing... etc etc and they are not the worst ones you dread.

Anti-alchohol campaigns aren't bad, but how would you really go about doing that? Banning alchohol?

There are always people not happy with real life, and banning alcohol won't fix the problem because it is so easy to make... but introduces the problem of easy to make wrong and kill friends and family and anyone who might buy it.

It is funny but here in New Zealand there are people who want to ban smoking but also want to legalise weed... not sure how that is going to work...

Vaping is turning out to be as harmful as smoking but with more immediate effects... never heard of anyone dying from smoking a cigarette or cigar, but people are dying from Vaping... the irony is that Vaping is seen by some as a healthy alternative for heavy smokers, but even with heavy smokers it took years to develop cancer and die, but with vaping it seems it can happen much faster...

Crank up the taxes on corporations and resource exports to offset
any income tax reductions.

They don't need to crank up any taxes... just remove the loop holes so that the richest people and the largest companies actually pay their fair share of taxes and they will get a lot more money to fix problems.

BTW optimism is not a bad thing unless it is blind optimism. Russia has gotten through a lot of bad stuff in its history and a lot of people might actually be worried that it is in a much better place than it has really ever been before, and so they compensate... here where I live if we have a warmer day in winter like today was we don't enjoy it... we go around telling each other that it is probably about to snow.

OK for weather, but not healthy for growth and development of an economy and a culture.

kvs wrote:
I think Hungarian style tax breaks for young families are needed.   Crank up the taxes on corporations and resource exports to offset
any income tax reductions.

With 13% rate flat PIT for all residents up to 5mlnRUB annual income - that is almost 60k EUR - further breaks are hardly needed.
This is one of the lowest rates in Europe, comparable to tax paradises like Cyprus.

Russia uses several targeted tools to benefit families with children, the most important being maternity capital.
The thing is played in lots of countries, the only thing that amazes in Russia, is its value.
It was started in 2007, with 250k RUB for every second child, and raised on a yearly basis. In 2020, however, a big change was applied to the program, and every single child gets this payment, too, totaling 466k RUB and rising, plus there was additional payment for any next one. This year, it is 5.5k EUR for the first, and additional 1.9k EUR for second one, and any that follows.
Maternity leave is an obvious thing for all civilized countries, so probably need to be explained to Muricans only
When you register the fact of pregnancy, there is a one-time additional benefit.
There is a monthly regular child benefit for the first 18 months.
There are special assets applied to any child that starts education.
There are special assets applied to any family with children to pay the interests of the mortgage loan.
Russia is a social welfare country, with tools and assets applied to improve the quality of living for all its citizens.
And this is a general approach that Putin underlines each and any time when talking about government policy.

Rosstat explained why the population census will begin on October 15

The proposal to postpone the All-Russian Population Census from October 1 to October 15 was made on July 23 at a scheduled meeting with the participation of regional leaders, as well as federal ministries and departments, which was chaired by First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, Rosstat said.

The department explained that this is due to the fact that the census will require the resources involved in organizing a single voting day on September 21.

"These are two projects that are important for the country and each of us, but each of them has its own characteristics, its own organization algorithm," said Pavel Malkov, head of Rosstat. According to him, it is necessary to re-equip the premises, establish an IT infrastructure that ensures data protection and transfer of the collected information to the census control center at Rosstat. In addition, many of those who were previously employed in the elections will work as census takers. It will take them time to rest and switch to new tasks. "The census will require a full concentration of forces to solve the main task - to collect the most accurate and reliable information about the demographic situation in the country and the state of the housing stock," says Malkov.

The draft government decree on the postponement of the All-Russian Population Census by two weeks is posted for discussion on regulation.gov.ru .

According to the document, it will take place until November 14, and in hard-to-reach settlements, its terms may stretch until December 20. Their list must be approved by August 15th.

It will also be possible to take part in the census on public services until November 8 inclusive, the Federal State Statistics Service specified.

https://rg.ru/2021/07/24/v-rosstate-obiasnili-pochemu-perepis-naseleniia-nachnetsia-15-oktiabria.html

We should consider the logic behind big families first.
It was all about manpower. The biggest families were in the countryside because farming required all hands possible.
A secondary cause is religion, with its influence on sexual life and sexual manners, anticonception etc.
Both causes are more or less gone. The countryside population relocated to the cities, so the pressure for manpower was decreased either.
The sexual revolution put an end to church domination in people's bedrooms.

Depopulated villages is in fact an effect, not a cause. In all the advanced world, people had a tendency to relocate to bigger centers. There are empty villages all over any country in Europe, not yet Russia. Take a look at Italy's struggling to repopulate some areas. They are selling countryside homes for 1 euro, in Toscany, only to encourage people to live there. I saw that villages, full of old, decomposing homes. Just the same is in Spain, Germany ... on the Rugia Island who is left, is a pensioner. Sassnitz lost half of its population since the reunification of Germany.

You are probably right, that we may witness some changes here, due to the pandemic influence on people's lives. Maybe there will be a revival of simple country living, less focused on material matters? Maybe people will decide to live in wooden barns, like in Murica, instead of building multiple generations' brick&concrete houses?

The housing issue is an extremely crucial factor in this decision-making process. But only one of them.
The 4-day working week would be a huge difference here.
So is the accessibility to the kindergartens, schools etc. I saw a documentary about the school living of the Yakutia tribes, and it was a quite an interesting to experience. Kids are picked up on Mondays, sometimes by a helicopter , and located for a working week in dormitories. On Fridays afternoon, flying back to their homes and yurtas.

The stability of the system is one of the very important factors, too. In well-educated societies, people do consider several factors before making a decision.

Every single issue here, is a number in equation. As we may see, this equation has not been solved yet in all rich&well-being countries.

To be honest, betting on immigration is not a bad solution to start with.
Russia has a quite deep reservoir to dig in - it is a Russian-speaking minority from ex-SU states.
I guess that would be 50+ mln people potential.
Of course, they are not all interested in immigration, but if you apply an effective campaign, it can be an easier goal than changing the family structure.
When I was doing research for immigrant labor, I was surprised by two factors. The first one, the fact that Russia is the biggest immigrant labor market in Europe, surpassing Germany by approx. 20%. The second one, how hard it was to find the data. It would be actually impossible for someone, who does not speak Russian. It is being done by purpose. To admit that more migrants run the Russian economy than in Germany is a blow to the political narration. "Russia produces nothing", so they obviously can't need a 12+ mln immigrant labor, do they?
This immigrant work power is another possibility, but there is a hatch. Most of them are people from *stan republics, who barely integrate. Only some of them are smart enough to educate the Russian system, while the waste majority are OK with taking less paid, harder jobs that require no other skills rather than manual ones.
Russia is playing that quite smart I must say.
New immigration law requests living in the areas once influenced by Russia, speaking Russian, and knowledge of Russian cultural code. That is literally the whole of the Soviet Union, plus most of Poland if one is to be precise.
Now, they are taking active measures with fighting illegal immigration, and diasporas - as the diaspora existence alone proves, that they don't want to integrate into the society.
That should form an interim solution either.
If you combine that with the political stabilization, improving economy, social welfare country as Putin defined it, the scale of progress, educational&health issues ... Russia would be really the last European country to be worried about.

https://www.superjob.ru/research/articles/113053/esli-ne-rossiya/

The number of Russians who think that life in Russia is good has almost doubled in the last 11 years.
In 2010, when asked if they had a choice (as in ideally without costs in terms of social links and having
to start from scratch) to move to another country (some NATzO utopia, no doubt) only 23% of Russians
said they would remain in Russia. In 2021, this number has increased to 41%.

The most popular ideals for ex-pat wannabes are:

US 7% (5% in 2010)
Canada 4%
Italy 4%
Switzerland 4%
Germany 3%
Spain 2%
Sweden 2%
Australia 2%
UK, others 1%

It is not discussed in the video but there is a substantial percentage of undecided as is normal for such
polls. It is 11%.

Interestingly, more women than men want to stay in Russia. If the quality of life in Russia was horrible, they
would not be happy.

The figure for the US shows us how US propaganda afflicts the minds of people. Even though the quality
of life in the US is slipping and there is a near civil war of societal division after 2016, we have morons thinking
it is the best place to live. These people clearly have no idea what reality is in the US or any of the other
countries they project their fantasies on. Given a choice between the US and Canada, they should rank
Canada higher.

Of course, the liberast media sources in Russia are spinning this poll as affirming how bad life in Russia is.
If it was so bad, then the number of people wanting to leave would be increasing and not falling below 50%
in 10 years. The undecided fraction cannot be included as those yearning to leave.

flamming_python wrote:

So Russia has to focus on its existing population and figuring out why its and European birth rates in general, have decreased so much.

Being from a continent with a high population growth - it can usually be linked to standard of living. The higher the standard of living, the lower the birth rate and visa versa. You will see that in Europe that any growth in population will only be amongst the poor which are most likely also immigrants from Africa and the Middle-East.

You should take a trip to India or Africa or even Brazil to experience what poverty really is. Stop trying to figure out your low population growth - you're blessed Russia is doing great!  

Imagine this on on your way to work in St Petersburg!  



BTW - what is the position regarding non-Russian speaking people wanting to move to Russia?

Not even Italians want to life in Italy.

flamming_python wrote:

Also, once you get citizenship, you can invite some of your family members to the country. That's another way of getting into the country, have a relative who's a Russian citizen or marry a Russian citizen.

So what would be in Russian "baby i'm still free take a chance on me" ?




I guess not only living standards decide about immigration, also how easy to find a job legally + PR for country , yes yes - look at the USA. It looks like slowly but surely things are changing. I hope pace is fast enough

flamming_python wrote:

Citizens of some non-Russian speaking countries (e.g. Cuba) are eligible to stay in Russia for quite a long period of time (I think 3 months) on just a tourist/visit visa, which is enough time to basically find employment in a specialist sector and then have the company help you get a work permit. Or just go across the border to another country when the visa period is up, and then come back in on a fresh visa. Lately I've been meeting some Cubans here in St. Petersburg who are emigrating from a bad economic situation at home. One guy is trying to join his family across the border in Finland.

For citizens of the rest of the world, you'll probably have find work at a Russian company first and then apply for a work permit, or start doing business in the country or with the country and have that be your springboard.

There's a YouTube channel of an Australian family who moved to Russia and were helped out by the governor of Novosibirsk region to get permanent residency. However in their case the family has been coming to Russia for 10 years already to take part in construction work and other projects, so they already knew some of the language and had some previous documents already.

For young people the best bet is to study at a Russian university. If you attain a 'red diploma' at the end of your studies (an honour's degree essentially; you'll have to get A's and B's in every single subject in every single term), then you are eligible to apply for permanent residency and should be granted it assuming you haven't gotten into any trouble during your student years there. Permanent residency is something you'll always have, so at that point you're free to come and go and do whatever you want in the country, and then apply for citizenship if you continue to live there for 2-3 more years.
Those are quite hard to achieve though. For all the other students who get blue diplomas, you can still apply for temporary residency, and find a job which will allow you to stay in the country.
Generally the process is temporary residency -> permanent residency -> citizenship

Also, once you get citizenship, you can invite some of your family members to the country. That's another way of getting into the country, have a relative who's a Russian citizen or marry a Russian citizen.

Thanks for all the interesting info! South Africans are also eligible for the 90 day visa - so yes that can be an interesting option.

Some time ago there was quite a drive for South African farmers to settle in Russia and a few left already. Most South Africans seems to favour Australia, Canada and New Zealand and obviously the UK and US as well, but Russia seems to offer a good alternative.