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Revision as of 23:42, 15 December 2004
Russians (Русские - Russkie) are an ethnic group of East Slavic people, which live primarily in Russia and neighboring countries.
Note: often the term Russian is used to refer to any citizen of Russia. In the Russian language there also exists additional recently revived politically correct word for denoting a person of any ethnicity that holds a Russian citizenship (Россиянин - Rossiyanin). Ethnic Russians make up about 80% of the population of Russia.
Population
Russians are one of the largest ethnic groups in the world with a population of about 150 million people worldwide. Roughly 116 million ethnic Russians live in Russia and 28 million more live in neighboring countries. A relatively small number of Russians, around 2 million, live elsewhere in the world, mostly in North America and Western Europe.
Religion
Russians are predominantly of the Orthodox Christian faith. More specifically, most belong to the Russian Orthodox Church.
Russians outside of Russia
China
Russians are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China (as the Russ), and there are approximately 10,000 Russian Chinese living mostly in northern Xinjiang, and also in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang.