Russian travel blogger named seven regions with the greatest population decline in 2024

Russian travel blogger Denis Zabelin described seven regions of Russia with the words “emptying before our eyes.” He shared his opinion on his personal blog “Life in Motion” on the Zen platform.

The author of the material got acquainted with the ranking of absolute population decline and Bashkorkostan took first position on the list. In 2024, the republic lost about 21.7 thousand inhabitants.

“You can have a quite decent regional capital and at the same time lose population in dozens of small cities and towns. A young man from the regional center can go to Ufa. From Ufa, another person can move to Moscow or St. Petersburg. As a result, a specific street remains in place, the house remains in the same place, the road has not gone away, and there are gradually fewer people,” explained the Russian.

The second place in the population anti-rating was taken by the Nizhny Novgorod region - a loss of 20.8 thousand people per year. “The problem here did not appear yesterday. If you look at a long period, the region has been losing population for decades,” the traveler noted.

The Kemerovo region (-20.2 thousand people) was in third place, and the Volgograd region was in fourth place (-19.6 thousand people). “The Belgorod region lost about 18.7 thousand people in 2024. In sixth place is the Altai Territory: a loss of almost 16 thousand people. The Saratov region lost 15.4 thousand residents and took seventh place,” the tourist summed up.

“I was expecting a completely different list. I would wait for Komi there. Kirov region. Mound. Omsk. I would probably think about Transbaikalia or the Amur region. And these regions are not in the top seven. It turns out to be an interesting thing. We are accustomed to perceiving the demographic problem as a story about the distant North, Siberia and the Far East. It seems that people are leaving there because it is cold, far away and expensive. But this rating shows a different picture,” the blogger concluded.