According to data from the Rosstat statistical service, 16,000 fewer children were born in Russia in the first half of 2024 than in the same period in 2023, and the least since 1999. The Kremlin called this figure “catastrophic” and is trying to change it with new laws. TASR writes about it according to the Sky News and Moscow Times websites.
Contrary to the negative demographic trend, spouses Vera and Timofey Asakhiv have eight children – 18-year-old Sofia to 18-month-old Marusia, and they became the Moscow family of the year. “It is a great honor and joy. It brings pride to our family, not only my husband and I are proud, but also the children and their grandparents,” Vera Asachjová told Sky News.
By Russian standards, the above-average number of children earned them the prestigious Award of Parental Fame. A photo of the whole family dressed in red also appeared on advertising billboards in the city with the slogan “We have room for growth”.
The promotion of a childless life will be fined
The Kremlin is trying to change the negative demographic trend by banning the “promotion of life without children”. The law was unanimously approved by the lower house of the Russian parliament last month. “There will be no country without children,” State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin, a member of the ruling United Russia party, said before the vote.
It fines individuals up to 400,000 rubles (3,450 euros) and organizations up to 5 million rubles (43,100 euros) for “promoting a life without children” through online platforms, media, films and advertisements.
“It’s an ideology against life on earth,” Tatiana Buckaya, an MP for the ruling United Russia party and a member of the parliament’s family protection committee, told Sky News. “If (our parents) had followed it, none of us would be here today. Maybe it would be other people and maybe even robots,” she added.
However, the low birth rate can also be caused by the high costs of raising several children or the partner’s participation in a “special operation” in Ukraine, in the worst case, the fathers of the families die there. This is the official name of the war in Russia, which Moscow unleashed in February 2022.
One-child families are weird
Vladimir Putin has long called on Russian women to have at least three children and secure the future of Russia. MP Buckaja described families with only one child as “strange”.
“If this family has lived together for a long time, you think, ‘Well, maybe they have diseases. Maybe something is wrong in the family’. No? They lived together for 30 years and gave birth to only one child. Something is not right,” she explained.
Feminist activists like Zalina Maršenkulova believe that the law prevents women from freely deciding whether or not they want to have children. “It’s reproductive violence,” she told Sky News. “It’s another oppressive law that (authorities) needed to make all women slave reproductive machines. If you’re smart, if you love freedom, if you respect yourself, you can’t live in Russia. That’s what they’re trying to tell us with this stupid law,” she said. The prominent blogger left the country shortly after the start of the invasion, and earlier this year criminal proceedings were launched against her in absentia for “justifying terrorism”.
