Ethnic Diversity in Russia

Most people have a very specific vision when they think of a typical Russian person. While many Russians may fit this bill, it is surprising to know that most people in Russia today are not ethnically Russian. The Russian Empire, spanning from 1721 to 1971, covered a large amount of the Eurasian area and, therefore, included many different nationalities of people. In fact, during the height of the Empire, less than 50% of its people were ethnically Russian. The rest were a scattered combination of Jews, Poles, Germans, along with countless more nationalities. While the Russian Empire did dissolve during the 1970s, many of the people residing in the Soviet Union then, and Russia today, still bear some ancestry to the non-ethnic citizens of the Russian Empire.