Credit: Ivan Musinov.

There is this strange dichotomy with respect to Russia.

The Western elites like Hillary Clinton and many Russophile right-wingers believe that it is a paragon of fascist/conservative and white supremacist/traditionalist values, respectively. (The main difference being that the former think that this is Bad, while the latter think it’s Good).

On the other side, the more fervently anti-Putin Russian nationalists and /pol/ shitposters are in agreement that the Kremlin are just pursuing a Russian version of multiculturalism and open borders.

The Myth of Mosque-O

The central exhibit in this has become the Cathedral Mosque, and photos of the 100,000-200,000 strong crowds congregating around it on Islamic holidays.

Even Steve Sailer has written about it. Our Ukrainian friend AP never tires of reminding us about it in the comments.

Here is a slightly more relevant statistic: There are a grand total of four mosques in Moscow, and this is one of them.

Moreover, it was originally built in 1904, then controversially demolished, and rebuilt in a project largely financed by a private Dagestani tycoon, Suleiman Kerimov.

The other Moscow mosques include the historical Old Mosque (constructed in 1823), the Moscow Memorial Mosque (more of a war monument than a place of worship), and one that is part of a complex of religious buildings that also includes a Buddhist stuppa. The latter two were both constructed in the 1990s.

This is in comparison to Moscow’s 1110 churches, a number which is increasing by about 5% yearly.

Two of them are Catholic churches. What is the ratio between the Muslim and Catholic population in Moscow? 20:1? 100:1?

To add an international perspective, the “UK Mosque Searcher” lists 427 mosques in London (many of which are funded by Saudis).

It should therefore be immediately obvious as to why the streets around the Cathedral Mosque are jam-packed with worshippers. Unlike in London, or Paris, or Berlin… they pretty much have nowhere else to go!

It is also probably – hopefully – as good a proof as any that Russia’s elites are not focused on a population replacement agenda, as is evidently the case in Western Europe. If mosques aren’t being constructed, then presumably, there aren’t any intentions to keep many Muslims around in the long-term.

What I am saying is that there is rhetoric and there are facts and statistics, and the former is no substitute for the latter if you want to be taken seriously outside your own narrow ideological circles.

The Myth of Moskvabad

Here is another, in many ways stunning, statistic: Moscow is the last and only megacity in the world where Europeans remain a solid majority.

According to the 2010 Census, 92% of Muscovites are Russians, rising to 94% amongst infants. For all intents and purposes these figures go up to more than 95% if you only count Slavs and other non-Central Asian and non-Caucasian minorities. Now yes, to be sure, if you go outside, then 85%-90% of the faces you encounter will have a Slavic appearance. In 2014, the Federal Migration Service estimated there were 1.4 million foreign workers in the city, of whom 400,000 were there illegally. Bearing in mind that the city’s official 12 million strong population is overwhelmingly Russian,

Rounding that up to two million – while bearing in mind that a significant percentage of those are Ukrainians and Moldovans – and adding them to the city’s official population of 12 million, which is overwhelmingly Russian, and you get a figure of about 14 million people. That is, about 85% European.

In comparison, London is 60% white according to the latest UK census. The French (in)famously don’t collect such data, but Paris is probably similar. Non-Hispanic whites constitute 45% of New Yorkers and 29% of Los Angelinos.

Most importantly with respect to the post-1960s European experience, fertility amongst these Gastarbeiters appears to be very low. There’s a simple explanation why this must be the case: There are 8x as many Uzbek and Tajik male citizens in Russia as women in the 17-25 year age group, and 4-5x as many in the 25-45 year age group. Men cannot bear children, as it generally acknowledged outside the SJWsphere.

There’s another scrap of circumstantial but pretty strong evidence to support this. In Europe, we are constantly inundated with news of how Mohammed has become the most popular’s baby boys’ names in the latest European city of church spires and historical taverns. Yet according to Moscow official statistics, it was the 80th most popular name in the city in January 2015, with only ten Mohammeds being born (actually some “ethnic” names were more popular: There were 26 Amirs in 51st position, and 16 Umars in 66th position). The most popular “ethnic” girl’s name was in 36th position, with 34 Aminas being born.

This is not to say things are ideal, and I don’t think I ever have. London, Paris, and Berlin did not become the way they are now over a few years, but over several decades. Not even the Social Democrats of Germany ever planned for Gastarbeiters to stay permanently. There is no guarantee that the same will not happen in Russia.

Yet even so, it’s important to keep things in perspective.

The Last White Megacity

Here’s a stunning implication: Moscow is now the last and only megacity in the world where Europeans remain a solid majority.

In contrast, Japan has three 99% Japanese conurbations, out of 127 million people. China has more than a dozen. Korea has one.

This is a very sad state of affairs for the European world in general, but it might well be a relative boon for Russia itself. Economists have long identified increasing returns to city size for economic wealth and technological productivity, and psychometricians have long noticed that big cities tend to attract the cognitive elites, which further turbocharges economic dynamism. Russia is the only country within “Greater Europe” to retain a megacity with a solidly predominant white population and its associated benefits of a high average IQ.

To be sure, there are plenty of megacities in the world. Most are now in the lower IQ Third World, and thus inconsequential from a “smart fractions”-central perspective, but a good twenty or so are in high-IQ East Asia, a civilization that has thus far managed to escape the “baizuo” disease of mass immigration and cultural decomposition.

However, considering East Asians’ relative lack of curiosity, it is not completely beyond the realm of the possible that Moscow might become a genuinely one of a kind cultural and scientific hub as the 21st century goes on.