(Foreign-owned) Moscow Times: Russia Will Be One-Third Muslim in 15 Years, Chief Mufti Predicts

Russia’s Muslim-majority regions, including republics in the North Caucasus and the republic of Tatarstan, are known to have the highest birth rates in the country, reflecting similar trends worldwide. Various estimates place the current Muslim population in Russia at between 14 million and 20 million people, or between 10 to 14 percent of Russia’s total population of 146.8 million in 2018. “According to experts, Russia’s [Muslim] population will increase to 30 percent in a decade and a half,” said Ravil Gainutdin, the chairman of the Council of Muftis, a religious group representing Russia’s Muslim community.

I hope my readers are well acquainted enough with my reporting on Russian demographics to identify this for the BS this is. But if not, here is a refresher:

In reality, the statement of the Council of Muftis has far more prosaic reasons. Namely, the more Muslims there are, the more funds they get. And perhaps they’ll even get another mosque in addition to the grand total of four that currently exist in “Moskvabad”.

At least they found *one* Russian celebrity priest who agreed with them:

Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov, an official in Russia’s Orthodox Church, agreed with Gainutdin’s forecast and predicted that “there won’t be any Russians left in 2050.” “It’s too late,” he told the Govorit Moskva radio station when asked if the demographic trend could be reversed.

But I don’t imagine the Blue Checkmarks will be tripping over themselves to report on Smirnov’s other… ideas in such a context less tone.

Incidentally, this is a very interesting (if predictable) pattern that I noticed almost a decade ago.

While people who speak of Europe’s Islamization and “Eurabia” are treated as pariahs in the West – arguably, a rather more realistic prospect, at least as pertains Western Europe (e.g. as suggested by demographic projections from that well-known extremist outfit, the PEW Research Center) – they are instead quoted uncritically and even approvingly when when the topic comes to “Russabia”.

For instance, he is what respectable newspapers were printing in 2006 based on the “research” of “ex”-CIA “Russia analyst” Paul Goble:

But Russia’s Muslims are bucking that trend. The fertility rate for Tatars living in Moscow, for example, is six children per woman, Goble said, while the Chechen and Ingush communities are averaging 10 children per woman. And hundreds of thousands of Muslims from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have been flocking to Russia in search of work. Since 1989, Russia’s Muslim population has increased by 40 percent to about 25 million. By 2015, Muslims will make up a majority of Russia’s conscript army, and by 2020 a fifth of the population. “If nothing changes, in 30 years people of Muslim descent will definitely outnumber ethnic Russians,” Goble said.

Didn’t exactly pan out, now did it?

But here’s the funny thing. Back when I about that in 2010, the most prominent references I found on the Internet to the (supposed) prodigal fecundity of Tatars and Chechens in Moscow were on comments on Stormfront Russia.