I have sometimes made the point that All-Russian improvements in mortality/life expectancy lag the City of Moscow (or the Baltics) by around a decade. There are some good, relevant graphics that reinforce it from a recent paper:

Щур, Алексей Евгеньевич. 2019. “Города-миллионники на карте смертности России.” Демографическое обозрение 5 (4): 66–91.

GRAPH: Life expectancy [male/female] in Moscow [red], Saint-Petersburg [green], the cities [blue], and the rest of Russia [orange].

As I pointed out in 2008, the post-Soviet economic crisis overwhelmingly impinged on the life expectancy of the less well educated (as most of the mortality increase accrued to heavier drinking; more education being associated with higher IQ, greater foresight, etc). The better educated were also able to partake of foreign health and medical technologies earlier. Hence why there appeared this large gap between Moscow and the rest of the country after the mid-1990s.

This gap is now closing, as life expectancy gains will slow down in Moscow – where they are already at First World levels – while the rest of the country continues catching up as it drinks less and hospitals are modernized. Though it will never close entirely, as LE gaps between capitals (cognitive clusters) and the country at large are typical everywhere.

GRAPH: Life expectancy in Russian cities [blue] vs. their regions [blue] in 1989 vs. 2016.

Volgograd Voronezh Rostov Nizhny Novgorod Samara Kazan/Tatarstan Ufa/Bashkiria Perm Ekaterinburg Chelyabinsk Krasnoyarsk Novosibirsk Omsk

Less educated, heavy drinkers are relatively more a feature of the countryside

GRAPH: GRP per capita [bottom] vs. life expectancy [left]; left – Rest of Russia [orange], millioniki cities blue], Moscow [green]; right – total population [sphere size], regions [blue], cities [red]/

Incidentally, note that Saint-Petersburg is within the cluster of million-population cities in that GRP per capita/life expectancy graph, which confirms my characterization of it as “just the largest gorod-millionnik.”

GRAPH: Share of over 30 y/o’s with higher education [bottom] vs. life expectancy [left]; millionik city regions [left cluster], millionik cities [right cluster], Moscow [far right].

TABLE: Life expectancy [men, women, both].

Volgograd

Voronezh

Ekaterinburg

Kazan

Krasnoyarsk

Moscow

Nizhny Novgorod

Novosibirsk

Omsk

Perm

Rostov

Samara

Saint-Petersburg

Ufa

Chelyabinsk

Just inserting this for easy later reference.