Russia honors big families in a campaign to halt population decline
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Russia has a long tradition of honoring it soldiers, scholars and scientists for outsized achievements. On Monday, it honored parents with outsized families with the "Order of Parental Glory" — part of a campaign to halt a dramatic population decline.
President Dmitry Medvedev gave couples with four, nine, 11 and as many as 16 children a hero's welcome in a gilded Kremlin reception hall, holding them up as examples to a nation full of families like his own — mom, dad and only child.
The world's largest nation by land mass has seen its population plummet since the 1991 Soviet collapse, with alcoholism, AIDS, pollution and poverty among the factors leading to early deaths and discouraging births.
The average Russian male lives 60 years, far shorter than in most European countries.
While Russians have been having more babies in recent years, demographers warn the population could still decline from 142 million today to 110 million or less by 2050.
Medvedev decorated the proud-looking parents with the Parental Glory medal he instituted by decree last year — a golden two-headed eagle on a red field backed by a blue cross...
President Dmitry Medvedev gave couples with four, nine, 11 and as many as 16 children a hero's welcome in a gilded Kremlin reception hall, holding them up as examples to a nation full of families like his own — mom, dad and only child.
The world's largest nation by land mass has seen its population plummet since the 1991 Soviet collapse, with alcoholism, AIDS, pollution and poverty among the factors leading to early deaths and discouraging births.
The average Russian male lives 60 years, far shorter than in most European countries.
While Russians have been having more babies in recent years, demographers warn the population could still decline from 142 million today to 110 million or less by 2050.
Medvedev decorated the proud-looking parents with the Parental Glory medal he instituted by decree last year — a golden two-headed eagle on a red field backed by a blue cross...
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