Paradoxes of the Population Record of Closed Cities in the Soviet Union and Subsequent Urban Dynamics

In the postwar period, the Soviet Union developed a unique practice of classifying a large number of cities and towns the activities of which were aimed at maintaining the country’s defense capability. More than 1 million people lived in the cities of the nuclear industry, located in the Urals, Siberia, and the Volga region, and cities and towns at the bases of the navy, strategic missile forces, and the space industry, not marked on any map. This population was included in the composition of other cities (acceptors) and even other regions. Therefore, official data on the population of many cities in the postwar (after 1945) population censuses of the Soviet Union are false, and the calculations of dynamics based on them are incorrect. The data from the Soviet population censuses have never been recalculated. There are no publications estimating the population of closed cities and acceptor cities during the Soviet period. The author has developed a methodology for such an assessment and, on its basis, calculated the population of 46 closed settlements and 89 acceptor cities in the territory of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on the dates of the censuses of 1959, 1970, 1979, and 1989. In addition to Rosstat data on the population, information from the Dom.MinGKH Online Service on the number of apartments in closed settlements by year of commissioning was used. The analysis showed that the majority of the populations of the closed cities of the nuclear industry was counted in other regions, as a result of which the population of eight regions was constantly overestimated, while that of six ones was underestimated. As a rule, the population was assigned to regional centers, but in some regions, to other cities as well. The population of other closed settlements was counted in their regions—in nearby urban settlements or in oblast centers. The result of this practice was an overestimation of the population of 21 oblast centers of Russia and 68 other cities, as well as urban-type settlements, located primarily in the Urals and Siberia.