Russia does indeed face a population (or rather depopulation) problem. Unlike 99% of the countries in the world, Russia population has been
continuously shrinking for the past 15 years- in a row. It's shrinking by about one percent a year, but if you puy 15 years back-to-back what do you
get (and don't forget to compound those losses). And a shrinking population is not that big of an issue for small countries, but in a huge country
(land-area) like Russia it poses obvious risks. Chinese migrants are already streaming into Southeast Russia, with some cities having Chinese-born
migrants as near majorities. Ethnic Russians are being quickly replaced by the growing population of migrants and immigrants from Asian countries
(there is really no such thing as illegal-immigrants, but they could be seen as such). This could lead to major problems in a decade or so.
Here is Russian population counter to see how big of a problem depopulation is:
www.mnsu.edu...
Births since January 1, 2005: 3,276,898
Deaths since January 1, 2005: 4,766,399
(of course this doesn't include immigrants).
But you are right that blaming gays for the problem is just an excuse. There are more realistic problems, and dealing with them is no easy matter or
even immposible. For example:
-Over 1/2 of Russia is nearly uninhabitable. Certain cities in Northern Siberia and the far East were created during an industrial boom, and people
either wanted to move there because of money or were forced to move there. Now that the economy deteriorated, few want to remain in the harsh
conditions, where life-expectacy is naturally lower than the rest of the country due to climate. Some cities became nearly abandoned, others rely on
oil and natural resources to stay inhabited.
-Divorce rates are high due in no small part to the remaining issue of alcoholism, especially outside urban areas.
-Economic conditions, both good and bad contribute to the problem. If there are no jobs and the economy is bad families choose to delay having
children. If the economy is booming like it is now in some cities, women choose to focus on their business careers instead.
Blaming gays is really just looking for an excuse to prevent them from having a parade or whatever they wanted to have there.