Russians in Sweden

Russians in Sweden
Total population
31,907
Languages
Swedish, Russian

There are 22,774 people born in Russia who currently live in Sweden. Russian immigrant women in Sweden were the most highly educated immigrants in Sweden as of 2009.[1]

The Russian Orthodox Church in Sweden have parishes in the cities of Gothenburg, Stockholm, Västerås, Uppsala, Karlstad, Umeå and Luleå, where many Russian first and second generation immigrants live. Most of them arrived in Sweden in the 1920s after the Russian Civil War. During World War II, the Polish resistance movement organized escapes of some Russian prisoners of war who fled from German POW camps in German-occupied Poland to Sweden by sea.[2] Another small wave came after World War II. An increasing number of Russians and others from the former Soviet Union have moved to Sweden since the 1990s, with more than 900 per year receiving Swedish citizenship since 2011.[3] A majority of Russians in Sweden are Russian women who have married Swedish men.[4]

In the Swedish news media, a Russian-Swedish perspective is sometimes given by Lioudmila Siegel, who is the chairperson of the Russian National Association (Swedish: Ryska riksförbundet). During the Russian presidential election in 2012, she identified herself as a supporter of President Vladimir Putin and she rejected accusations of election fraud.[5]

The Russian National Association has close connections to the Russian embassy in Stockholm, and regularly arranges events together with it.[6] It organised an exhibition about Russian women in Sweden called "The Russian Bride – An Ordinary Woman", which examined mail-order brides.[7] The Russian National Association was founded on 18 October 2003. In 2008 the National Association consisted of 20 local associations. In 2009 it joined SIOS, the Cooperation Group for Ethnic Associations in Sweden.[8]

  1. ^ Landes, David (30 January 2009). "Russians in Sweden: taming a fear of the bear". The Local.
  2. ^ Chrzanowski, Bogdan. "Organizacja sieci przerzutów drogą morską z Polski do Szwecji w latach okupacji hitlerowskiej (1939–1945)". Stutthof. Zeszyty Muzeum (in Polish). 5: 33. ISSN 0137-5377.
  3. ^ http://www.statistikdatabasen.scb.se/pxweb/sv/ssd/START__BE__BE0101__BE0101N/MedborgarByteLandR/table/tableViewLayout1/?rxid=15b2e03f-a100-45a2-9e5a-2998202c3ac7 Access date 8 december 2014 (statistics in Swedish)
  4. ^ Lorenz, Karin (11 March 2013). "Den ryska bruden - en vanlig kvinna". Sveriges Television (in Swedish). Stockholm. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  5. ^ "Storseger för Putin som nu anklagas för valfusk". Sveriges Radio (in Swedish). Stockholm. 5 March 2012. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  6. ^ "Nyheter". www.ryssland.se (in Swedish). Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Kingdom of Sweden. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  7. ^ "Вопросы - ответы". www.amor.net.ru. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
  8. ^ "SIOS Historik". /www.sios.org (in Swedish). Cooperation Group for Ethnic Associations in Sweden. Retrieved 4 November 2014.