Demographics

The 2020-2021 Census put down the number of Itelmens in the RF as 2,596 people, 1,193 of them being men and 1,403 women. The Census showed there were 1,029 Itelmens living in cities (794 men and 589 women). There were 1,567 Itelmens living in rural areas (753 men and 814 women). According to the latest census, there were 1,910 Itelmens in Kamchatka Krai (885 men and 1025 women). Itelmens living in urban areas made 561 people (248 men and 313 women), those living in rural areas made 1,349 people (637 men and 712 women).

The numbers of rural Itelmens have been gradually falling since the early 2000s. IN 1999, there were 1,029 of them in Tigilski District of the Koryakskiy Okrug, but by January 1 ^st , 2008, there were just 862 Itelmens there. This phenomenon is down both to the natural population decline (the mortality rate often surpasses the birth rate) and to the migration of young people from rural areas to cities for study and work. The number of Itelmens living in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy and Yelizovo keeps growing due both to migration of qualified professional with secondary and higher education degrees from rural areas and to “restoration of ethnic affiliation” by Itelmens who were recorded as Russians previously. The official recording of them as Russians was caused, among other things, by the 1960s-1970s administrative campaigns of shutting down “hopeless” settlements, which led to a number of Itelmens moving to other areas or cities and changed their ethnicity, “recording themselves as Russians”.

According to the data of censuses, in 1989, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy had 179 Itelmens, in 2002 there were 279 of them, in 2020 – 1,455 representatives of this ethnic group.

In the settlement of Kovran – “the capital of Kamchatka Itelmens” – there were 376 people, by 2021 the population of the settlement had shrunk down to 241 people.

A sizeable portion of male population of Kovran is not involved into any traditional economic activities, since the communities of the indigenous minor ethnic groups of the North registered in this settlement find it extremely hard to carry on with their traditional methods of fishing in the river Kovran due to administrative obstacles.

Until very recently, young Itelmens of productive age were under harsh psychological pressure due to lack of jobs and permanent unemployment. Some of young Itelmens left the Okrug and moved to live in major cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, where they engaged in activities far removed from traditional trades of the North.