Silly Question: Why Aren’t Russians Considered Asians?

By Daniel Miessler on June 5th, 2008: Tagged as Race

asia

So, speaking from a general perception standpoint, Indians are considered Asians because they’re on the Asian sub-continent. Well, at least to non-Americans. Most Americans think Indians are from the Middle East, but that’s another post.

The question is, if Indians are considered Asian, why not Russians? Russia has like 4x the land mass in Asia that India has. Hell, it has roughly the same land mass as China, Japan, Korea and India combined.

But “Russians” are European?

Here’s what I’m thinking:

maria_car

  1. Most Russians we see look like Europeans. Maria Sharapova doesn’t strike me as Asian, for example, and neither does Fedor Emelianenko or my dean of CS in college named Boris.

  2. Moscow, and other large cities are in the European part.

These make sense, but it just strikes me as weird that the majority of a country’s 1 mass could be in one continent but the people are considered to be from the small part.

Any input from my European or Asian friends?

Notes

1 Yes, I know Russia isn’t a country.

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Viewing 13 Comments

    • ^
    • v

    Since when is Russia "not a country"?


    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/1102275.stm

    • ^
    • v

    My understanding is that it's more of a federation than a single entity.

    • ^
    • v

    It used to be a federation in the soviet days - USSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Russia is indeed a normal country these days.


    Although Russia may have a large land mass in Asia, what proportion of the population are from the European part? I think it is quite large, hence us considering Russians European - as great many are!


    Perhaps if you live in China or Korea you may consider Russians Asian. My wife is Korean; I've just asked her and she considers 'Russians' as Asian - even the Russian family that lives in our building who are from St Petersberg - who look completely European. For me, as a Brit, they're just plain European.


    I guess for a country of that size you just can't label people with a continent in that way.


    I'm a person, not a continent!!!


    aid

    • ^
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    The reason is that a large part of Russia's population lives in its european part, to the west ot the Ural mountains. This has historical reasons, as this map shows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KievanRu... , where you see the area that was occupied by Russia in 11th century, which is also where ethnic Russians originally come from. The whole eastern part was colonized centuries later and was then (and still is) inhabited by other ethnic groups that actually do look like Asians. So, when today someone speaks about "Russians", they usually mean one ethnic group out of quite a lot that make up the population of today's Russia. And this one group is indeed historically from Europe.

    • ^
    • v

    Two other reasons:


    1) Russia is so large that it's considered it's own entity... almost outside of Asia. It also has a different climate and geography.


    2) When you say "Asian", most people think of China, Japan, Korea, etc. -- countries in The Orient. Russians don't fit that mold (which is also why a lot of Americans think Indians are Middle Eastern).

    • ^
    • v

    I'm going to armchair quarterback this, but I think I know why you posed the original question.


    <ol>
    <li>

    Russia is as much of a unified 'country' as the United States. A federal republic of semi-autonomous subnational entities.

    </li>
    <li>

    Russia's population distribution is heavily concentrated in the European part of Russia. Map.

    </li>
    <li>

    Moscow, the largest city, is extremely wealthy as compared to the rest of the country. Something like 90% of the wealth in all of Russia exists in Moscow.

    </li>
    <li>

    Wealth and population concentrated in the European part of Russia means that the only media or people we Westerners come in to contact with are usually from that area.

    </li>
    <li>

    There are Asian-looking Russians. A good customer of mine a few years ago was this short, attractive, middle aged woman. Visually, she appeared to be very Chinese. When she spoke, however, it was with a thick Russian accent. After knowing her for some time, she shared her story, which involved emigrating from Vladivostok (Russia's largest Pacific city) to California.

    </li>
    <li>

    The division between the European and Asian continents is largely artificial (some even claim it has more to do with racism/culturalism versus plate tectonics). The Eurasian Landmass is the more appropriate term, according to the geologist I know.

    </li>
    </ol>
    • ^
    • v

    Am I the only one who finds it amusing that in a post about labeling people from various continents, you used the word Americans to refer to US citizens?

    • ^
    • v

    Carl, check out the Nationality entry at,


    https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html


    On this subject, why does the USA refer to itself as the United States (or US) rather than the United States of America (or USA)?


    From the above link,


    conventional long form: United States of America
    conventional short form: United States
    abbreviation: US or USA


    Is it just for brevity or is there something else to it?


    aid

    • ^
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    @Adrian Interesting. Now, are there any non-US sites that call us Americans? As for the US vs USA .. we were the USA at least through the 1980 winter olympics. I'm not sure when US became more widely used, but it's just laziness.


    This isn't to say that US is entirely new. Indeed the Dollar sign began as an overlapping US ..
    this became an S with two vertical lines through it (basically the bottom part of the U disappeared) and now there's only ONE vertical line (laziness again).


    --


    Anyway, I still find it amusing (in an ironic sort of way) that the word Americans was used in this post.

    • ^
    • v

    In any case, the fact is that "Asians" doesn't refer (only) to continental origin any more than "Americans" does. It's essentially the same thing -- usage overpowering word origin.


    The irony I referred to earlier was really Daniel answering his own question with his own usage of the word "Americans."

    • ^
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    Carl,


    There isn't much confusion about the term "Americans". People in Argentina call us Americans too, and they're in one of the "Americas". So I don't agree that it's ironic to use the term Americans when asking this question. There's no contention regarding that term, and everyone knows which continent "Americans" reside on.


    All I was doing was asking why things were the way they are, not stating that one standard or another should be applied.

    • ^
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    But it's essentially the same. You know what YOU mean by the term "Asians." The fact is that others mean essentially the same thing. You don't question the use of the word "American" for a small subset of those living in the Americas. Why would you question the use of the word "Asian" for a subset of those living in Asia? I know you weren't stating that it should be used one way or the other. I just see the two words (and their usages as it turns out) as essentially the same.

    • ^
    • v

    and .. yes .. I know you began with "Silly question..."

 

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