Conduct of large-scale social and demographic surveys (microcensuses) between comprehensive population censuses has been common practice since 1985. The third microcensus was conducted in 2015.

The microcensus was conducted in urban and rural areas all over Russia. The actual sampling size was 2.2 million people or 1.5% of the population living in households. That was less than in previous microcensuses, when 5% of the population had been polled, but the survey was still representative.

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A total of 6190 census-takers were employed to collect data from households. For the first time in Russian census history, every census-taker used a tablet-type PC. The census-takers afterward reported that the use of tablets made their job much easier. Polling often had to be carried out on poorly lit staircases of apartment buildings, on the street at night, and the census-taker had to hold papers in the air. In such circumstances, the luminescent screen and large font on a tablet made the census task much easier compared with paper questionnaires.