Russia's Projected Population (by Sheepa)

I made a graph based on Ed's current census numbers to see when Russia would hit 1 billion people. For reference, OTL China hit 1 billion in 1980. OTL India followed after in 1997.

Generally, industrialized nations tend to follow a linear population growth as a result of urbanization. As more of the population migrates to cities, family units become much smaller as the cost per child rises significantly. The migration of immigrants also makes up a sizable amount of the population for industralized nations. The closest example would be OTL US that experienced a linear growth in its population number, despite its participation in the World Wars. So if we follow the current existing trend in red, Russia will hit 1 billion around 2023.

That being said, there is good reason to believe that Russia will hit 1 billion much, much earlier. First, Russia has extremely aggressive pro-worker and pro-natal policies for the time (which can be further expanded in the future) that make it much more affordable for urban families to have a lot of children. Second, Russia has extremely pro-immigrant policies for the time that have encouraged much of the Old World migrants to settle in Russia. This is likely to rise even more with the Covenant removing borders between the members of the Russosphere. Third, the improvement in medicine and affordable access to health care (as well as other basic resources) means that people are dying even less and living longer. So it is very much possible that we could see Russia, an industrialized nation, have exponential growth. Following the existing exponential trend in green, Russia would hit 1 billion around 1963.

But depending on how things shake out in the future, my current guess is that Russia will likely hit 1 billion around 1950 to 1980. The 1930 and 1940 census numbers will show what growth trend Russia is following. Depending on what Ed has in mind for the British Raj, Russia will be the 1st or 2nd country that would reach 1 billion. It may also have some interesting geopolitical effects in the story...