Moscow and St. Petersburg had the highest life expectancies in the Russian Federation, in 1978-1979, which decreased for men by 6.6 years in Moscow and 5.2 years in St. Petersburg by 1994. A 20% sample of permanent male residents of the 1916-1935 birth cohort from Moscow and St. Petersburg has shown that individual survival was the lowest among the least educated in 1990-1994, as compared to the higher educated, who exhibited the best survival rates (Shkolnikov, 1996).