Boris Polozhy, a department head with the Serbsky National Research Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry, said statistics showed 36.1 cases of suicide for every 100,000 people in Russia.
He said the most problematic regions in Russia were the Koryak Autonomous District (with 133.5 suicides per 100,000 people), the republic of Komi (110.3), the republic of Altai (101.9) and the Nenets Autonomous Area (95.7).
Polozhny added that the situation was much better in the republics of the North Caucasus, with 1.1 registered suicide cases per 100,000 people in Ingushetia, 3.2 - in Daghestan and 4.8 - in North Ossetia.
Moscow and St. Petersburg reported 11 and 17.8 suicides per 100,000 people, respectively.
A Russian Health Ministry official said 5-8% of the total number of suicides in Russia fell within the 9-15-year-old age category.
Vladimir Voitsekh said one of the reasons for this situation was the lack of a federal program addressing the issue of suicide.
"A [federal] program that would finance the psychiatry centers in all regions is necessary," he said. "It would help reduce the number of suicides in the country."