Yesterday the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center presented data on how Russians viewed the situation in their country and their personal lives. 11% believe that “everything is good” in the state; 67% - “everything is normal”, 14% - “everything is bad.” The index of the social climate reduced to a minimal level this year. However, the current index is significantly better than the results of previous years.
Moreover, Russians optimistically view the situation in their personal lives. A positive attitude toward their personal lives is mainly expressed by people with high incomes (37%), residents of small towns (35%), and 18-24-year old people (37% say that everything is “great” or “good”).
Young people are a category with which the state is intensively working today. According to Pavel Krasnorutsky, Chairman of Russian Youth Union, great attention is paid to patriotic education: “Our territorial organizations work across the country. We are indeed not just carrying out military-sporting events. For example, the creative competition of the patriotic song 'A Soldier's Envelope' is held annually in Stavropol Territory. There is, of course, the civic patriotic action 'We are Citizens of Russia', known to all, which accompanies the receiving of passports by young citizens of the Russian Federation. There is also the event 'Light in the Window', when volunteers of the Russian Youth Union visit veterans, help them in cleaning either their country house, and the youth receives invaluable knowledge, invaluable experience.”
Krasnorutsky says that any military-sports game or military-patriotic work must be accompanied by a historical aspect: “It is important for all these projects, programs, that a large part should be devoted to historical aspects, the history of our state. You cannot be a patriot without knowing your own history.”
The Russian Youth Union “systematically works with student councils, and universities have a lot of patriotic student clubs, there are paintball teams.” This year the federal round of the military-patriotic game Zarnitsa took place in Zabaykalsky Territory. “It was held at a really well organized, meaningful, I would even say, intellectual level. Of course, the game must be constantly upgraded, it must find new directions related to the history of our state, so that in addition to military and sports training, there would be a more intelligent, a more developed direction, as well as a creative part. Young people see that the military-sports games, the traditions which were established during Soviet times, they continue, and it is actually very important in the direction of the civil and military-patriotic education.”
