According to polls conducted by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion, Russians were mostly impressed by the Libyan revolution and the Fukushima disaster in Japan (11% for each event). The euro-crisis (8%), the ‘Arab spring’ (6%) and the Russian parliamentary elections (5%) also entered the top 5 news stories. Also Russians will remember 2011 as the year of the Egyptian riots and Russia’s entrance to the WTO (3%).
As far as Russian domestic politics is concerned, the respondents recognized the parliamentary elections as the most important story (34%) – far ahead of all other political developments. The death of the entire Lokomotiv-Yaroslavl hockey team was voted the most resonant tragedy of the year by 2% of the respondents.
Moscow mayor Luzhkov’s dismissal was named as the political scandal of the year. The parliamentary elections and the protest rallies that followed them hold second place in the list of scandals. The arrest of Yulia Timoshenko and Alexei Kudrin’s resignation are also on this list.
One of the most disturbing trends of the year is the increase of support for the so-called ‘Russian March’ demonstrations. In the opinion of Lev Gudkov, head of the ‘Levada-Center’, one of the most respected Russian polling institutions, this trend is due to a lack of self-confidence and stability. People are looking for scapegoats. However, this trend is coming from the roots – no prominent political figures voice the opinion of radical nationalists. "Figures like Zhirinovsky serve only to channel popular discontent into something acceptable for the Kremlin," Gudkov said. "The most frightening thing is that people are deprived of the ability to promote their ideas in a truly democratic manner – via parliament, parties, etc – so the populist nationalistic protests become more and more aggressive.”
The Levada-center asked Russian people a question: “Do you approve of your compatriots having business relations with… (there was a list of neighboring nations?” As a result, 55% of Russians approve of business relations with Azerbaijanis (44% disapprove), 61% approve of business relations with Armenians (39% disapprove), 51% approve of business relations with Georgians (49% disapprove). 44% of Russians approve of business relations with Chechen people, but 55% disapprove of such relations. However, it turns out that Caucasian people shouldn’t be particularly offended by this poll’s results – the results for Jews, Chinese, Japanese and Polish people are no better. And according to the ‘Caucasian Barometer’ data, people from the Caucasus are not delighted about their Russian business partners either, even though the results are slightly better.
As for personal relations, there have been no recent polls. The Social Science in the Caucasus institution conducted a poll two years ago, according to the results of which, Azerbaijani people don’t like to see their women marrying foreigners, Russians included. On the contrary, 51% of Armenians would approve of an Armenian woman marrying a Russian man. Surprisingly, 39% of Georgians would also approve of marriages with Russians.
Of course, all these figures are defined by traditions, religion, etc. But if we compare these figures with the number of inter-ethnic marriages in the USSR, the situation doesn’t look so good.
Today some 50% of Russian citizens would like to see the ‘ethnicity’ section return to our passports. Sociologists suggest that Russians are expressing their desire to establish a sort of ethnic hierarchy and assure the Russian nation’s leading position in it. Psychologists indicate that such an aspiration towards domination is a sign of an inferiority complex.
By Ekaterina Tesemikova, exclusively to VK
