Just 15% of Russians Say Moscow Attractive Place to Live – Poll

(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, August 30, 2013) ­ A recent opinion poll has shown that only 15 percent of Russians think that Moscow is an attractive city to live in, while another 25 percent prefer small-town life.

Some 60 percent of respondents said they could not see any “good qualities” in the average Muscovite, considered arrogant (19 percent), greedy (9 percent), rude (9 percent), mean (7 percent) and callous (5 percent).

The survey, by the state-run Russia Public Opinion Research Center, also revealed that just 11 percent of Russians would want to live in the country’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg.

More than half of respondents (65 percent) said they preferred to live outside of Moscow because of the big city’s pollution. Fifty-three percent said that small towns seemed safer.

About a tenth of Russia’s 143 million population lives in Moscow, according to official statistics. In a similar opinion poll in 2006, about a fifth of respondents said they preferred to live in Moscow.

The recent poll was conducted earlier this month using a nationwide sample of 1,600 adults across 130 residential areas.