For One in Three Russians, the Internet is Unknown Territory, Poll Shows

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 2, 2014) About 28 percent of Russians, or almost a third of the populace, likely have never surfed the web in their lives, according to a new poll.

In the poll published Monday by the independent Levada Center, 28 percent of respondents said they never went online and that they had no Internet access. An additional 8 percent said they did have online access, but never surfed the web regardless.

The total figure of Russians who never go online, 36 percent, has barely changed since a similar poll was conducted in July last year, when 35 percent of respondents said so.

A majority of Russians, however, are web-savvy – 46 percent go online daily, and another 15 percent hit the net at least once a week, the poll showed.

Looking for information, talking to people and “fun” are the most popular uses Russians have for the web. “Tracking news” was the fourth most popular option on the list, followed by “listening to music” and “watching or downloading movies.”

The Levada poll also showed Russian Internet users prefer domestic sites rather than foreign imports such as Facebook or Twitter.

Russian powerhouse Odnoklassniki was ranked the most popular social network, used by 80 percent of respondents. Two other Russian inventions, VKontakte and Moi Mir, came in second and third, respectively, with 57 percent and 24 percent, beating Facebook, which came in fourth with 18 percent.

Only 21 percent of respondents said they used either Twitter or Instagram.

More than half of all respondents, 54 percent, said they believed security services had access to confidential personal information posted on the web, and a slightly lower figure of 53 percent said they supported Internet censorship.

The poll questioned 1,600 people in 46 regions in Russia and had a margin of error of 3.4 percent.