Russians happier, better off than last year – opinion poll

(Interfax – Moscow, 5 December) Surveys by VTsIOM (All-Russia Public Opinion Research Centre) sociologists have shown that the feeling of social well-being among Russians has increased over the last year.

For example, the percentage of Russians who are satisfied with the life they lead has increased from 26 per cent in November 2011 to 40 per cent in November 2012, whereas the percentage of those completely uninspired by it dropped from 28 to 19 per cent, VTsIOM experts told Interfax on Wednesday (5 December) when presenting the results of their latest survey.

According to them, most Russians do not expect major changes in their life in the next year: 25 per cent said they would “live better”, while 54 per cent expect that everything will “stay the same”. Only 14 per cent of respondents have pessimistic expectations.

Asked by sociologists to assess the financial situation of their families, the majority of respondents (71 per cent) described it as “average”, 12 per cent as “generally good” and 15 per cent as “poor”.

According to VTsIOM, before last year’s parliamentary election, Russians’ opinion of their financial situation was far worse: 22 per cent considered it to be “poor”, 8 per cent – “good”, and 69 per cent – “average”.

Russians’ opinion of the economic situation in the country also changed over the year: currently 27 per cent think it is poor, against 33 per cent in November 2011. However, the percentage of optimists has increased from 62 to 72 per cent.

In the same period, the percentage of Russians who consider the current political situation in the country as “good” or even “very good” increased from 9 to 14 per cent, although the sociologists noted that the percentage of such optimists in the autumn was lower than that in the summer of this year (17 per cent).

On the whole, 64 per cent of those polled are satisfied with the political situation in Russia (against 59 per cent a year ago), 18 per cent think it is generally bad (against 26 per cent). At the same time, 28 per cent of respondents said that the country is going in the right direction, while another 45 per cent partly agreed and 24 per cent disagreed, according to the VTsIOM survey conducted on 27-28 November among 1,600 respondents in 138 population centres in 46 constituent parts of the Russian Federation.