What's worrying Russians?

Yuri Levada's polling outfit has published the results of a recent survey, which I think are pretty revealing. It will probably be translated elsewhere or commented on in English, but I took a few minutes to put it into English in order to share it here in its entirety:

Russians' Concerns.
August 15, 2005

In July 2005, the Yuri Levada Analytical Center (Levada Center) conducted a survey of 2107 Russians. One of the questions was "Which of the following social problems concern you the most, which do you consider the most acute?" Respondents could choose up to 5 or 6 [sic] answers.

1. Growth of prices [inflation] - 71%

2. Poverty, the impoverishment of the majority of the population - 53%

3. The growth of unemployment - 39%

4. Economic crisis, falling industrial and agricultural productivity - 33%

5. Increasing crime rate - 29%

6-7. Inaccessibility/unaffordibility of many forms of medical treatment - 29%

6-7. Growth of drug abuse - 29%

8. Growing cost/inaffordability of education - 27%

9. Sharp division [of society] into wealthy and poor, inequitable income distribution - 27%

10. Corruption and bribe-taking - 24%

11. Crisis in the areas of ethics, culture, and morality - 22%

12. Deterioration of the environment - 17%

13. The threat of explosions and other terrorist acts where you live - 15%

14. The weakness of the government - 11%

15. Abuses of power and the impunity of government officials - 9%

16. The arrival of immigrants and migrant workers - 7%

17. The military campaign in Chechnya - 7%

18. Growth in the rate of AIDS infection - 6%

19. Police brutality - 6%

20. Inability to obtain justice in a court of law - 5%

21. Growth of nationalism, deterioration of inter-ethnic relations - 4%

22. Delays in payment of salaries, pensions, stipends, etc. - 4%

23. Conflicts between different branches of government - 3%

24. Restrictions on civil rights and democratic freedoms (freedom of speech, freedom of the press) - 2%

Other - 1%

Unable to answer - 1%

The low percentage of respondents expressing concern about immigrants would seem to contradict additional recent polling data which got lots of media play earlier this week about the rise of racism and nationalism in Russia - e.g., "Racist Sentiments Grow in Russia - Survey" in Mosnews. And the relatively low number of people concerned about environmental issues also runs counter to another recent poll, which was written about (in English) by RIA Novosti under the headline "More than half of Russians think environmental situation is unfavorable - poll." I guess it all depends on how you ask the questions.

Coverage of this poll on Mosnews suggested that the story here is Russians' fear of inflation. I heard about this poll while listening to Echo of Moscow Radio, and their commentators' take on it was that the real story is the problems which do not seem to concern the people surveyed. I tend to agree, and this is what I think is revealing about the survey.

Perhaps not surprisingly, people seem to value other freedoms which came about after the collapse of the Soviet Union - the freedom to travel, to exchange currency, to engage in private enterprise - more than the freedom to express opposition to a government which seems to have been able to convince most citizens that it's doing an OK job.

Economic and real-life concerns are more important to people than freedoms which seem abstract - after all, as someone once told me, you can't eat newspapers; unfortunately, people don't realize that the absence of a free market of ideas in the political sphere does have an impact on the quality of the decisions made about economic policy and other things which have a more direct impact on one's pocketbook.