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Yuri Levada / Photo from www.echo.msk.ru

Yuri Levada / Photo from www.echo.msk.ru
What Russians Fear Most

Created: 17.08.2005 15:11 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:13 MSK > document.write(get_ago(1124277221)); </SCRIPT>

Yevgeny Natarov

Gazeta.ru

Surveys say that Russians are far more concerned about rising prices than they are about terrorism and especially human rights. While 71 percent of respondents in a survey by the Levada Polling Center said they were more worried about price inflation than anything else, just 15 percent felt threatened by terror attacks. Human rights? A mere 2 percent. The center’s head, Yuri Levada, explains why.

Yuri Alexandrovich, how have the anxieties of Russians changed in the last year? Can you note any tendencies?

If we compare data from surveys taken this year with those taken last year, then price inflation is in first place, far ahead of the others. This year, 71 percent noted price inflation as their number one worry, while last year the number was a bit less – 52 percent. But even then that figure exceeded all others. The number can be included in the highest category of anxiety – over 40 percent. Besides price inflation, the group includes such problems as “poverty, a poorer majority population,” with 53 percent, and “unemployment growth,” at 39 percent.

The next group of anxieties is at a level a bit lower than 30 percent. This includes things such as “economic crisis” – 33 percent, “crime” – 29 percent, “poor access to medical care” – 29 percent, drug use – 29 percent, “poor access to education” – 27 percent, and the wide gap between rich and poor – 27 percent. Then there is the middle group, with problems like “corruption” – 24 percent, “crisis of morals” – 22 percent, “ecology” – 17 percent, and “the threat of explosions and terrorist attacks” – 15 percent.

Next are problems which get only a couple percent points – up to ten. Right now that is “weakness of the government” - 11 percent, the domination of bureaucrats – 9 percent, “<NOBR>Chechnya</NOBR>” – 7 percent, “AIDS” – 6 percent, “nationalism” – 4 percent, “police brutality” – 6 percent. Almost unnoticeably, at 3 percent, people are starting to be worried by conflicts within the government. And somewhere at the very bottom – at 2 percent – is the subject of “limits of rights and freedoms.” And last year, it was the same 2 percent. Unfortunately, the subject is far from the attention of most people.

Military action in Chechnya and terrorism are considerably behind economic problems. How typical is a situation like this?

Military action does not concern everyone. Moreover, unfortunately it’s been going on for so many years that it’s become as habitual as the bad weather. It’s there, and that’s it. Economic problems, on the contrary, aren’t just economic, they are personal economic problems that affect you personally. And we can see that attention to these problems has grown. Last year, it was already high – 52 percent, and now it’s 71 percent. That’s a considerable jump. It was here that the most drastic change in the “worry scene” occurred in the last year. Meanwhile, attention to Chechnya has gone down, last year 11 percent paid attention to it, and this year, as I’ve said, it’s 7 percent. But these are small percentages.

How can the “worry scene” among Russians be interpreted?

It’s clear that what interests the average man in the mass population is that which is closest of all to his body. And prices are what hit closest to home. It’s important to note that that’s exactly how people view the situation.

People are always saying that the price inflation is ahead of any increase in payments. Although economists are saying that it’s not exactly like that, we are dealing with how the people see it. And the people see it like that.

There is also another problem: “crisis in the economy, decrease in industrial and agricultural production”. A bit more people are starting to pay attention to that. Right now it’s 33 percent, a year ago it was 24 percent. Although it’s a lot less important for people than price increases, but they pay attention to that too. And the people who notice it aren’t the ones living in Moscow, but in the provinces. That’s what their life is like.

Concern over the threat of terror attacks is at a surprisingly low level. It’s clear that there are outbursts of fear soon after every attack, but how long do they last? For how long do people remember terror attacks?

There are outbursts. They are uncovered during detailed studies of the dangers of terrorism and the situation in Chechnya. There are strong outbursts following major upheavals. Most recently there have been two, and they exceed, of course, everything that we hear about on a daily basis. When one, two or five are killed, it’s habitual, almost trivial. But the fact that it’s become habitual is also terrible. Tragedies are usually remembered for several months.

We monitor this from different angles. For example, about people’s views about what should be done in Chechnya. For several years now, since 2001, there has been a widespread desire to stop the war and start negotiations.

But once this tendency was disrupted. Right after <NOBR>Nord-Ost</NOBR> there was a wave of rage and there were more people who believed that we should fight to the end.

But this lasted about a month and a half. Afterwards, everything returned to its habitual sate, and the balance of pro-war and anti-war has not changed. In the case of <NOBR>Beslan</NOBR> belligerence increased, but not so much. They were still in second place. And again, after a few months, the sentiment went back to its normal standards.

Back to the “personal economic” fears, how do the changes in sentiment correlate to actual changes in the economic situation?

They are always dependent indirectly. They always fracture over people’s expectations, over their own illusions over what is really happening. Real changes cannot always be detected with the naked eye. People see what’s closest to them, what is happening at the places where they work, in their towns. That does not always correlate to what is happening in macroeconomics.

You say that fears indirectly depend on expectations. Can you describe this dependency? Will high expectations breed more concern about the current situation?

Right now we are noting a certain decrease in expectation. No one is hoping for a miracle anymore. In the best case, people are hoping that things won’t get any worse. When we ask people what they are expecting next year or in the next half year, more than half reply that they hope the situation won’t change. A part is is expecting that it will be better, a part is expecting that it will be worse, but the difference is not that big.

No one is waiting for miracles, and so they’re not too worried about an absence of miracles. There was a period of great hope at the start of the presidency, but that was a long time ago.

What does the jump in anxiety over price increases have to do with? Is it because of the talk about inflation?

Not just talk. People, if you’ll pardon me, go shopping every day and see how the prices for common household products change. This is a fact, and not just talk. The other question, of course, is that people don’t compare this well enough to economic indicators, to currency exchange rates, to state income, to the various welfare packages that they still get. But people don’t notice this as much, while the price increase are in their faces each day.
    
http://www.mosnews.com/interview/2005/08/17/levada.shtml