RUSSIANS INCREASINGLY OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE FUTURE
2004-07-01 16:41
MOSCOW (RIA Novosti commentator Olga Sobolevskaya) - Optimists outnumber pessimists in Russia today, according to the ROMIR Monitoring holding. "People are optimistic about Russia's future and they are equally optimistic about their personal future in the short term," says Mikhail Tarusin, who heads the socio-political research department at ROMIR.
Pessimistic sentiments prevailed over optimistic ones in Russian society in the 1990s. "People had a feeling that the world around them was ruined," said Mr Tarusin. He links growing optimism to "President Putin's coming to power, his policies and economic stability."
Evidence to this effect also comes in the results of survey published recently by the Russian Academy of Sciences' (RAN) Institute of Comprehensive Social Research: 57% of Russians believe the country is developing dynamically largely thanks to President Putin. This is compared to the 31.6% of respondents who noted the entire nation's contribution to economic growth.
"This is not surprising that people pin their hopes above all on the government," Igor Yurgens, a prominent economist and vice-president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, said when commenting on the survey's results. He pointed out that this was a Russian tradition dating back centuries.
Many young people are also pinning their hopes for a better future on the president, as 45% of people in the 18 to 24 age bracket even said they were ready to help the president tackle the "prime objective for the next four years, i.e. improve living standards considerably," according to ROMIR.
Russians have become more self-confident. The RAN Philosophy Institute suggested an explanation for this growing optimism. The number of those who rely largely on themselves or their relations and friends has risen from 43% in 1990 to 78%. Indeed, 42% of those asked by the Agency of Regional Political Studies were positive that their children would have a better future.
An increase in real personal incomes is yet another reason for optimism. In 2003, personal incomes peaked for the period of economic reforms, reports the State Statistics Committee. They grew by 14.6% in 2003 compared to 2002. Healthcare and Social Development Minister Mikhail Zurabov has forecast that average salaries will more than double by 2007. "The incomes of the poorest sections of population are growing too, although they cannot thus far afford to acquire new possessions," said Natalia Tikhonova, deputy director of the RAN Comprehensive Social Research Institute.
Experts indicate that increasingly more Russians are depositing money in banks and invest it in securities, which also testifies to growing optimism among people. The overall level of private individuals' rouble and foreign currency deposits increased from 176.7 billion roubles in early 1998 to 1640.2 billion in early March 2004 ($1 equals 29 roubles).
Although they said they had to work at the maximum of their abilities to achieve it, 45% of the ROMIR Monitoring respondents described their standard of living as quite decent. The Yury Levada Analytical Centre, a social research organisation, said 46% of Russians saw themselves as middle class and were optimistic about their, as well as Russia's, future.
Young people are, not unusually, the biggest optimists. Opinion polls conducted in Russian provinces show that 50% to 70% of the younger generation have a positive take on current developments in the country. Indeed, 60% to 80% of them, according to various calculations, are confident that the future is bright no only for them, but also for their children |
