According to the results of a national poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), Medvedev’s faith rating has fallen from his all-time high of 62 percent in January 2010 to 46 percent in April 2011. The number of those polled who have faith in Putin also diminished over that period of time – from 69 to 53 percent. The prime minister’s highest recorded rating, according to FOM, was 71 percent in the third quarter of 2009.

Similarly, the rating for United Russia, the prime minister’s party that holds a near political monopoly over Russia’s political space, fell to 44 percent – the lowest figure in two years. At the same time, the level of distrust towards the party rose from 29 percent in January to 38 percent in April.

Opinions towards other political parties included in the survey – A Just Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, and the Communist Party – remained largely unchanged, although ratings for the Communist Party were up slightly overall.

According to another recent survey done by the Levada Center, United Russia’s rating reached a two-year low in April. When asked what party those surveyed would vote for if elections were this coming Sunday, only 39 percent answered with United Russia. The rating for the Communist Party, however, rose from 12 to 18 percent over that period of time.

As Kasparov.ru pointed out, the Levada Center already noted a marked drop in the popularity of the Putin-Medvedev tandem and ruling party back in January. At the time, United Russia members dismissed the statistics as being influenced by seasonal factors – “a political hangover” – following the New Year’s holidays.

During the December 24 interview, the president made several key policy statements that contradicted Prime Minister Putin, who held his own four-hour televised question-and-answer session called “A Conversation with Vladimir Putin” a week ago.

The first controversial statement came in response to a question by NTV General Director Vladimir Kulistikov. Besides him, the general directors of Channel One and VGTRK, Konstantin Ernst and Oleg Dobrodeev, took part in the interview. “Might I ask you not about ZhKKh, but MBKh?” Kulistikov asked, using in turn the acronyms for housing and public utilities and jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. As the verdict in the second federal case against Khodorkovsky is due to be handed down on December 27, Medvedev was asked to speak on the prospects of the trial “as a lawyer and as a person.”

“As president I can say: neither the president nor any other person in state service has the right to express their position up to the moment the verdict is handed down,” Medvedev responded.

The last “other person” was Putin, who said during his own broadcast that Khodorkovsky was a robber who had been found guilty of fraud and theft by a court and “should sit in prison.” He stressed that this assessment stems from the fact that “Khodorkovsky’s crime was proven in court.” While Putin later specified that the remark was in reference to the first case and not the current one, this was only said to a small audience at the press conference after the broadcast.

Responding to the same question “as a lawyer,” Medvedev said that if anyone had evidence that the actions incriminating Khodorkovsky and co-defendant Platon Lebedev “have been committed by all businessmen,” then “bring it me – or the prosecutor general, more naturally – and we’ll work on it.”

The president declined to have his say on the Khodorkovsky case “as a person.”

Medvedev did express his opinion on a rather resonant issue that Putin had raised a week earlier. Speaking about “various prospective politicians” who, besides the prime minister and himself, he considers to be serious and well-known, Medvedev smiled and said: “I want to make an official announcement: such people exist. I say this without irony,” and here the president smiled even wider, “for example, the leaders of parliamentary factions.”

“And there’s Kasyanov, Nemtsov, Limonov, Kasparov,” Medvedev went on. “These are also public politicians. People have differing attitudes towards them, but they, too, are politicians.”

“But the main resource is a resource of talented people; that’s where our future presidents and prime ministers are,” the president summed up.

During his question and answer session, Putin spoke of the opposition with the utmost harshness. In response to one viewer’s question – “what do Nemtsov, Ryzhkov, Milov, and so on really want?” – Putin said that the opposition figures wanted “money and power.”

“In their time…in the ’90s, they, together with Berezovsky and the people in prison who we remembered today, nabbed not a few billions,” he said. “They were dragged away from the trough, they broke the bank, and now they want to come back to refill their pockets.” On December 23, the named oppositionists filed suit against Putin for defamation.

Medvedev had responded to a question about the opposition in his year-end interview in December 2009, with a less-than-complimentary view: “You know, the so-called extrasystemic opposition, it is extrasystemic because it does not see itself inside the political system,” he said at the time. “They, too, probably, reflect somebody’s preferences; it’s true that I sometimes have a hard time saying whose. But that’s already a question of inner value; I wouldn’t want to offend anybody.”

While Medvedev’s position today differs from both Putin’s and his own last year, the difference is primarily in political style, and there’s no talk of a split between the two leaders, says political analyst Dmitri Oreshkin.

In his own interview, Medvedev spoke “correctly” with the heads of the television channels, while Putin spoke to the people as a populist, Oreshkin explains. “Medvedev, in principal, has a different style; he is a different type of person; indeed, there were no salty questions, no catchphrases or cheap populism. That’s how it it’s been with them from the very beginning. Putin said that state corporations should be managed by civil servants, and Medvedev proposed employing independent managers. As a result, there are both.”

Meanwhile, the oppositionists themselves do not believe that the president’s new position will protect them from persecution. “If he had told the three television directors that the so-called ‘blacklists’ need to be liquidated and that these, as they called us, ‘public politicians’ need to be shown – then it would have been a positive signal,” said former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.

“Maybe he mixed something up or someone gave him the wrong list,” responded Eduard Limonov, leader of the National Bolshevik and Other Russia parties and a leader of the opposition’s primary protest campaign, Strategy 31. “I don’t see him as a prospective politician, he’s got no talent.”

United Civil Front leader Garry Kasparov argues that the president’s opposing view from Vladimir Putin on oppositionists indicates obvious disputes within the president and prime minister’s so-called tandem.

“The question of whether they [the disputes] are tactical or strategic remains open for now, because, regardless of all the significance of Medvedev’s statement, he still isn’t prepared to break away from Putin and ‘putinism,'” Kasparov asserted.

“If we recall Chubais’ recent statement that Medvedev will become president in 2012,” Kasparov continued, “one can presume that this part of the Russian elite would like to save something like ‘putinism’ with a human face; that is to say, return to 2002, when all non-democratic excesses and the corruption of Russian bureaucracy were not thrown in your face so obviously.”

Kasparov warns that only time will tell the true value of the president’s words. “For now, such statements by Medvedev have not turned into real actions, so we’ll wait for 2011,” he concluded.

Medvedev’s interview also touched on issues that he had brought up on his presidential blog on the eve of his yearly parliamentary address – the development of democracy, political parties, and stagnation. “Nobody cancels rallies and pickets,” he said in reference to efforts by police to break up a violent rally outside the Kremlin earlier this month. “But you need to obtain permission.”

The president linked political development to the responsibilities political parties should be taking – including United Russia, the party lead by Vladimir Putin that has a virtual political monopoly over the country. “United Russia should not just sit on the throne,” said Medvedev. “It should exude intelligence and strength. And corrupt [party members] should be pushed back and punished. Do not revel in your accomplishments. You cannot develop through stability alone; there needs to be drive, the intention to overcome yourself. Whoever thinks that everything with us is fine should stay behind in Courchevel.”

Responding to a question of whether it was difficult to find candidates for governor – a post directly appointed by the president in Russia since 2005 – Medvedev asked regional leaders not to linger in their posts for more than three terms. “Any governor must understand that they have two, at most three terms in order to change the lives of the people in their region,” he said. “You need to give way to the young and think more about what people think about you. If a governor has a so-called anti-rating, then he shouldn’t be reappointed.”

The interviewers were silent. “And there’s a pause,” joked the president. “Oh no,” the directors said, and relaxed, changing the questioning to Medvedev’s recent visit to the disputed Kuril Islands. “They’re tense,” the president joked, referring to the Japanese.

Then Medvedev himself decided to ask a question. “I’ll take this opportunity,” he said, and remarked that Russian television has been repeatedly criticized for “filtering information and not telling the truth.”

“While we have wonderful television, our news ticker is wretched,” Medvedev chided the directors.

Kulistikov was the first to respond. “I have always been free while working for the mass media,” he assured the president. Medvedev stared back with a look of disbelief. “There are editorial politics, and they can be discussed, but it is not a question of freedom,” Kulistikov added. According to Ernst, freedom on television is limited by the subjectivity of the people who make it. “But I understand the nature of the claim,” he stipulated.

“The level of freedom always corresponds to the times,” Dobrodeev said for his part. “Right now it is one of the highest levels of freedom in the entire history of television.”

This reasoning did not entirely satisfy the president. “In my view, you’re all right, and that’s your authorial position,” Medvedev said with a smile. “What shouldn’t exist, in my view, is the gap between the lists of important events that happen in life and the lists of events shown in the news. There may be varying assessments here.”

“The channels themselves should assign priorities – what’s more important, what’s less important. But the daily agenda, the list of news events should not have a dramatic break from the internet and other mass media. And in my view, that’s how it looks today,” Medvedev reprimanded the broadcasters. They frowned.

Medvedev did not mention Putin at any point during the broadcast. The president, who Russian citizens have overwhelmingly seen as a conduit for Putin’s policies since the very beginning of his time in office, is trending towards independence. However, this doesn’t indicate that everything has changed in a fundamental way, says Deputy Director Aleksei Grazhdankin of the Levada Analytical Center. When asked in November whether or not Medvedev promotes policies that are actually his own, Russian citizens responded in the following manner: 18% feel he follows Putin’s policies exactly, 53% say he is basically continuing Putin’s policies, 18% say he is gradually changing course, and 4% feel that the president is forwarding an entirely different set of policies. Figures from the same survey taken a year earlier show that opinions have changed slightly, if at all: the distribution of responses fell at 21%, 55%, 14%, and 3% respectively.

Adapted from an article by Gazeta.ru. Translation by theotherrussia.org.

According to the survey, 34% of Russian citizens feel that Russia is a democratic society, up from 26% in 2000. Another 47% say that it is not, down from 54% ten years back. A full 19% were unsure, about the same number – 20% – who felt that way in 2000.

The demographic most likely to doubt Russia’s status as a democratic society turned out to be residents of Moscow, where 60% of those surveyed responded that it was not.

As to what constitutes a “democratic society,” the top factors cited by those surveyed were “democratic/political freedoms” (45%) “accountability of the authorities to the voters” (31%) and “equality/an equal-opportunity society” (27%). Some factors carried more weight this year among respondents than in years past, especially “democratic/political freedoms,” which was up from 30% in 2000. Fewer people listed “equality/an equal-opportunity society,” and “state care for everyday people/systems of social protection” than before.

More than a third of those surveyed, 39%, felt that political life in Russia is moving towards either the reestablishment of Soviet ways (10%), authoritarianism or dictatorship (13%), or anarchy (16%).

The survey also measured political apathy in the country, which the Levada Center says is on the rise:

According to the data of our last study, Russian citizens have become less interested in politics. About a third of respondents (32%) said they were interested in this topic, and the number of such people is falling. 64% of Russian citizens are completely uninterested in politics. Notably, Muscovites demonstrated the least interest of all (there were 19% of such respondents against 74% not interested in political events), which can be explained by the particularities of life in a megalopolis – preoccupation with work and a large number of high-tech leisure and entertainment venues.

The survey was conducted between October 22-25, less than two weeks after regional elections that were criticized by independent observers as blatantly fraudulent.

Researchers from the Levada Center questioned 1600 Russian citizens from 127 different points in 44 regions of the country for their survey. The poll results have a margin of error of no more than 3.4%.

The full results of the survey in Russian can be found by clicking here.

Nemtsov analyses the survey results on his blog:

The Levada Center has published the results of a survey on whether or not Russian citizens know about our report: “Putin. Results. 10 Years.” A presentation of the report was held on June 14 and the report was published on the Internet, and 300 thousand copies were confiscated in St. Petersburg and in a print shop in Smolensk in result. After an analysis for extremism, which they didn’t find, they returned the report to us. And we began to hand it out.

At the current time, 50 thousand copies have been handed out in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladimir, and Yaroslav. More than 300 thousand Russian citizens have read the report on its website.

We can only be thrilled by the survey’s results. 10% of Russian citizens have heard about our report – that’s about 10 million out of the adult population. And 2% have read the report – that’s about 2 million.

Have you heard about the expert report by Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov “Putin. Results. 10 Years”?

Familiar with the content of the report: 2%
Heard something about it: 10%
Hearing about it for the first time now: 82%
Hard to say: 6%

As a matter of fact, it was already obvious at the beginning of distribution that millions of our compatriots had heard about the report or read it. And more than half of those familiar with the report support its basic theses.

Do you agree with the basic proposals of the report?

(taken from those who are familiar with the content of the report of heard about it)

Definitely yes: 10%
Most likely yes: 45%
Most likely no: 16%
Definitely no: 3%
Hard to say: 26%

The obvious informational success is connected with the clumsy and stupid actions by the authorities, which at first organized spam attacks against our website and then confiscated and analyzed [the report] for extremism. An information war by Putin and Lukashenko when fragments of the report were published in the Belarusian official newspaper Respublika also promoted the popularization of the report.

However, the most active work of all to distribute the report begins in the fall, when trips all across the country are planned with the goal of presenting the report in the regions. Our main task is to tell people about what’s happening in our country and what’s being hidden from them by television and the newspapers.

The number of Russian citizens who see signs of a cult of personality surrounding Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been growing consistently over the past several years. According to the results from a survey by the Levada Center research institute, 27% of Russians feel that “yes, all the signs of a cult of personality are there,” and another 28% say that “there still isn’t one, but there are more and more preconditions for one.” Researchers believe that the growth comes as a result of the fact that Russians no longer have a negative view of the idea of a cult of personality itself.

A full third of respondents, 33%, said that “no, there are no signs of such a cult,” while 12% were unsure.

Just four years ago, only 10% of Russians noted a cult of personality around Vladimir Putin at all. “The growth is definitely impressive,” said Boris Dubin, head of the socio-political department at the Levada Center, in remarks to the online news site Gazeta.ru.

According to survey results from the past several years, more and more people each year believe that Putin has a cult of personality. In March 2006, 10% believed that “all the sign of one are there;” in October 2007 – 22%; two years later – 23%, and now, less than a year after that, the figure has grown to 27%. During that same overall period of time, the number of Russians who don’t see a cult of personality fell from 57% to 33%.

“The fact of the matter is that the understanding of a cult of personality itself is no longer as negative as it was after the denouncement of Stalin. Now, most likely, it is viewed positively, the view of people who don’t see anything terrible about a cult of personality,” Dubin told Gazeta.ru.

“During the years of Putin’s rule, a majority of the Russian population has been formed that on the whole welcomes the currently established order and is sure that it is precisely Putin who guarantees this order and stability,” Dubin explained. This majority is made up mostly of relatively prosperous, middle-aged Russian citizens who remain politically active and reside in small to mid-size cities, he said. This is precisely the demographic that believes that the concentration of power in Putin’s hands and his cult of personality are helpful for Russia.

Indeed, more than half of Russian citizens believe that the concentration of all the power in the country in the hands of the prime minister “is for the good” of Russia. Only 22% think that Putin’s absolute power “does not promise anything good for Russia.”

More than half of respondents said that Russia needs a manager – “a strong hand.”

As for when this hand is needed, 27% of respondents said that Russia needs it “constantly,” while another 28% said that “such situations occur (for example, now) when total power needs to be concentrated in one set of hands.” At the same time, both of these figures are down from previous years – 40% and 31% respectively in October 2009.  A full third, 33%, voted against the idea of giving total power to one single person in the current survey.

While Russia’s political opposition decries the existence of a cult of personality surrounding Vladimir Putin, only 11% of survey respondents felt that Russia “definitely” has an opposition at all. Another 38% believe that it “more likely” exists than not. 30% doubt that the opposition exists, and 8% feel that it definitely does not exist. The results are not surprising given that more than two-thirds of respondents – 68% – only learned about the existence of the opposition’s largest campaign, Strategy 31, during the course of the survey.

Only 3% of survey respondents said they were well acquainted with the essence of Strategy 31, knew that the series of rallies are consistently banned by the authorities, and knew that the police violently disperse participants. Very few Russians strongly opposed the campaign – only 4% were totally against it, and 11% were likely against it. That said, more than two-thirds of survey respondents felt that Russia needs a political opposition – 23% “definitely yes,” and 44% – “most likely yes.”

A press release from the Levada Center with the survey results is available in Russian by clicking here.

“What’s more important – democracy or order?” Moreover, how do Russians understand both of these concepts? These were the questions posed to 1600 Russian citizens in January by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), and published on April 12. The most eye-catching statistic is the overwhelming majority of respondents who say that order is more important for Russia than democracy – 72 percent, with 16 percent responding conversely. But that number is actually down from the last time VTsIOM conducted a similar survey in 2000, when 75 percent of Russians said they favored order, and 13 percent – democracy.

But the Russian perception of what “democracy” actually means has changed significantly in the past few years. Given a list of attributes to pick from to define it, significantly fewer respondents chose “freedom of speech/press/religion” as emblematic of democracy (down to 44 percent in 2010 from 55 percent in 2007). While 44 percent picked “economic prosperity” three years ago, only 28 percent picked it in 2010. Figures were also down for “strict lawfulness” (23 to 21 percent) and “order and stability” (25 to 19 percent). On the other hand, more people defined democracy as “the opportunity for everyone to do whatever they want” (10 percent in 2010 compared to 7 percent in 2007), “anarchy” (up to 6 percent from 3 percent), and, most notably, “empty chatter” (up to 11 percent from 5 percent).

Russian perceptions of “order” have changed significantly as well, but VTsIOM’s most recent data prior to this year is from 2000, making the comparisons less meaningful. In any case, compared to opinions in the year 2000, fewer Russians today define “order” as “political and economic stability of a country” (down to 41 from 46 percent), “a stop in the plundering and stripping of a country” (25 from 34 percent) or “the strict observation of laws” (24 from 35 percent). They do define it more often as “social defense of underprivileged segments of the population” (up to 29 from 25 percent) and “the opportunity for people to see their rights fulfilled” (25 from 16 percent).

For both definitions, more Russians were unsure of how to answer this year than in previous ones: 8 percent were unsure about “democracy” in 2010 compared to 5 percent in 2007, and 4 percent were unsure about “order” in 2010 compared to 2 percent in 2000.

As for demographics, those who favored order over democracy consisted primarily of the elderly, the uneducated, and low-income individuals. The majority of them are members of the Communist Party or the Kremlin-loyal opposition party A Just Russia. Democracy was valued more by 18-24 year olds, the highly educated, and wealthier individuals.

Overall, it appears that even if preferences for democracy are on the rise, positive views of what that word means are dwindling. But as the third of the population that still favors a Stalin-like leader (and, consequently, order) continues to age, it doesn’t look like their grandkids plan to follow in their ideological footsteps.

The second poll, conducted by the Levada Center and also consisting of 1600 surveyees from all over Russia, focused on perceptions of the president’s political independence. Caricatures of President Dmitri Medvedev as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s puppet became ubiquitous in the West after Russia’s 2008 presidential election, but have fallen out of style as the press finds itself faced with more and more conflicting statements from the two prominent leaders. And while experts continue to debate whether these conflicts represent real differences of opinion or just attempts to feign legitimacy, most Russians have apparently taken the puppet metaphor to heart. The Levada Center survey published today estimates that 66 percent of Russians believe that President Medvedev “operates under the control of Putin and his adherents” in the Kremlin. At the same time, a sizeable minority of 22 percent reject this notion, maintaining that Medvedev works to further his own policies. Both of these figures are more or less consistent with two other studies conducted in the past year.

Similarly, the majority of Russians (51 percent) feel that power is shared equally by both of these leaders. Indeed, Putin and Medvedev have often remarked about how they work “as a tandem.” But the Russians who do feel that there is an imbalance of power in country are more likely to believe that the majority of it rests with Putin (28 percent) as opposed to Medvedev (13 percent).

Regardless of who’s pulling the strings, Russians are overwhelmingly united in their belief that Medvedev’s is following the same political course as his predecessor: 55 percent say he’s continuing it generally, and 24 percent – exactly. Only 3 percent of Russians believe that Medvedev’s policies are “entirely new.”

The VTsIOM poll can be read in Russian by clicking here.
The Levada Center poll can be read in Russian by clicking here.

According to a poll conducted by the independent Levada Center and released on March 18, the majority of the 27 percent of protest-minded Russians consisted of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 who lived in large cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg. Middle-aged Russians who were moderately educated and had low incomes were the next largest demographic, while residents of small towns and adults with high salaries were the least likely to have any interest in demonstrations.

Expectations that large-scale protests would actually be held was up by 5 percent in the last half year, and Russians’ willingness to participate in them was up 3-4 percent, said the report.

Levada Center Deputy Director Aleksei Grazhdankin said that while the rise in pro-protest sentiments was typical for the spring, the increased belief that demonstrations of a meaningful size would actually be held was notable.

“This is explained by the fact that protests, for example in Kaliningrad, have become more visible,” said Grazhdankin. He also said that the survey indicates a marked rise in both the amount and quality of information concerning large-scale demonstrations.

In what has been dubbed the United Day of Protest, massive demonstrations are planned for Saturday in cities throughout Russia. Those taking part include a vast range of opposition parties, trade unions, human rights advocates, civic organizations, and ordinary Russians in protest against falling standards of living, suppression of human rights, unfair tariffs, environmental degradation, and the continued monopolization of the Kremlin’s United Russia party over the political life of the country. They are protesting in support of the call for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to resign.

The protest planned to take place in central Moscow on Pushkin Square has been banned by city authorities. While organizers were in negotiations with the mayor’s office on Friday, they said the demonstration would be held regardless of the outcome. Representatives of the Moscow City Police meanwhile promised that, if held, the rally would be dispersed and its organizers brought to court. Protests have also been banned under various pretenses in the cities of Kazan, Vladivostok, and Kaliningrad.

In an online interview held by the news website Gazeta.ru and published on Friday, State Duma Speaker and United Russia member Boris Gryzlov said that oppositionists were being paid large sums of money to organize protests against the government.

“There is reliable information – and as a member of the Safety Committee I know it – that sufficiently serious money is paid for participation in these rallies,” said Gryzlov during the conference. He went on to claim that oppositionists are unable to come to terms with the fact that United Russia does so well at the polls and therefore attempt to draw people out into the streets.

“It’s a dangerous development of events,” Gryzlov went on, referring to a recent increase in the size and number of anti-government demonstrations. “Here we sense the color and taste of the colored revolutions. And we sense those same ideologues that get money from a large number of non-governmental organizations from abroad, and create tension with this money that attracts specific citizens to the rallies.”

Gryzlov added that the ultimate goal of opposition parties was to “weaken the state.”

Organizers of opposition demonstrations in Russia have long been suppressed by the government. Moscow city authorities have turned down each of the half-dozen applications filed by the Other Russia opposition coalition within the past year to protest in defense of the constitutional right to freedom of assembly, including one planned for later this month, and police arrested 160 participants in a sizable demonstration last January.

According to the November study, Russian attitudes towards immigrants became more negative on the whole. 61 percent of Russians feel that the government “should try to limit the stream of migrants,” a 9 percent increase from a year ago. Another 30 percent feel that the authorities “do not need to put administrative barriers in the way of the influx of migrants and try to use them for the good of Russia,” down from 35 percent in 2008 and 44 percent in 2002.

Attitudes towards labor immigration also followed a negative trend. Only 19 percent of Russians held a “definitely” or “probably” positive attitude towards the idea that “one meets workers from Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and other nearby foreign countries on construction sites in Russia more often.” This figure was at 30 percent in 2002. Those who held neutral attitudes towards labor immigration fell to 44 percent, down 5 percent from a year ago, and those with a negative attitude rose to 35 percent, up 4 percent from a year ago.

The percentage of Russians who felt negatively towards labor immigrants has fluctuated back and forth over the past decade. In 2000 and 2004, 38 percent of Russians held negative attitudes in this regard, but only 27 percent did so in 2002. Aleksei Grazhdankin, vice director of the Levada Center, told Gazeta.ru that the fluctuations “are connected with the economic crisis and an intensification of competition in the labor market.” Therefore, Grazhdankin continued, “attitudes towards migrants remain in a completely civilized framework, and the level of xenophobia and nationalist enmity is not increasing. People are simply striving to protect their interests in the labor market.”

Attitudes toward the idea of a Russia in which only ethnic Russians resided did not change significantly in the past year.

The number of Russians, however, who support the infamous slogan “Russia for the Russians” and feel that it “has long been time to implement” such an idea has risen to 18 percent from 15 percent a year ago.

At the same time, 36 percent believe that “it would not be bad to implement this idea, but within reasonable limits,” down from 42 percent last year. Additionally, a growing number of Russians believe that “Russia for the Russians” is “genuine fascism,” up to 32 percent from 25 percent last year.

“Such growth is very good,” said Pavel Chikov, representative of the human rights organization Agora. “In the first years of the Putin administration, there was a surge of patriotism that brought with it a growth in neo-Nazi groups.” Chikov explained the change in poll numbers as the result of more frequent public debate on immigration issues in Russia, causing more people to form opinions on the matter. “However,” he continued, “the ratio of the positions remains approximately the same for now.”

“The country is beginning to wake up and develop individual attitudes to various social phenomena, and on the whole this is, unconditionally, positive,” the human rights representative said. At the same time, he noted that the polarization of society indicates increasing degrees of opposition. “It’s good to start public debates, but I fear that it’s also starting knife fights and violence, and the government likewise answers with violence,” Chikov concluded.

1600 people in 46 regions were questioned for the survey from February 20-23rd, with a statistical error of no more than 3.4%.  A similar survey was conducted in February 2008, asking respondents what they expected to see from Medvedev after he was elected into office.  The findings show that trust in both Medvedev and Putin has fallen significantly over the year.

Asked to name 5 to 6 politicians they trusted most, 62 percent included Putin and 39 Medvedev in 2008.  In 2009, Putin’s percentage had fallen to 48, while Medvedev’s stayed nearly the same at 36 percent.  The Levada Center had previously reported that public approval ratings for both leaders had dropped sharply in the last month.

People have become more rooted in the idea that authority is concentrated in Putin’s hands, and that the president’s power had sunk, said Aleksei Grazhdankin, the Levada Center’s deputy director.  Commenting on the lower public trust, Grazhdankin said the figure was elevated during the 2008 election campaign, returning to normal levels after the election.

According to the Center, 30% think that the idea resembles a cult of personality. 27% are ready to see Putin in the role of national leader, but only if this status is approved by a nationwide vote, or formalized with specific powers by the Constitution. It also turned out that only 39% had heard of the “national leader” movement, and that 60% knew nothing about it. The Levada Center questioned 1600 people in 46 Russian regions between November 23rd and 26th. It should be noted that the Center also found that 84% of respondents approve of Putin.

VCIOM , the state polling organization, also conducted a survey, but formulated their questions differently. Their results, which show that higher percentages support the movement, are hard to trust, as the organization is controlled by the government. Critics have disputed their polls as biased toward the Kremlin.

Aleksei Grazhdankin of the Levada Center believes that his organization’s results indicate a new democratic culture among Russians. Symptoms of restoration of Soviet traditions irritate the public, according to the sociologist.

Before the December 2nd State Duma election, Putin had described the vote as a referendum on his rule. He has said that a landslide win by United Russia would give him “moral authority” to retain influence and become Russia’s “national leader.” Meanwhile, a very public movement named “For Putin” has surfaced in the country, and called on Putin to stay in power after his second term ends in 2008.

For further discussion of the idea of the referendum, the December 4th Moskovskii Komsomolets provides an interesting letter to President Putin. The author, Alexander Minkin, questions whether Putin’s move has been successful:

TURNOUT BY DEAD SOULS (A LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT)Moskovskii Komsomolets, December 4, 2007.

By: Alexander Minkin

No confidence: some questions about the referendum-elections

Dear Mr. President: Do you think the referendum worked? If you recall, you recently told the whole world that what we’re having isn’t a Duma election, but a referendum on confidence in you.

So how shall we interpret the results? Was it a victory? Let’s borrow a calculator and do the math.

Total number of registered voters in Russia: 106.7 million.

Number of people who voted for you: 43.5 million. That’s a lot of people. But it’s still less than half of the total number of voters.

Next, we might ask how many of your 43 million supporters actually voted according to their conscience. This question should be asked – because the pressure was too strong, too harsh. The entire state hierarchy – from Kremlin officials and regional leaders down to janitors and school-teachers – was running around in a panic: ENSURE HIGH TURNOUT! ENSURE VOTES FOR UNITED RUSSIA! People were threatened with the prospect of losing their jobs, or other punishments, if they failed to vote correctly.

For the first time, voting booths at many polling stations were open – with no provisions for a secret ballot. That’s something entirely new. Even during Soviet elections in the Stalin era, voting booths were screened off for privacy.

Those millions who voted for you with their hearts must be feeling very frustrated, now that they’re being mixed up with those who were coerced into voting for you. But how can the two categories be separated?

We’ll never know how many people voted for you willingly, motivated by trust and approval.

But at least we know how many people are stubborn or indifferent. They’re the ones who stayed home or voted against you. (You set up this situation yourself by saying: “Those who vote for United Russia are those who trust me.”)

So 43.5 million out of 106,725,372 people voted for you. And that means the remaining 62 million… well, how can we put it tactfully…

For some reason, you wanted a nice-looking report card. And you got it. You won with just over 64% – which looks very convincing, if you’re counting percentage points rather than individuals.

…By the way, why was voter turnout around 64%? Back in 1993, after the parliament building was shelled, people were very excited about voting. We had a real referendum – on the Constitution! But voter turnout was only 54.8%.

…By the way, how come we have almost 107 million registered voters?

In the elections of 1993, there were 106 million; in the elections of 1995, there were 105 million. And since then, as you have regretfully acknowledged on numerous occasions, Russia’s population has been shrinking by about one million a year.

So the number of registered voters was shrinking, and shrinking, and then – all of a sudden! – it grew. (Just don’t try to tell us about the birth rate increasing over the past year. Babies don’t vote.)

It turns out that mechanically copying the actions of others doesn’t actually work.

We have elections, and ballot-papers, and ballot-boxes, and vote-counting. But when the West does this, the result is a parliament – while all we get is a thick foam floating on the surface, not sinking.

(Translated by Elena Leonova)