LOVE FOR THOSE JUST ACROSS THE BORDER

Kommersant, Russia
Jan 16 2007

// A Survey Looks at Russian Attitudes Towards the Ethnic Groups of
the Former USSR

A public opinion poll commissioned by Kommersant from the All-Russia
Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) shows that rumors of growing
feelings of nationalism in Russia may have been grossly over-inflated,
at least with regard to attitudes towards people from the former
Soviet republics.

Residual Internationalism

The year 2006 in Russia was marred by massive unrest in the small
northern city of Kondopoga; still more xenophobic murders around
the country; checks of people in schools and casinos on the basis
of nationality; inspections of and bans on wine, mineral water,
and other products on a similar basis of nationality; the slogan
"the Russian market is for Russians"; and the regularly-scheduled
(though it was officially banned this time around) fascist parade in
Moscow on National Unity Day.

Under these circumstances, it was decided to compile the results
of a public opinion poll on the attitudes of Russians towards the
constituent nationalities of the former USSR. The fifteen republics
were Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova,
Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan,
Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan.

However, the poll, in which people living in Russia were asked to
evaluate their feelings towards the fifteen titular ethnic groups
of the former Soviet republics, showed that the Soviet legacy of
internationalist education remains reasonably strong (here it is
tempting to add the entirely un-Soviet exclamation "Thank God!").

The overall ratings of attitudes towards the fifteen nationalities
all fell between 3.48 and 3.92 on a five-point scale similar to
the one familiar to all Russians from primary school, where a grade
of one is extremely poor and a grade of five is outstanding. Thus,
those in Russia appear to tend predominantly towards neutrality in
their relations with people from the former republics, including
other ethnic Russians.

Care should be taken not to evaluate the poll results with either
undue optimism or excessive pessimism. On the one hand, certain
artifacts of sociological research are well-known, such as the
tendency of respondents to attempt to show themselves to their best
advantage when answering poll questions. For example, to the question
"Who is your favorite composer?", a person will answer "Mozart", even
though he or she actually prefers to listen to cheesy pop stations
on the radio. It is possible that many of those who were polled were
attempting to present themselves as more internationally-minded and
less xenophobic than they really are. Even if this is the case,
however, that means that Russian society currently looks upon
nationalism as something unseemly, something indecent about which it
is better to keep quiet – like a habit of urinating in the stairwell
of your apartment building. Such an attitude towards racism and
xenophobia is not entirely a bad thing.

On the other hand, the largest number of negative responses concerning
attitudes towards a given nationality was almost 18%.

Logically, then, at least one person in five in Russia is infected
with nationalism. In addition, the poll did not include questions
regarding several ethnic groups that are considered traditional
targets of nationalist and racist attitudes, so the discovery of a
high level of xenophobia in 18% of respondents may be an underestimate.

However, the hostile 18% is almost always balanced by a similarly-sized
friendly faction. Relations with all of the ethnicities included in
the poll were graded as "very good" or "excellent" by 13% or more of
respondents. The two roughly balanced factions thus paint an overall
picture of neutrality.

It is probably not necessary to comment at length on the distribution
of the different ethnic groups across the rankings, since the results
are all fairly predictable. In first place, the Russians humbly placed
themselves, followed by Belarussians (a union between the two countries
exists in the minds of many people, even if not in reality). Third
place went to the Ukrainians. The second-to-last place is shared by
Georgians and Lithuanians, and the Estonians come in last. The poor
showing by all three of the Baltic nationalities is in keeping with
the fact that these nations were the first to want to leave and, in
fact, the first to quit the "indissoluble" Soviet Union. In personal
relations, that is often called just plain not getting along.

The lowest percentage of positive responses was received by the Kyrgyz
(13.74%), and the highest percentage of negative responses targeted
Georgians (17.7%).

Of the non-Slavic nationalities, the largest percentage of positive
evaluations was reported for the Azerbaijanis (19.34%), and the
Kazakhs enjoyed the lowest fraction of negative appraisals (6.43%).

Where Internationalists and Xenophobes Live

Let us take a look at who most often claimed to have a positive
opinion of the nationalities of the former USSR.

People with "excellent" attitudes towards other ethnic groups
tended to be between 35 and 44 years of age, while pensioners were
the least likely to have a positive outlook on members of foreign
nationalities. Predominant among respondents who said that they
get along well with people of any nationality are those with less
than a high school education. The most popular occupation for these
internationally-minded individuals is as unskilled laborers. Many
unemployed people also claimed to have good relations with other
nationalities. Internationalists tend to live mainly in large
cities, particularly Moscow and St. Petersburg, and they are also
well-represented in the Northwestern and Far-Eastern federal regions.

Their ranks are fairly evenly split between men and women.

The army and the police love the Ukrainians (not a single negative
comment about people from Ukraine was recorded from representatives
of any of the armed or police forces), while the Belarussians are
the darlings of the business world. Almost no housewife sees a reason
to dislike the Georgians, and the Moldavians and the Kazakhs receive
top marks from unemployed people.

People who described their material situation as very good ("I can buy
an apartment or a car") also turned out to have strong internationalist
leanings. This small group of citizens refrained almost entirely from
making negative comments about people of any ethnicity.

Moving on to those who admitted to having "poor" and "very poor"
relations with their neighbors just across the border, we find that
men and women again each make up around 50% of respondents. In what
may be symptomatic of a worrisome trend, most of them are between
the ages of 15 and 24. Educationally, they are predominantly high
school or vocational academy graduates, and they are chiefly employed
as skilled laborers or as specialists with a college degree who
work in the sciences or the arts. Those involved in business take a
particularly dim view of Azerbaijanis, while students in high school
and vocational schools agree with residents of Far-Eastern Siberia
in their dislike of Ukrainians. The military and police forces have
few kind words for Moldavians. The number of people in Moscow and St.

Petersburg who do not like Armenians and Georgians is unbelievably high
(around 40% and 35%, respectively), and those from the Baltic states
are also unpopular in the two capital cities. Those who most vehemently
dislike people from anywhere in Central Asia are concentrated in the
Volga River region.

For table, see

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress