| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Russian Has Bright Future in Poll
The majority of its citizens (82%) expect Russia to join the ranks of the world’s ten leading countries in the next 15-20 years, according to a new poll by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion. Thirty-seven percent of respondents say Russia should “regain the superpower status the USSR had,” compared to 34 percent in 2003. “Lagging behind the advanced countries in economic development” is seen by 44 percent of respondents as the main obstacle to that Russia’s progress in the world.
Confidence is mounting. In 2003, 35 percent of respondents thought Russia would become one of the most “economically developed and politically influential” of the world’s countries. Now 45 percent say so, although that figure was 2 percent greater at the end of last year. General director of the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion Valery Fedorov attributed the slight reversal of opinion to the complex economic this year.
The number of those who think Russia should “increase its leadership in the post-Soviet area” has decreased from 16 percent in 2003 to 8 percent, which Fedorov considers an acknowledgment that “Russia’s main communication is not with Ukraine or Kazakhstan, but with the European Union, United States and China.” The number of Russians who think the country “should have strong armed forces… to be considered a great power” rose from 24 percent in January 2007 to 35 percent now.
Fedorov pointed out that unpopular measures may be needed in the course of necessary economic reforms. “Everything depends on how the authorities explain the need for them,” he said, recalling that, in the early 1990s, difficult reforms were carried out with the popular understanding that “collapse and an even bigger crisis” would occur without them.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 12, 2008
|
|
|
