Happy Days continued

Following its recent happiness survey the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre, VTsIOM (Vserossiiskii Tsentr Izucheniia Obshchestvennogo Mneniia) has today issued the results of its latest poll, which asks respondents to say how satisfied they are with the situation in the country as a whole and in their own lives more specifically.

The index provided by VTsIOM at the bottom of the tables below subtracts the percentage of people who think that the situation is bad or terrible from the percentage who think that it is outstanding, good, or just ok, to produce an overall measure of how many people are positively inclined. As you can see, more people than ever before – 70% – are satisfied with the situation in the country, an increase of 32% over one year ago, and double the total two years ago. Meanwhile, 81% are satisfied with their own lives.

There are many in the West who hope that the war in Ukraine, economic sanctions, and Russia’s current economic difficulties, will cause the Russian people to become discontented with their government. This in due course will induce them either to change the government or to force the government to change its policies. The VTsIOM survey shows that these hopes are misguided. Far from being discontented with their lot, Russians are happier with their country than ever before.

In general how do you evaluate the situation in the country?
	03.10	01.11	03.12	03.13	03. 14	01.15	02.15	03.15
Outstanding	0	1	0	1	1	1	1	1
Good	7	9	7	9	10	13	12	16
OK	50	47	59	57	60	66	68	66
Bad	31	31	27	29	21	12	10	10
Terrible	4	4	2	3	2	4	4	3
Hard to tell	8	8	5	1	6	4	4	4
Index	22	22	37	35	48	64	67	70

 

In general how do you evaluate the situation of your own life?
	03.10	01.11	03.12	03.13	03.14	01.15	02.15	03.15
Outstanding	4	3	3	4	5	4	3	4
Good	16	15	16	18	19	23	23	26
OK	55	57	62	60	58	61	65	59
Bad	18	19	14	15	13	6	4	6
Terrible	2	3	1	2	1	2	3	2
Hard to tell	5	3	4	1	4	5	3	3
Index	55	53	66	65	68	80	84	81