The Results of The Year - Public opinion poll. part 2

The results of the year - public opinion poll. Part II Alexander Oslon, President of the Public Opinion Fund We took 600 people for a representative poll in Moscow. As you can see, one third of the Russian population learned from the interviewer for the first time about the rally on Bolotnaya Square which took place on December 10. And in Moscow everything is near. It is only 6 %. Russia is a vast country and not everything that seems evident in Moscow becomes evident or even known in the rest of Russia. Nevertheless, the information awareness in Russia is rather high: 36 % know about it and 29 % heard something. At this rally, mistrust of election results and demand to re-evaluate the results was voiced for the first time. The demand to re-evaluate the election results is supported by 40 % in Moscow and by 26 % in Russia, and not supported by 33 % in Russia, while others find it difficult to answer this question and in Moscow this demand is not supported by 50 %. So information awareness leads not only to a distribution of knowledge but also to a polarization of opinions. In Moscow there is a ratio of 40:50 of supporters and non-supporters and in Russia - 26% against 33 %. The rest do not have anything to say regarding this issue. Public opinion polls are based on an underlying postulate, according to which every person has his or her own opinion. Although this seems evident, it is a hardly a trivial statement. The idea of conducting polls appeared in a part of the world where self-sufficient people were gathered and always stressed that they were independent. They were individualists in America at the end of the eighteenth century. The first polls were conducted in the US in the nineteenth century. These polls were conducted without an understanding of elections or representativity. Nevertheless, when people gathered anywhere and chose their judge, sheriff or mayor, it was already the first poll. It was followed by a discussion of what to expect from the mayor or sheriff and what they wanted from them. At the same time it was stressed that they were personalities with their own opinions - everyone was considered to be an individualist. Since then Western, European and Russian civilization, flanking the European one, have been following this path. However, the quality and manifestation of individualism in Russian is very different. Orthodox ethics do not imply a personal opinion. They imply the absence of arrogance which can be interpreted as a sin. Nevertheless, Russians have their personal opinions, but in a different way. There is a theory stating that in the zone of serfdom the evidence of personal opinions is much more scarce. This has to do with certain genetics. The culture of the North Caucasus is just very difficult. When we conduct our polls there, not the weekly ones but different ones, we realize that if we want to learn whether an educated young woman is going to vote at the elections, she will give her answers in the presence of her brother, father and even her grandfather. When the interviewer asks her whether she is going to vote, she looks at her family and if they say yes, she says yes as well. It is a certain culture and it cannot be overcome. Due to this fact we do not conduct all-Russian polls on territories where this culture is highly manifested and make separate polls for these territories. The difference is very visible, especially at voting. From the Western perspective, elections take place in collusion with relatives, clan members, neighbors and friends. That is why results differ so much. It is not a question of fraud. It is a question of a different mechanism guiding people during elections. Regarding Stavropol and Krasnodar Territories, there is nothing unusual. People vote there in an ordinary fashion, expecting some benefits from the authorities or protesting against negative actions of the authorities. Everywhere situations are different, hence the very different results in the regions. I will give a general picture in the country. It is like the average hospital temperature, which firstly shows not the current state of the country but its divergence from yesterday's state. That is why the dynamics, those dynamic ranges documented during multiple years, are of some importance.