A sample of 1,500 residents in 100 rural and urban communities across Russia were interviewed for the survey. As the respondents could choose more than one option from the answer list, the total percentage exceeded 100.
Forty-seven percent of those surveyed said low wages were a major cause for concern. Forty-one percent said they were particularly concerned over high unemployment rates. One-third of the respondents (31 percent) said that the most disturbing tendency to them was drug trafficking and drug abuse and 29 percent expressed concern over the raising crime rate. Eighteen percent of the pollees complained about the weakness of the government and 15 percent, about corruption. Housing and utilities problems are a cause for concern with 13 percent of the respondents.
Environmental pollution is seen as a problem by 10 percent of the respondents. Degrading morality worries 9 percent of those interviewed. The same percentage of the respondents complained about continuing delays in wage and pension payments. Three percent expressed their alarm at interethnic conflicts within Russia and negative tendencies in the outside world.
Mounting prices and inflation present the biggest problem to the population of cities with a population of over a million. Fifty-four percent of the interviewees falling into this category singled this out as their primary concern. People in smaller urban communities tend to be more concerned with poverty (53 percent of the respondents) highlighted the tendency as the most alarming. And to 53 percent of the respondents living in rural areas, high unemployment is the most serious issue.
