In Focus

Russians like the U.S. government more than they have since before Boris Yeltsin ceded the presidency to Vladimir Putin, indicating Barack Obama's "reset" is paying off, a poll published today shows. Fifty-nine percent of Russians have a "good" or "very good" opinion of the U.S., up from 46 percent a year ago and 22 percent in September 2008, the month after Russia waged a five- day war with U.S. ally Georgia, the Moscow-based All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion said in a statement.

The number of Russians who are unhappy with the results of Perestroika launched by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in April 1985 has almost halved over the last 10 years, from 75pc to 42pc, according to a poll carried out in January by VTsIOM (the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre) among residents of 140 locations in Russia.

The news of the subway suicide bombings in Moscow on Monday - Russia's worst terrorist attack in five years - led news broadcasts around the world almost immediately after the event unfolded. But in Russia, viewers who tuned in to the country's three main television networks that morning had little reason to suspect anything was amiss - they were watching shows about cooking and makeovers.

A growing number of Russians don't want to serve in the military because of fears of hazing, according to a survey released Tuesday on Defender of the Fatherland Day. A total 75 percent of respondents said they would not like to serve because of hazing, according to state-run VTsIOM.

The time is ripe for political reforms in Russia, Olga Kamenchuk from the Russian Public Opinion Research Center told RT. "There is a definite call for some reforms and some changes," she said. "Among the most important ones is the need for the opposition to be heard, and from that point of view some of the steps that are being made by the authorities are actually answering these calls."

Tension is rising between candidates in Sunday's presidential election in Ukraine, with Yulia Tymoshenko accusing her main rival of preparing huge fraud. Mrs Tymoshenko, the prime minister, said a "deliberate disruption of the election process" was taking place on behalf of rival Viktor Yanukovych.  Mr Yanukovych's official victory in the 2004 election was later ruled to be fraudulent and overturned.

Just in time for the 130th anniversary of his birth on Dec. 21, the state-run polling agency VTsIOM released a survey showing that despite the millions of Soviet citizens who fell victim to purges, starvation and summary executions under Stalin's regime, 54% of Russians now have a high opinion of his leadership qualities. And when asked about his personal attributes, 50% of respondents said they viewed them as average or above average - up from 45% when the same survey was conducted in 2000.

Most Russians - 54 percent - have a high opinion of Stalin's leadership qualities, according to a survey released Friday by state-run polling agency VTsIOM, while only 23 percent rate his personal character traits as below average. The survey questioned 1,600 people nationwide Dec. 5-6 and gave a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Only 21 percent of 1,600 Russians polled on the eve of Constitution Day, which is celebrated Saturday, said the document is unimportant and not respected, compared with 40 percent in 2002, the state-run VTsIOM pollster said. Also, 47 percent said the Constitution should be amended only in extremely rare circumstances, an increase from 35 percent in a similar poll nine years ago.

Such sentiments have incensed many Russians, who view World War II and the victory over the Nazis as a paramount event in their history. By some estimates, about 25 million Soviet citizens died in the war, and many here believe those sacrifices were made to liberate Eastern Europe, not occupy it. About two-thirds of Russians think the Soviet Union could have defeated Nazi Germany alone, according to a recent poll of 1,600 people by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center

Russia's leading opinion pollster, VTsIOM, asked ordinary Russians what they thought of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ahead of the anniversary.  Some 57% of those questioned said they believed there was "nothing reprehensible" in the agreement.  Just 14% agreed with the western interpretation of the pact as dividing Europe between two totalitarian systems.

The proportion of dacha owners growing food has risen from 72 per cent in 2005 to 81 per cent, this year, according to the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre, a polling company. Olga Kamenchuk, the company’s international relations director, says newcomers to vegetable growing are mostly to be found in smaller cities and towns and not in Moscow or St Petersburg. But everywhere, including in Moscow, people who were already growing vegetables are growing more.

Russians have warmed markedly to the United States under Barack Obama, but still think official ties are poor, a poll showed three days before the U.S. president visits on Monday. The young and charismatic U.S. leader appears to have already changed Russians' attitudes to his country since his election in November, the survey by Russian pollster VTsIOM indicated.

Wie der Westen nimmt nun auch Russland den Kampf gegen Bonus-Privilegien für Manager auf. Die Staatsanwaltschaft soll gegen Verschwendung von Staatsgehältern helfen, sie durchkämmt staatliche Aufsichtsbehörden.

The number of households that own a car dropped 2 percent to 39 percent in 2008 compared to three years earlier, the VTsIOM polling agency said Wednesday. Since 2006, the share of those who own a Russian car has declined from 75 to 63 percent, according to the poll.