In the 1980-s the Russian Public Opinion Company (WCIOM) was found by Boris Grushin, Tatiana Zaslavskaya and Uriy Levada. In 2015 their names turned back to the walls of WCIOM.

The Grushin Hall has been opened in WCIOM in memory of the famous sociologist, whose deal we are proud to follow. In this space we host the most popular and professional meetings for our guests, colleagues, partners and journalists.

Boris Grushin was a Soviet and Russian philosopher and social-researcher, who began to make the first social experiences in the Soviet Union and gave people an opportunity to speak when they used to keep their thoughts and desires deep inside. He created a new material scientific world, that hadn’t existed before. He made more than 700 researches during 40 years. He kept every questionary, that was used for a work. It was a very difficult matter because almost all Grushin’s experiences were met with hostility, and he and his colleagues had been pressing by the Soviet Government.  Ones he had stolen his own archive from the Institute of Sociology.

Boris Grushin didn’t stop to work even in hard times, he was a cheerful man with a great sense of humor. Grushin’s friends noticed his “naughty witness” and joke-skills. His hobby was also a subject for a scientific research. He wrote a book about his favorite bear In Pivo Veritas that has surprised even Czechs. 

Some Grushin’s features we can find in photos from a private collection, some in his popular quotes that we also used in the decoration of the Grushin Hall. We thank Natalia Kartseva, Grushin’s widow, his daughters Irina and Olga and his friend and author of Grushin’s bibliography Boris Doktorov.

This event is one of many others. In 2010 the Russian Public Opinion Company organized the First International Conference Following Grushin. The meeting which attracted social-scientists, pollsters and market-researchers has become a traditional one. We began to prepare to the next The VI Grushin Conference-2016.

In 2011 the Russian Public Opinion Company republished Grushin’s classic research The World is Governed by Opinions that was written in 1967. The book became a bibliographic rarity.

Since 2012 the Russian Public Opinion Company has been keeping an education program, named after Grushin, that attracts students and specialists.

In 2014 Boris Doktorov’s issue We All Came Out of Grushin’s Overcoat was published by the Russian Public Opinion Company too. It is the first deep research of Grushin’s life and business, asking for public opinion in the Soviet Union.

We organize a lot of interesting events in the Grushin Hall: a science council about social and psychological changes in society during an economic crisis;  a workshop The Methodological Processes of the Multi-view and Online Researches by Erik Nisbet, a famous social-scientist from the USA, the roundtable-meeting about modern Art and cultural exchange through this subject. The Grushin Hall is always full of people, we will be glad to meet you here!