Every fifth Russian believes in omens and horoscopes. Those who believe in the supernatural are mainly women and religious people.

MOSCOW, October 31, 2012. Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents the information about the supernatural phenomena that Russians believe in.

Forty percent of Russians tend to believe in the supernatural, especially in omens (22%) and horoscopes (21%). The number of those who believe in palm-reading or spells is smaller (8%, for each), as well as the shares of those who believe in aliens (6%) or zombies (2%).   Fifty-seven percent of Russians do not believe in anything stated above.

Basically women tend to believe in the supernatural. Thirty percent of women believe in omens against 14% of men; and 29% of women believe in horoscopes against 12% of men.  On the contrary, men often report that they do not believe in anything stated above (71% versus 46% among women).

Religious people believe in omens and horoscopes more often than atheists. The share of those who believe in astrological forecasts is 21-22% among Orthodox Christians and those who profess other religions and only 7% among those who is atheist. Belief in omens is popular among Orthodox Christians (26%), whereas followers of other religions and atheists do not put much attention to it (13 % and 7%, respectively).

The initiative Russian opinion polls were conducted on October 27-28, 2012. 1600 respondents were interviewed at 138 sampling points in 46 regions of Russia. The margin of error does not exceed 3.4%.

Note: Using materials from the site www.wciom.ru or wciom.com, as well as distributed by VCIOM, the reference to the source (or hyperlink for the electronic media) is obligatory!