And I'll Tell You Who You Are

The Levada Center, Russia’s independent and respected polling agency, has produced an amazing piece of social research. The poll attempted to answer the question: how do Russians see the world? The results confirm the persistence of Cold War logic in Russian politics.

The pollsters pushed such bipolar, us vs. them thinking by asking Russians to choose between “enemies” and “friends”. Most respondents ranked Belarus as Russia’s best friend, and Latvia as Russia’s worst enemy. The top five results:

Russia's Friends (according to Levada research):
Belarus - 46%
Germany - 23%
Kazakhstan - 20%
Ukraine - 17 %
India - 16 %

Russia's Enemies (according to Levada research):
Latvia - 49%
Lithuania - 42 %
Georgia - 38 %
Estonia - 32 %
United States - 23 %

This research reflects the slant of state television news coverage over the last year. President Putin’s policy of rapprochement with the U.S. has removed America from the top of Russia’s most hated list. In contrast, anti-Baltic propaganda through state-run media made Latvia and Lithuania the most hated countries. Belarus took the title of Russia’s best friend, in spite of criticism in state-controlled media of the Lukashenko regime. While Belarus seems an unlikely choice, consider that after the velvet revolutions in the former Soviet republics, the term “friend” has a whole new meaning. So Belarus and Kazakhstan, demonstrating their “best intentions”, are seen by Russians as best friends.

Contributed by Anton Verstakov (Russian Journalist) with the data taken from the Washington Times article.