You're reading: Poll: Putin remains on top of Russian elite rating

Sixty-four percent of Russians put President Vladimir Putin at the top of the 2012 rating of domestic elites and people of the greatest service to the homeland.

Putin’s rating rose by 6%, from 58% in 2011, the Russian Public Opinion Center (VTsIOM) told Interfax on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev ranks second with 41%, and Defense
Minister Sergei Shoigu ranks third with a sensational upgrade from 2% in
2011 to 30% in 2012.

Other members of the top ten are singer Alla Pugacheva (18 percent),
businessman and politician Mikhail Prokhorov (9 percent in 2011, 16 percent in 2012),
Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky (15 percent), Communist
Party leader Gennady Zyuganov (11 percent), TV anchor Andrei Malakhov (11 percent),
singer Philip Kirkorov (8 percent), Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill
(8 percent), actor and TV personality Maxim Galkin (6 percent), singer Nikolai Baskov
(5 percent), television journalist Vladimir Pozner (5 percent), figure skater Yevgeny
Plushchenko (5 percent) and singer Sofia Rotaru (5 percent).

A Just Russia leader Sergei Mironov, composer Igor Krutoi, film
director Nikita Mikhalkov, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, television
personality Xenia Sobchak and journalist Vladimir Solovyev gained 4%.
Singer Stas Mikhailov, businessman Roman Abramovich and TV anchor Ivan
Urgant were at the bottom of the rating’s first quarter (3 percent each).

Two percent was gained by Yabloko Party co-founder Grigory Yavlinsky,
Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov,
Federation Council Chairperson Valentina Matviyenko, Deputy Prime
Minister Dmitry Rogozin, soccer player Andrei Arshavin, ex-boxer Nikolai
Valuyev, actors Sergei Bezrukov, Larisa Guzeyeva and Ivan Okhlobystin,
composer Igor Nikolayev, opera signer Dmitry Khvorostovsky, singer
Grigory Leps, TV anchors Yelena Malysheva and Arkady Mamontov, writer
Darya Dontsova, children’s doctor Leonid Roshal and Academician Zhores
Alferov.

Other people gained less than 1 percent, among them opposition activists Alexei Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov.

VTsIOM polled 1,600 adults in 138 towns and cities in 46 regions in December. The rating omitted uncertain responses.