Moscow - Most Russians (55 percent) believe that the collapse of the USSR could have been avoided and 54 percent regret it, the Levada Center told Interfax on Monday, citing a poll conducted in 134 populated areas of Russia on Nov. 21-24.
The poll surveys 1,600 respondents.
Twenty-eight percent of the respondents said they do not regret the collapse of the USSR and 18 percent were undecided.
The poll shows that the current level of regret is among the lowest since 1992 (when it was 66 percent). The highest level of regret was registered in 2000 (75 percent) and the lowest level was registered in 2012 (49 percent).
Speaking about why they are unhappy about the collapse of the USSR, respondents said that “people lost the feeling of belonging to a great power” (56 percent), “a unified economic system has been destroyed” (55 percent), and “mutual mistrust and hostility have increased” (41 percent).
Other people spoke about “the disintegration of relationships with relatives and friends” ” (29 percent), “a loss of the feeling that you are at home no matter where you are” (24 percent), and 12 percent said “it has become difficult to travel freely and go on vacation.”
Speaking about the reasons that led to the collapse of the USSR, 30 percent spoke about “the irresponsible and ungrounded ‘Belavezha plot’ made by Yeltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich and 28 percent said they see “a plot of foreign forces hostile to the USSR” in that.
Nineteen percent of respondents said people were unhappy about the Soviet administration, Mikhail Gorbachev and people close to him and 18 percent spoke about the “total exhaustion of the Communist ideology.” Sixteen percent of the respondents mentioned “the ambitions of the republics’ elites” and 15 percent spoke about “the republics’ unhappiness about the relations with the ‘union center.'”
Generally, 61 percent of the respondents said they do not approve of the agreement signed by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus on Dec. 8, 1991 on the termination of the USSR. Eighteen percent of respondents said they approve of this document and 21 percent were undecided.
The sociologists also asked the respondents to give their evaluation of the current relations between Russia and the other CIS countries.
A relative majority of the respondents (49 percent) characterized relations as calm, 15 percent called them good and good-neighborly, and 8 percent called them friendly. Seventeen percent of the respondents gave them a negative evaluation, calling the relations between Russia and the other CIS countries lukewarm. Another 5 percent consider them tense.
Twenty-nine percent of respondents call the “formation of closer alliances by several republics” an optimal form of relations between the former Soviet republics. Eighteen percent of respondents called for “closer association of all former Soviet republics in the manner of the European Union. Eleven percent of the respondents said all republics should be independent. Another 19 percent believe the CIS should remain in its current form, while 13 percent want the USSR to be restored.
The respondents were also asked if they know which countries besides Russia comprise the CIS.
Most respondents correctly mentioned Belarus (66 percent), Kazakhstan (61 percent), Armenia (36 percent), Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan (34 percent each), Kyrgyzstan (31 percent), Tajikistan (26 percent), Turkmenistan (23 percent), Ukraine (20 percent), and Moldova (15 percent).
Meanwhile, 17 percent of respondents named Abkhazia, 13 percent named Georgia, 8 percent named South Ossetia, 7 percent named Lithuania, 6 percent named the Transdniestrian Republic, 6 percent named Latvia, and 4 percent mentioned Estonia.
