Russians Trust Even Their Friends and Relatives Less than Ever Before, New Poll Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 12 – Historically, Russians have seldom trusted people beyond their families and immediate circles of friends and associates, but a new study by scholars at the Russian Academy of Economics and State Service finds that increasingly, they don’t trust those close to them either.

            Almost a third – 30 percent – of Russians say they trust others less than they did. But what is especially striking and disturbing is that 12.6 percent fewer now say they trust their relatives less, 18.2 percent fewer say they trust their friends and 25 percent less their colleagues

(rg.ru/2019/08/09/rossiiane-perestali-doveriat-dazhe-blizkim-rodstvennikam.html).

            Some Russian scholars like Aleksey Zubets of Moscow’s Finance University believe that these declines are artifacts of the way the questions were asked, but even they concede that Russian levels of inter-personal trust are far lower than in other countries and that this is a problem.

            Trust is an important form of social capital, and without it, people find it far more difficult to work with others and far more likely to remain socially isolated individuals, a pattern that invariably gives rise to anomie and anger but does not offer the means for overcoming these challenges.