18 of 19 Federal Subjects with Above Average Xenophobia are Predominantly Ethnic Russian, Drobizheva Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 21 – Eighteen of the 19 federal subjects that have xenophobia levels above the country-wide ones are predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts, Moscow, and St. Petersburg, Leokadiya Drobizheva says; only one non-Russian republic – Bashkortostan – makes this list.

            The head of the Moscow Center for Research on Inter-Ethnic Relations says that in all these places “more than 20 percent” of the population feel negative attitudes about members of other ethnic communities, in large measure because of variations in the influx of gastarbeiters  (nazaccent.ru/content/25427-93-zhitelej-rossii-ne-stalkivalis-s.html).

            In other comments, Drobizheva points out that women on the whole are more tolerant than men, 59.2 percent and 40.8 percent respectively but that women and men who are extremely intolerant toward others are almost the same, 50.6 percent of Russian men and 49.4 percent of Russian women.

            She also reports that the level of tolerance varies among people depending on education: 51.9 percent of managers and highly qualified specialists view themselves as tolerant, while only 23.6 percent of skilled workers and only 4.3 percent of unskilled laborers do so.

            Overall, those who consider themselves tolerant are more satisfied with life than those who don’t, but Drobizheva notes that there wasn’t a perfect correspondence between standard of living and attitudes toward members of other national communities, as many had expected to find.