October 17, 2011 - 11:09 AMT
One third of Russians negative about migrants

One third of Russian citizens have negative perceptions of migrants from abroad and regions of Russia.

According to The Moscow News, the data was collected by Moscow City Government as result of a secret survey. Other data from the survey are not made public.

According to 2010 survey, migration issues worry Russians more than unemployment, poor ecology or corruption. 17% respondents said that the problem of migrant streams from CIS countries is critical. At the beginning of 2011, 11% of Muscovites said that Sergey Sobyanin should first of all solve the problem of immigration from Central Asia. This was the second most popular demand after Moscow traffic jams problem solution.

Mr. Verekhovsky, director of SOVA Center for Information and Analysis on Racism and Xenophobia told The Moscow News that the collected data reflect Russians general attitude. He noted that 35% of Russians treat immigrants negatively while in 2009 Alla Gerber, member of Russian Social Chamber, insisted that 90% Russians have negative opinion of immigrants.