Opinion: Putin is king, but Russians know they're on their own How ordinary life and the influence of propaganda exist in separate worlds

In his third term as president, Vladimir Putin has become one of the most controversial leaders in the world. According to a global survey by the Pew company, Putin's median confidence rating in 39 countries was a measly 24 percent. In Russia, not even 24 percent of the population disapproves of Putin's job performance. Analysts often credit Putin's enormous popularity at home to the Kremlin's control of television, which is far and away the most common source of information in Russia. In a recent opinion piece, Vedomosti columnist Andrei Sinitsyn argued that it's not so simple. Meduza translates that text here.

The results of the latest survey of Russians' attitudes about President Vladimir Putin are in. With yet another poll comes another record-breaking score. According to the VTsIOM polling agency, Putin's approval rating reached 89.9 percent in October (the highest the agency has ever recorded). The Levada Center, meanwhile, found Putin's approval rating to be 88 percent (one point shy of the record it recorded in June 2015). 

The same VTsIOM polling agency also found that Russians' social attitudes about the country's current situation worsened in October for the fourth month in a row, reaching a new low on the year in September at 58 points (15 points below the score in May). Russians are also becoming less optimistic about the future, as the percentage of people who think the country's hard times have passed falls, and the number of people who think the worst is still ahead rises.

Sociologists are well familiar with such discrepancies between the public's assessments of the economy (on both an individual and national scale) and a leader's high approval ratings. Trust in the president exists independently, as a symbol of national identification. No one but the president acts in the name of the country in the international sphere, and for Russians it's only on this stage that the greatness of power manifests. 

You can expand this interpretation. The average Russian only learns about these actions on the world stage from television. And so he logically assumes there's no alternative to the President—a bonafide TV hero. (After all, it would be strange to read a Superman comic book and hope that someone else becomes the hero.)

Sociologist Anton Oleinik writes that the relationship between the authorities and society in countries like Russia can be represented by an hourglass, where the upper sphere (the ruling elite) and the lower half (ordinary citizens) are linked by nothing but a narrow bridge. The two spheres exist largely independently, and the everyday life of their inhabitants eliminates the need for each other. 

Sociologists at the Higher School of Economics working under Simon Kordonsky with support from the Khamovniky Foundation reached similar conclusions in a recent study of provincial Russia. According to their data, more than 40 percent of the workforce is employed off-the-books, in the "informal" sector of the economy, "invisible" to official statistics. Citizens don't want to communicate with the state, and they don't expect anything from it, either. For the public, and for the authorities, a formal system of communication and representation turns out to be unnecessary. 

In this sense, popular thinking about the proverbial war between "the refrigerator" and "the TV set" (between people's living conditions and the influence of propaganda) is inaccurate. The television and the refrigerator exist in different worlds. The Motherland on TV elicits pride, of course, rising from its knees and laying down the law, and every now and again it even demands sacrifices from the people, sending soldiers off somewhere to die. But it knows little about what's happening in people's refrigerators. And thank God for that, people seem to think.