New poll says Russians' social panic hasn't spiked so sharply since eve of 1998 financial collapse

A new national survey by the independent Levada Center indicates that social tensions across the country are rising at levels not seen since the eve of Russia’s 1998 financial collapse. Seventy-two percent of Russians say they worry about rising prices, 52 percent cited growing impoverishment, and 48 percent say one of the nation’s biggest problems is unemployment.

In the past year, Russians have become roughly 33 percent more likely to talk about economic crisis, environmental deterioration, and rising crime, the Levada Center director Lev Gudkov told the newspaper Kommersant.

Sociologists say it’s still hard to know if rising panic will lead to more mass protests, but Gudkov says the current agitation has spread even to “inert layers” of society and “middle cities.” He notes, however, that this phenomenon is based on different concerns than the sentiments fueling opposition movements like Alexey Navalny’s anti-corruption activism.