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Yekaterinburg mayor’s office agrees to independent survey on cathedral construction following mass protests

Source: Meduza

The mayor’s office of Yekaterinburg, where thousands of residents have protested against plans to replace a park with a new cathedral in recent days, has agreed to arrange for an independent survey to gauge public opinion on the construction project, Govorit Moskva reported.

Earlier in the day on May 16, Russian president Vladimir Putin had publicly suggested that a survey be conducted in Yekaterinburg. “A cathedral is meant to unite people, not divide them,” Putin reasoned. “The minority should follow the majority. That’s the basic principle of democracy,” he added.

The Socium Foundation conducted a survey after protests in Yekaterinburg had begun. In a sample size of 300 adult residents of Yekaterinburg, 52 percent of respondents said they were opposed to the cathedral while 28 percent supported it and 20 percent had no opinion. In December of 2018, however, an analogous survey found that 41 percent of respondents favored the cathedral with only 24 percent opposed.

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