Opinion survey across 500 colleges records mood of fear and anxiety among Russian students. One-third of respondents want to leave country.

The independent news outlet iStories has discovered in open-access form the results of a poll commissioned by the Russian government and surveying the opinions of students and employees across more than 500 colleges.

(Although, from the government’s point of view, these are all “Russian” schools, 30 of them are located in Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions.)

The first round of polling took place last April. The survey was published on the sociological platform Neravnodushny Chelovek (“Engaged Personhood”), a website that describes itself as a collaborative space for addressing social problems through the joint work of citizens and state organizations.

State agencies that commissioned the survey include the Ministry of Science as well as the Education Ministry and the Presidential Administration.

Students, faculty, and staff were asked, for example, about their feelings in connection with their home country. “Fear and anxiety” topped the list of responses at 36 percent; “hope” came out second at 25 percent; “disappointment and outrage” were expressed by 20 percent of respondents; and only 12–14 percent said they feel “respect, pride, and trust” when they think about Russia.

Roughly a third of respondents confessed they would like to leave the country. In some colleges, this mood was more prevalent than elsewhere: for example, at the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics (a leading research institution), 58 percent of respondents said they wanted to leave.

When asked about the words that best describe Russia’s current situation, 44 percent of respondents picked the word “crisis” from a list of options. Another third opted for “decline”; a quarter of participants chose “degradation.” Lowest on the list were “strengthening” (23 percent), “development” (18 percent), “revival” (16 percent), and “stability” (eight percent).

Sixty-nine percent of respondents said the government’s priority should be economic development and improving the quality of life in the country. Only 13 percent prioritized “state power, military might, and influencing international processes.”

The outlet iStories points out that these results could not be independently verified, since only aggregated survey data is available online.