Some Of My Best Friends Are Non-Russians, Majority Of Russians Say – OpEd

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Sixty-four percent of Russian adults say that their friends include people of other nationalities, according to a new VTsIOM poll.  

Fifty-two percent have friends of a different religious faith, 82 percent have friends of a different gender, 84 percent with those significantly older or younger than they are and (wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=9744).

In reporting these findings, VTsIOM noted that “friendship among people of different nationalities” was encountered less often than friendship within the Russian nation and that friendship across religious lines was even less common. 

In all cases, however, younger people were more likely to have friends different than themselves than older ones. 

Paul Goble

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Goble maintains the Window on Eurasia blog and can be contacted directly at [email protected] .

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