Citizens of Ufa are satisfied with their life

In September and at the beginning of October, 2009, the satisfaction of Russians with their life slightly lowered, as the poll, made by the Strategic Investigations Center of “ROSGOSSTRAH” proved. 16 thousand 246 people from 44 big and medium Russian cities took part in the poll.

The investigations show that for the last year till the beginning of autumn the satisfaction of Russians with their life was growing all the time and if in July 60% of the population of the country were satisfied with their life either fully or partially, this index reached 80% in August, 2009, the news-service of the company reported.

But now the satisfaction is lower, making just 74%. “There are several explanations” – the head of the Strategic Investigations Center Alexei Zubets says – “First, it has become clear in autumn the hopes for rapid restoration of the pre-crisis prosperity are groundless and the country faces rather long process of economic recovery. This “discovery” resulted in a noticeable lowering of the population’s optimism and, as a consequence, in the drop of satisfaction. Second, one has to remember that climate also influences upon the state of population’s health. In summertime the satisfaction goes up and in winter has the tendency to certain drop. The third factor is the accident at Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric station, widely covered in the press”.

Nonetheless in spite of certain decrease the satisfaction of Russians with their life remains at rather high level and three thirds of Russians are either fully or partially satisfied with their level of life and the citizens of Chelyabinsk, Ufa and Moscow most of all (78, 77 and 77% correspondingly).The citizens of Khabarovsk, Tula and Vladivostok are satisfied with their life level in the least (68, 68 and 67% correspondingly).

“One may suppose the present level of satisfaction can provide stable and long-term growth of the gross internal product at the level of 3-4% annually – it will be caused by the striving of Russians for the rise of their quality of life” – Alexei Zubets believes – “but we know that not only internal factors influence upon economic development. The rise of production can be caused by external circumstances too – the inflow of investments, growth of export earnings etc. So the real growth of Russian gross internal product can in reality noticeably differ from this guideline”.