LONDON -- In a recent opinion poll in Russia carried out by the Yury Levada Analytical Center, 58 percent of the respondents said they believe that "non-Russian nationalities are to blame for many of Russia's misfortunes"; 52 percent said they thought the government should restrict immigration.
So how many immigrants are there to worry about, where are they from and what damage are they doing to Russia? Simple questions, but almost impossible to answer.
A lot of the attitude of the people surveyed by the pollsters is simply prejudice stimulated by the government, some commentators claim. Of the people sampled in the poll, less than 20 percent said they could think of a way in which their own interests had been negatively affected by immigrants.