The All-Russian Public Opinion Research Centre asked locals what ideas, book, songs, things, and events they see as uniting. The poll was conducted for the Day of National Unity, which is celebrated in Russia on 4 November.

Things that really unite Russians: a French chef’s salad and victory in WWII

‘United Russia’ is the name of the ruling party in the parliament of the Russian Federation and the holiday of 4 November that is only 13 years old was introduced under their majority in the parliament.

It’s hard to completely forget about it when reviewing the results of the recent poll by WCIOM.

Surprisingly, there are no true symbols that unite Russians, the poll results reveal. None of the ‘symbols’ scored over 10% recognition, while some answers fall so low than they could be attributed to a statistics glitch.

The only two true icons, which scored over 50% of votes when given a particular topic to consider (rather than a general question about ‘symbols of Russia’), are a historical event (the memory of victory against Nazi Germany in WWII, known in Russia as ‘The Great Patriotic War’, circa 1945) and a dish by a French chef (Oliver salad). Other things don’t seem to hold that unanimous meaning for the nation, it appears.

There not many participants of The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) who are still alive, so the thing that unites the nation is the memory of this event and the promotion of its significance. 63% is the highest score among all symbols by topic, although this event didn’t even get a mention in the general question about things that unite the nation. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which many foreigners would probably guess was important for the Russian nation, only scored 8% in the poll of historical events and didn’t exceed 1% qualifier in the general survey.

Even the national anthem only scored only 4% of votes in the general question and 20% when asked about songs specifically. President Putin as a symbol of Russia scored 3% in the general poll, for comparison.

• Read also: 10 things that Russians are really proud of.

Top-22 icons that are symbols of Russia (% of all responses mentioning it)

1. People/Nation: 9
2. Homeland/Patriotism/Love of the Homeland: 8
3. Flag/Tricolor: 7
4. Emblem/Two-headed eagle: 6
5. Army/Army ammunition/War power: 5
6. Power/Strength/Great country: 5
7. Anthem: 4
8. Unity: 4
9. Large territory: 3
10. Bear: 3
11. Peacefulness/Peaceful initiatives: 3
12. President Putin: 3
13. Nature/Wealth of nature: 3
14. Kindness/Kind people: 2
15. Oil, gas/Natural resources: 2
16. Orthodox Christianity/Religion/Church/Faith in Gold: 2
17. Freedom/Love of freedom/Freedom of thinking: 2
18. Equality/justice: 2
19. Friendliness/Friendship between nations/Tolerance: 2
20. History: 2
21. Family/Parents/Kids: 2

These are the icons that scored 2% of votes or over (the margin of statistical error of this research was 2.5%, so the bottom answers could be basically a glitch). Surprisingly, Kremlin, Red Square, or St. Basil’s Cathedral didn’t come up anywhere in the rating. In other words, less than 1% of respondents mentioned them, if any.

2% of respondents said there wasn’t such a thing that united all Russians.

Respondents were asked an open question, where they had to name up to 3 icons uniting Russia.

Top-10 books that unite Russia (%)

1. ‘War and Peace’ by Leo Tolstoy: 11
2. Works of Alexander Pushkin: 4
3. ‘Quiet Don’ by Sholokhov: 3
4. ‘Master and Margarita’ by Bulgakov: 2
5. Classic literature/Russian classics: 2
6. The works of Tolstoy: 2
7. ‘Anna Karenina’ by Tolstoy
8. Bible
9. ‘Misfortune from intelligence’ by Griboedov
10. ‘Idiot’ by Dostoevsky

11% of poll respondents view ‘War and Peace’ by Leo Tolstoy about events of 1812 (originally published in 1867) to be the most iconic book uniting Russians.

Top-10 literature heroes that reflect the character of a Russian person the best? (%)

1. Oblomov (‘Oblomov’): 4
2. Alexey Meresiev (‘The story of a real man’): 2
3. Andrey Bolkonsky (‘War and Peace’): 2
4. Ivan-the-fool (various folk tales): 2
5. Ilya Muromets (folk tales): 2
6. Pavel Korchagin (‘How The Steel Hardened’): 2
7. Heroes by Pushkin: 2
8. Andrey Sokolov (‘A Man’s Destiny’): 1
9. Pier Bezokhov (‘War and Peace’): 1
10. Gerasim (‘Mu-mu’): 1

Oblomov, the personage that scored the highest share of recognition as someone that shows the native traits of a Russian, was the person of noble origin who simply lied in bed doing nothing but talking a lot about the meaning of life etc.

Ivan-the-fool, the personage of various folk stories (#4 in the rating) was a peasant who suddenly gets a fortune and the hand of king’s daughter with the help of mystical creatures.

As opposed, Alexey Meresiev (#2) is the pilot whose plane in the WWII crashed in a battle ad he was forced to crawl for days to survive, trying to get out of the territory, controlled by Nazi troops. He lost his legs to gangrene but managed to learn to fly planes again using prosthetics, and returned to active force.

Most other heroes are similar to the types described: Either a hero that commits acts of formidable fortitude under extreme duress (the minority of personages) or an anti-hero that simply does nothing with his life or hurts those around him.

Top-10 movies uniting Russians (%)

1. The Irony of Fate: 9
2. Moscow Doesn’t Believe Tears: 5
3. Diamond Hand: 4
4. Only Elders Go to Battle: 4
5. War movies/WWII movies: 4
6. Moving upwards: 4
7. Ivan Vasilievich Changes Profession: 4
8. Love and Pigeons: 4
9. Operation “Ы” and other adventures of Shurik: 4
10. They fought for Homeland: 3

The idea of ‘winning’ the World War II against Nazi Germany seems to be one common thread in minds of Russians when they think of a uniting national idea.

Top-10 songs uniting Russians

1. National anthem: 20
2. Victory Day: 8
3. Katyusha: 7
4. Sacred War: 3
5. Folk songs: 3
6. Kalinka: 3
7. Oj, moroz, moroz (Oh, frost, frost): 2
8. ‘Officers’ by Gazmanov: 2
9. Lubae: 2
10. Podmoskovnye vechera (Evenings in Moscow region)

Unsurprisingly, when asked about songs uniting Russians, the highest rating was scored by the national anthem (20%), with the song ‘Victory Day’ taking the second place (9%). #3 and #4 are also occupied by songs about WWII.

The theme of WWII as a uniting event for Russians, although it happened over 7 decades years ago and most participants are no longer alive, is all-permeating. This is likely to be in a great extent due to the recent pompous celebration of its 70th anniversary. This and former glory in space aviation (turned into a joke recently due to several failures of Russian spaceships) are possibly the only things an average Russian feels entitled to be proud of in regard to his or her homeland.

Top-10 iconic Russian dishes (%)

1. Salad Oliver: 51
2. ‘Herring under Fur’: 28
3. Pelmeni: 25
4. Borsch: 17
5. Potatoes: 8
6. Shashlyk: 8
7. Bliny: 6
8. Vinaigrette: 5
9. Pies: 4
10. Okroshka: 3

The low scores of icons, books, movies and songs uniting Russians are even more shocking when we look at the results of the culinary question, where the top choice — salad Oliver — scored over 50% of nominations.

So, Russians are united at least in some sense — in the department of favorite food.

Ironically, the top Russian dish is the peasant adaptation of a salad invented by a French chef.

Salad ‘Oliver’ is made of boiled eggs, potatoes, carrots, ham, pickled cucumbers, and tinned peas, with a generous addition of mayonnaise. Apparently, it’s the most iconic Russian dish that unites the nation!

Shahlyk (#6) is a dish of nations from Caucasus region (Georgia, Armenia) and Borsch (#4) is a Ukrainian dish. Interestingly, the Russian variation of cabbage soup, called schi (the same as borsch but without beetroot) only scored 11th position with 3% of votes.

Pelmeny (#3, meat dumplings), Bliny (#6, pancakes) and Pies (#9) are Russian-style variations of universal dishes of world cuisine, which every nation makes in their own way.

Top-10 historical events uniting Russians (%)

1. Victory in WWII (1945): 63
2. Reuniting with Crimea (2014): 12
3. Great October Revolution (1917): 8
4. New Year: 5
5. Gagarin’s space flight (1961): 5
6. 1812 (war with Napoleon): 5
7. Dissolution of the USSR/Coup (1991): 5
8. Various battles of WWII (1941-1945): 3
9. Chechen War (1999-2009): 3
10. 1 May: 2

5% of Russians consider New Year to be an event of historical importance that unites Russians. It would be funny if it wasn’t so close to the truth. Every year Russians expect something magical to happen when the date adds moves to the next digit.

Even the date of 1 May scored #10 position, while rating #8 was given to various battles of WWII collectively (which, obviously, didn’t score high enough to get a mention on their own).

The 1812 war with Napoleon scored just as much as the dissolution of the USSR, which, by the way, was co-joined in numbers with the takeover attempt (‘Putch’) several months prior to that. If not for this statistical trick, the dissolution of the Soviet Union would score less than the war that happened over 200 years ago, in the understanding of importance for modern Russians.

Russian icons

Now you know what Russian women and men consider important.

If you didn’t know about the Russia’s version of the war against Nazi Germany, or maybe didn’t realize the full extent to which the input of western allies is downplayed in the history books that published in the Russian Federation, it’s time to update your knowledge, since this event seems to be the pinnacle of glory of the modern state led by the ‘United Russia’ party.

Otherwise, stick to the safe non-political topics such as Russian food. And by the way, don’t question the fact that these dishes are Russian! If Russians want them to be their national icons, why not?

Read also:

• 88 famous Russian proverbs and sayings, and their meanings
• 58 Russian superstitions about love and life

Tables by WCIOM

For your convenience, we are including the tables by WCIOM as translated to English via Google software translator.

Data: WCIOM.ru