I was born in Russia and its image on the world scene is significant for me. A recent research by Pew Research Center from Spring 2015 shows that most nations have a rather negative image of the state called Russian Federation.
How Foreigners View Russia
The interviews were conducted among 39 countries, face to face and by phone.
- The most positive view of Russia is in Vietnam (75% of the population have a positive opinion).
- The most negative is in Poland and Jordan (80% people see it negatively).
- China and Ghana have over 50% positive view (51% and 56%).
Except for the African continent, Russia is not very popular in today’s world. The median for all countries: 51% see it negatively, and 30% positively.
26 countries have mostly negative view of Russia. France, Israel, Germany, and Japan all have over 70% of population seeing the largest country of the former Soviet Union in a pessimistic way.
Countries of Middle East dislike both Russia and United States (only 25% positive for Russia and 29% for the USA).
The dynamics of relations between these two former super powers is similar, with a declining view of each other in both destinations.
- In 2011 49% of Americans were positive about Russia, and only 22% in 2015.
- 51% of Russians saw the U.S. positively in 2013, and only 15% in 2015.
Older people in America had poorer opinions of Russian Federation than the ones from younger generations.
Russia’s popularity declined even in China, which is the second warmest in the world towards its neighbor, with 51% of positivism in 2015 as compared to 2/3 people liking it in 2014.
2/3 sliding to 1/2 is quite a difference in statistics in the space of 1 year.
Russians at the same time started liking China more: from 64% in 2014 to 78% in 2015.
Interestingly enough, the highest rating Russia scored in Vietnam, with 75% of people viewing it in a positive light.
In several countries people didn’t have strong opinions either way, giving low percentages to both likes and dislikes.
The official data came from Spring 2015 Global Attitudes survey.
Graphic chart by Pew Research Center.
Read also:
- Life of Russian Women Today — What Statistics Tell Us
- What Russian Women Think about Marriage, Family, and Kids
- Russian Billionare Invests 100 Million in Research To Find Aliens, Backed by Stephen Hawking
- Big World — Same Problems (Wi-Fi Internet in Russia and Ukraine)
How do Russians view other countries? Are they positive about France, Germany, the Netherlands or Spain?
Henk,
Try to check Pew research centre, they may have some data on that.
Regarding women on our site, they do wish to meet foreigners, so their view will be more positive than average.
Two former superpowers?
Elena, the USA is still a superpower. ))))
Tad, Funny, this is what Russia thinks it is, too. 😉 – USA has 320 million people – Russia has 143 million people – There are 7 billion people in the world – There are 1.5 billion Islam followers – There are 1.3 billion people in China – There are 1.25 billion people in India – Total population of Asia: 4.42 billion – Total population of Africa: 1.1 billion And just about everyone has a mobile phone connected to Internet with GPS. Sorry, I genuinely feel there are no more superpowers in the world. (If there was, it would be… Read more »
Hi Elena, Those are some very interesting findings. I guess I have a question that draws on your experience of living in both Russia and Australia: having resided more recently in Australia, have you seen much that would be indicative of negativity towards Russia? (either justified or unjustified). What about while you were still in Russia? Was there much negativity towards Australia? The reason I ask, is that as you’ve had the opportunity to live in both nations, if there was any sort of substance to the data from your own eyes in either culture. Thanks in advance for your… Read more »
Ryan, I don’t live in Russia for 17 years. From what I hear and see, there is “official” negativity in Russia (Cold war style) towards the “evil west”, which is trying to “stop the Great Russia from being the great country it is”, however, this doesn’t mean that Russians dislike Americans, Australians, or Europeans. The same here, I haven’t seen any negativity towards Russians from people, everyone is very friendly, although as the research indicates Russia as a state doesn’t score that high. People don’t see immigrants as a part of the state, rather the opposite, as someone who left… Read more »