№ 6 - 2006
Bavin P.S.
Social Geography of Xenophobia and Tolerance

The motif of the article is to analyze the way the problem of other nationals’ migration is perceived by the Russian “average man” – one who in most cases does not possess “expert” knowledge on this issue and is guided in his judgments by his personal experience and by facts and appraisals borrowed from mass media. On considering the distribution of the answers within a block of questions on the theme of xenophobia asked in the “Public Opinion” Foundation’s megapoll carried out in May, 2006, the author subdivides Russians into four groups: (1) the “tolerant” (respondents who claim to feel, on their part, no national hostility and who do not support the authorities’ actions directed against migrants); (2) those “standing on guard” (who come out in favour of restricting the inflow of other-national migrants into the region, but do not strive for moving away those already arrived, and do not feel hostility towards them; (3) the “ethnopurists” (who approve any measures conducive to “delivering” the region from other-national migrants, but who claim no hostility towards them); (4) the “xenophobes” (who make no secret of their hostility towards persons of other nationality, and approve any actions against them on the part of the authorities) – and researches the influence of socio-demographic and geographical (regional) factors on the level of xenophobia in the country.