Levels of institutional trust in Russia are amongst the lowest in the world. As yet, however, little research has focused on this phenomenon at the sub-national level. The current study examines trust in social and political institutions among citizens in Moscow in 2004. Results showed that levels of institutional trust are extremely low and that there were only three institutions (the church, president and hospitals) that were more trusted than distrusted. Moreover, although the effects of some demographic and other independent variables on trust stretched across institutions, several variables had a unique impact in terms of trust in the president.

This study examines attitudes towards violenceagainst women among the populace in Moscow, Russiausing data drawn from the Moscow Health Survey.Information was obtained from 1,190 subjects (510 menand 680 women) about their perceptions of whetherviolence against women was a serious problem in contemporaryRussia, and under what circumstances they thoughtit was justifiable for a husband to hit his wife. Less thanhalf the respondents thought violence was a seriousproblem, while for a small number of interviewees therewere several scenarios where violence was regarded asbeing permissible against a wife. Being young, divorced orwidowed, having financial difficulties, and regularly consumingalcohol were associated with attitudes moresupportive of violence amongst men; having a loweducational level underpinned supportive attitudes amongboth men and women. Results are discussed in terms of the public reemergence of patriarchal attitudes in Russia in thepost-Soviet period.

The harmful effects of alcohol consumption are not necessarily limited to the amounts consumed. Drinking in binges is a specific feature of Russian alcohol consumption that may be of importance even for explaining the current mortality crisis. Based on interviews conducted with a stratified random sample of 1190 Muscovites in 2004, this paper examines binge drinking in relation to the respondents’ economic situation and social relations. Consistent with prior research, this study provides further evidence for a negative relationship between educational level and binge drinking. Our results also indicate a strong but complex link between economic strain and binge drinking. The odds ratios for binge drinking of men experiencing manifold economic problems were almost twice as high compared to those for men with few economic problems. However, the opposite seemed to be true for women. Being married or cohabiting seemed to have a strong protective effect on binge drinking among women compared to being single, while it seemed to have no effect at all among men. Women having regular contact with friends also had more than twice the odds for binge drinking compared to those with little contact with friends, while again no effect was found among men. Gender roles and the behavioural differences embedded in these, may explain the difference. The different effects of economic hardship on binge drinking may also constitute an important factor when explaining the large mortality difference between men and women in Russia.

Objectives: The aim of this paper is to present the Moscow Health Survey 2004, which was designed to examine health inequalities in Moscow. In particular we want to discuss social survey problems, such as non-response, in Moscow and Russia. Methods: Interviews, covering social and economic circumstances, health and social trust, of a stratified random sample of the greater Moscow population, aged 18+. Reasons for nonresponse were noted down with great care. Odds ratios (ORs) for self-rated health by gender and by six social dimensions were estimated separately for districts with low and high response rates. Bias due to non-response is discussed. Results and conclusions: About one in two (53.1 %) of approached individuals could not be interviewed, resulting in 1190 completed interviews. Non-response in most Russian surveys, but perhaps particularly in Moscow, is large, partly due to fear of strangers and distrust of authorities. ORs for poor health vary significantly by gender, occupational class, education and economic hardship. We find no significant differences in these ORs when comparing districts with low and high response rates. Non-response may be a problem when estimating prevalence rates or population means, but much less so when estimating odds ratios in multivariate analyses.