Despite the anti-Georgian fire fanned at the state level in Russia, the share of Russians who have a positive attitude towards Georgia has grown, as shown by a July poll by FOM: state propaganda cannot overpower personal impressions.

Since 2001, peaks in the prevalence of negative attitudes towards Georgia among FOM respondents have occurred during years of political escalation in relations between the two countries. The last such peak – 28% – was in 2009, shortly after the armed conflict in Georgia involving the Russian army. By 2014, the share of Russians with a negative opinion of Georgia had dropped to 8%, was the same in 2018, and in 2019, the same 8% of respondents reported a negative attitude towards Georgia.

The new poll was conducted on July 6-7, when federal TV channels and pro-Kremlin publications had been developing the topic of Russophobia in Georgia for two weeks based on street protests in Tbilisi against the current government and relations with Moscow. 69% of respondents knew or had heard something about the unrest in Georgia, so it is hardly possible to explain the results by the respondents’ lack of information. Why then did Russians’ opinions not sway in line with the Kremlin agenda, as it had before?

The Russians, for the most part, did not believe that the cause of the protests in Tbilisi was Russophobia: among respondents, the version that the cause of the unrest in Georgia is an internal political struggle or the activities of the Georgian authorities is the undisputed dominant version, says FOM analyst Grigory Kertman. There are no significant xenophobic motives, the sociologist notes, and if Russophobia appears as an explanation, it is attributed to the Georgian authorities, the media, and not to ordinary people.

At the same time, the share of Russians who had a positive attitude towards Georgia even increased slightly over the year – from 32% in 2018 to 37% in 2019. Explanations of why respondents have a positive attitude towards Georgia are based mainly on arguments describing relationships between people (Georgians are hospitable, they treat us well, we have friends and relatives in Georgia, etc.). A bad attitude towards Georgia is explained mainly by political arguments about relations between countries, which are not given to us in our sensations (Georgia has a bad attitude towards Russia, etc.). A positive attitude is produced by one’s own experience and the experience of acquaintances, impressions from positive stereotypes about the country and its population, notes Kertman, and a negative attitude is produced by current events. The combination of personal experience and state propaganda produces contradictory answers: on the one hand, 60% of respondents believe that tourists from Russia are treated well in Georgia (75% of people with higher education think so); on the other hand, 50% believe that it is dangerous in Georgia now (among those over 45, this figure is about 60%).

As soon as propaganda weakens, personal impressions begin to prevail. But the majority – about 50% – of those surveyed since 2011 do not have any clear, positive or negative, opinion about Georgia, it simply has not formed, which is not surprising – only 15% of respondents have been to Georgia. 51-52% of respondents aged 18 to 45 would like to go.

Experience versus propaganda