Public Opinion poll: Putin - most popular Russian leader since 1917

More than a third of the citizens of Russia, 39 percent, have ranked Putin first among Russia's politicians who ruled the country since 1917, the ROMIR sociological service (Russian Public Opinion and the Study of the Market) reported on Thursday.

Leonid Brezhnev ranked second (ten percent), followed by Vladimir Lenin (nine percent) and Joseph Stalin (eight percent).

The public opinion poll was conducted among 1,500 respondents in all federal districts of Russia on the request of the World Economic Forum. It has been timed for the eighth Moscow Davos, which opened in the Russian capital on Thursday.

Nearly two thirds of the polled said that economic development is now the most important for Russia, says the press release of the forum. The next in importance in the activity of the country's leadership are, in the opinion of Russians, social support of the population, the fight against corruption and organised crime.

The public opinion poll has shown that 79 percent of Russians believe that the country should follow its own way, eleven percent believe that Western democracy is the best model, and only two percent of Russian citizens spoke in favour of the Asian development model.