Have a penny for a rainy day?

Over half of Russia's population has no savings

A research conducted by the ROMIR Monitoring research holding reveals that over half of respondents (54 per cent) put no money aside for a rainy day.

The All-Russian opinion poll was conducted among 1,500 Russians at the age of 18 and over in more than 100 of Russian cities and villages in January 2005. The respondents provided several answers to every question, so the amount of all answers is not 100 per cent.

One third of the respondents (34 per cent) say they have ruble savings, while 6 per cent of the respondents say they prefer dollar savings and 5 per cent have euro savings. Only two per cent of the respondents admitted they had savings in some other currencies. And 2 per cent found it difficult to answer the question.

The research has revealed that majority of respondents who put nothing aside for a rainy day live in Russia's Urals Federal District (63 per cent) and the smallest amount of such respondents was registered in Siberia (49 per cent).