Who finances the Levada Center? Levada Center may close after being recognized as a “foreign agent”

06.09.2019

Surprisingly, the attack of the 5th column on Kadyrov continues. First, the Congress of the so-called intelligentsia, Oblomson, spoke. Then Piontkovsky “shot, immediately missed and hit himself a little,” then they decided to bring what they thought was heavy artillery into the battle. Today, on the Internet, I came across a “sociological study” by the Levada Center. I quote in full: “The majority of Russians consider it unacceptable when government officials threaten members of the opposition and classify those who criticize the government as “enemies of the people.” This was reported by the Levada Center. As sociologists have found, 59% of survey participants share this opinion. Another 15%, on the contrary, called such statements acceptable, but only 4% of respondents are “firmly convinced” of this. In addition, every fourth ( 27%) could not determine their attitude to this issue.” For the sake of color, I’ll clarify that the message was taken from Rosbalt, “Rain” dripped about the same thing today, further on the list.

When do you think we had time? And who was the survey conducted among? The numbers are really wild. It looks like fraud, or the survey was conducted at the Levada Center itself or at Dozhd. How many people were surveyed, who took part in the survey, how were they surveyed? In general, a naked order. I became interested in what this “Levada Center” is, who created it, and who heads it, and how much money it lives and lives on. Here's what we found out. Let's start with the creator of the project, whose name it is believed to bear - Yuri Aleksandrovich Levada...

In fact, his name is Yuri Moiseevich Moreinis, he was born in Vinnitsa in the family of Natalya Lvovna Moreinis, a journalist for the Vinnitsa regional newspaper “Bilshovitska Pravda”, and the medievalist historian Moisei Aleksandrovich Kogan (1907-1982), later a professor and dean of the history department of the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute. Pokrovsky. [In the mid-1930s, Natalya Lvovna Moreinis remarried the writer Alexander Stepanovich Kosak, who, as a pseudonym, took the surname of the wife of his party teacher Franz Nowasz, who was executed in 37, Evgenia Levada. Kosaka-Levada’s marriage to our hero’s mother also broke up, but the Levada surname continues to live on in the Center for Pseudo-Polls public opinion.
Now about the history of the Center itself. Levada Center emerged from the bowels of VTsIOM, which was organized and for some time headed by the well-known Tatyana Zaslavskaya. In 1992, when VTsIOM started working, she left it and became president of the Intercenter, created by the English professor T. Shanin with money from Soros. In 2003, Levada and his team from VTsIOM were asked. He rushed to VTsIOM-A, which he had created in advance, just in case of emergency, but this name was banned. That’s when the Yuri Levada Center appeared. And he is again taken under the wing by the same Zaslavskaya, and she herself is elected honorary president of this organization. It is clear that Soros’s money is starting to work for Levada. And as we know, whoever pays the money calls the tune.
Levada and Zaslavka are no longer there. But their work lives on. The center is headed by Levada’s colleague at VTsIOM, 70-year-old doctor philosophical sciences Lev Dmitrievich Gudkov, who turned out to be a worthy successor, proudly carried the banner of the 5th column. His surveys, supposedly of public opinion, and his interviews fully corresponded to the requests of customers. Well, it’s convenient. It’s not me, but the voice of the people, public opinion, you can’t argue. To illustrate, here are some of his statements...

“Vladimir Putin, since whose third presidential term 100 days have passed this week, and is rapidly losing the support of its fellow citizens. Such data is contained in the results of a survey conducted by Levada Center. According to his data, only 48% of respondents speak positively about the activities of the head of state.” (There was actually an increase in support).

December 2015 – Levada-Center issues another batch of surveys. It turns out that Russians consider the German Chancellor “woman of the year.” Even Deutsche Welle's correspondent was surprised at this - How does this fit with the people's admiration for Putin? Sociologist Gudkov, without blinking an eye, explained this paradox to the ignorant German:
“First of all, of course, she stands out for her principled position in connection with the migration crisis in Europe - such a clearly defined moral position, a humanistic position, among European politicians. This is very impressive for Russians, at least for those who follow events in Europe. Secondly, Merkel is perceived as strong figure, opposing Putin. She focuses on herself all the expectations or illusions of the opposition as a person who takes a moral position in relation to the aggressively authoritarian and adventurous power of Putin. Merkel, like Margaret Thatcher once was, is a figure of an iron, strong-willed politician who defends European and Western values. It's a pretty consistent image."
So the sociologist let it slip. She is the hope of the opposition, and our opposition is 5 percent. This means that the first place was secured by a majority of 5%, that’s what sociology is all about. This is how polls are done, and after that, stuffing.

It is surprising that such a serious state matter as a public opinion poll is carried out foreign agent, operating with funds from foreign grantors. An agent who is in opposition to the government, which is supported by the overwhelming majority of the Russian population.

Here we remember Kadyrov’s words about enemies of the people. If the opposition, including the Levada Center, hates Putin, considering him their enemy, and he is supported by 90% of the population, then simple arithmetic suggests that this opposition is the enemy of the people, and they act like enemies.

Levada Center is tightly integrated into international system organizations conducting subversive or near-subversive activities in relation to Russian state. If anyone thought that the authorities knew nothing about the activities of pseudo-sociologists and their inclinations on foreign intelligence services, I'll disappoint. They knew. Two years ago RUSSIAN INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
CENTER FOR CURRENT POLITICS prepared a Report
“Methods and technologies of activities of foreign and Russian
research centers, as well as research structures and
Universities receiving funding from foreign sources” It also talks about the Levada Center.
Here are some excerpts from the report:
"Autonomous non-profit organization Analytical Center of Yuri Levada (ANO Levada-Center)
The Levada Center, as a mechanism for collecting and analyzing sociological information, is an important tool for manipulating public opinion and providing informational influence on the state apparatus and political institutions.
Levada Center carries out orders from government-sponsored foreign funds, the results of which go directly to foreign government departments. In addition, the Levada Center, as a non-state structure, has no legal restrictions on transferring its own “field notebooks” and information databases to foreign customers.
At the same time, Levada Center experts constantly put forward the thesis that the discrepancy between their data and the election results means the presence of falsifications and fraud during the elections themselves. These statements are widely circulated foreign media, from where, already in the status of “reliable sources”, they are republished in Russian opposition media.
Financing. Grantmakers include the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the MacArthur Foundation.
Reference: According to information on the website of the National Endowment for Democracy, since 2009 NED has financed 4 Levada Center projects: Public opinion during the 2009 Moscow elections city council; Quantitative research on the effectiveness of PR strategies for NPOs; a series of interviews on xenophobia and nationalism after the events on Manezhnaya Square in December 2010; polls related to the 2011 parliamentary elections and the 2012 presidential elections.
Specifically, the latest grant received $71,242 for the following purposes: “to conduct a series of public opinion surveys about upcoming presidential elections and elections in State Duma" The first surveys served as a baseline study during election campaign, followed by two additional research after the elections. Levada Center will also conduct six monthly surveys monitoring public opinion regarding the potential impact of the elections on social and political issues in Russia. The result was the report “Russian parliamentary elections: electoral process under authoritarian regime" The report includes materials from surveys of participants in the “For fair elections"in December 2011 - February 2012, financed by the fund of organizers of rallies and Novaya Gazeta. Direct executors - L.D. Gudkov, B.V. Dubin, N.A. Zorkaya, M.A. Tight.
NED also finances projects in Russia through the Polish Institute of Public Affairs (IPA)
In 2009, the MacArthur Foundation allocated $150,000 to the Levada Center for the project “Monitoring Socio-Economic Transformations in Russia.”
Around the Levada Center, workaround financing options and channels for receiving unaccounted funds have long been established - from “black cash” to “payment of fees for consultations and lectures,” crowdfunding, concluding agreements for commercial suborganizations of the Center, “donations” from domestic interested commercial structures, etc. .d.
Foreign contacts. The partners of the Levada Center include: The EU-Russia Center (Belgium), the Center for the Study of Public Policy (Centre for the Study of Public Policy, UK), US Government Agency for international development(USAID, USA), Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (Germany), the Ford Foundation (USA), MacArthur Foundation in Russia (USA), Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung (Germany) , Institute " Open Society».
Leading employees of the Center completed internships in research companies in the USA and Western Europe. Levada Center is included in the list of independent think tanks in Europe presented by Freedom House. Levada Center data was used to compile The Economist Special Report on Russia.
Influence at Russian politics. An analysis of the tasks within the framework of these grants shows that their goal is to collect sociological information for the development of methods and tools for influencing social and political situation in Russia, as well as search social base opposition for subsequent work with it.
For the National Endowment for Support of Democracy, Levada Center prepared a report “Prospects civil society in Russia" 2011. The report was prepared based on materials from 103 in-depth interviews with leaders of non-governmental organizations and civil associations in 6 large Russian cities in October 2010-February 2011. Thus, Levada Center handed over to the US State Department, through which NED is financed, a database of regional-level opposition activists containing all the necessary information for the subsequent involvement of “protest activists” in the work, starting from personal data, to the specifics of political views.
In 2011, the Polish Institute and Levada Center received funding for a training program Russian developers politicians and opinion makers (Training program for Russian policy and opinion makers). The task was to select 10 such promising Russians for further training. Duration of the program: November 2012 – March 2013.
Levada Center in partnership with International Society Memorial (with the support of the Open Society Institute) conducts a series of discussion seminars with the participation of Russian and foreign experts. Seminars in the second half of 2012 were devoted to discussing the international experience of socio-political movements in Poland, Czechoslovakia, the USA, the USSR and Russia. During these seminars, the experience and methodology of coups and “regime change” were studied.
Conclusion. Levada Center receives foreign funding and conducts political activities and is therefore subject to the law on NPOs acting as foreign agents.”

This report was published today on the Krasnoyarsk Time resource. Anyone who wants can read it.
http://krasvremya.ru/

To the conclusions of the authors of the report, we can add that the bouquet listed above will apply not only to a foreign agent, but to an entire station: there is the collection of information and its transfer for a fee, and agents of influence, and active measures, and subversive activities, in a word, the whole gentleman’s set. It is surprising that this enemy tool has been working with impunity for so long. Maybe it's time to get rid of this dark horse.

ALL PHOTOS

The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation included the center for sociological research "Analytical Center of Yuri Levada" in the register of NGOs performing the functions of a "foreign agent". In July, the pro-Kremlin Anti-Maidan movement appealed to the department with a demand to check Yuri Levada’s organization for the presence of foreign funding. From August 12 to August 31, inspections took place at the center. Deputy director of Levada Center Alexey Grazhdankin told Interfax that the organization will seek exclusion from the register of “agents.”

“The fact that the organization complies with the characteristics of a non-profit organization performing the functions of a foreign agent was established during an unscheduled documentary check carried out by the Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Justice in Moscow,” the Ministry of Justice website says.

The director of the Levada Center, Lev Gudkov, in a conversation with Dozhd, said that the center may cease its work if the decision of the Ministry of Justice cannot be appealed, in which case the organization will close. He called the inclusion of “agents” on the list a political order and connected this with the conduct of rating surveys." United Russia", which showed a decline in interest in the party. "It was an excuse or a reason," Gudkov said. According to the results of a survey conducted August 26-29 among 1,600 people over 18 years of age in 137 populated areas 48 regions of the Russian Federation (statistical error does not exceed 3.4%), the approval rating of United Russia decreased from 39 to 31% of all respondents. Russian President Vladimir Putin linked this to criticism from competing parties.

Deputy director of the center Alexey Grazhdankin said: “We are focused primarily on the domestic Russian client, we are reducing the number of contracts with foreign clients and we hope that this status will be removed from us.”

The head of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Fedotov, said that Levada Center was included in the list of “foreign agents” due to the imperfection of the law. According to the head of the Human Rights Council, the Russian Peace Foundation or the Russian Authors Society could just as easily be included in the register of foreign agents, since “they all receive cash or other property from foreign sources and are engaged in public activities that our law can easily interpret as political." He believes that the organization will be able to get off the list by changing its status to "commercial."

Anti-Maidan functionaries stated that Levada Center violates Federal Law N121 “On Foreign Agents.” They claim that the center conducts research in the interests of the US Department of Defense on behalf of the University of Wisconsin and allegedly received almost $120 thousand from the US for this in 2016. As evidence, the movement posted a link to one of the US government websites, the page of which contains data similar to the coordinates of the Levada Center.

“Topics that will be explored in the focus groups include: how participants perceive their housing situation and other aspects of their socio-economic status, their relationship with housing issues, basic social and political attitudes, their ideas about the United States, the military conflict in Ukraine and other major international problems, their assessment of recent government policies and the state of affairs in the country, the main changes in the economic conditions of respondents over the past one or two years and other topics,” Antimaidan quotes a description of the survey project, allegedly paid for by the United States.

Levada Center director Lev Gudkov then commented on this information. “We are dealing with research, with the University of Wisconsin. We have nothing to do with the US Department of Defense. Where Wisconsin gets the money is their problem, how it is financed,” Gudkov said.

Also social movement"AntiMaidan" complained to the Prosecutor General RF Yuri Chaika on the Dozhd TV channel and its website. An organization whose goal is to prevent " orange revolution"in Russia, asked Chaika to organize a check of publications on the channel’s website. They allegedly do not contain any mention of the fact that terrorist organization ISIS (IS, Daesh - banned in the Russian Federation. - Note website) is prohibited in Russia, as required by federal law.

Under the law, which came into force on November 21, 2012, foreign-funded political NPOs are required to register as “foreign agents.” In 2013, the Ministry of Justice received the right to recognize NPOs as “foreign agents” at its own discretion.

This is not the only limitation for NPOs. In June 2015, a law came into force that allows foreign and international non-governmental organizations to be designated as undesirable in Russia and prohibited from operating in the country if they pose a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order, defense capability or state security.

"It's a lie clean water, fraud." These were the words used by the head of the Levada Center, Lev Gudkov, to the accusation of foreign funding. As Reedus previously wrote, public organization Anti-Maidan demanded that the Ministry of Justice recognize the analytical center as a “foreign agent”: according to open financial data, .

According to the organization's latest financial report, dated June 2016, the University of Wisconsin acts as an intermediary between Levada Center and the US Department of Defense:

We're dealing with research, with the University of Wisconsin. This is a study of the housing problem, family history. We have no connection with the US Department of Defense. And where Wisconsin gets the money is their problem, how it is financed, Gudkov’s answer is quoted by Life.

According to him, Levada Center has long been cooperating with the university, which commissions various studies from the organization. “The University of Wisconsin conducts all kinds of research around the world, this is a common research project- history of everyday life, families in different countries. For us, this is a commercial project, we conduct a survey, they pay.”

“What catches your eye from the very beginning is how the director of the center reacts to information about the customer in the person of the US Department of Defense,” Anti-Maidan activists comment on Gudkov’s statement. “Everything, of course, is possible, but when you take an order and receive money for it, you are usually interested in the nature of their appearance.”

As it turned out, the cooperation between the Levada Center and the University of Wisconsin was not only about “research on the problem of housing and family history,” as Gudkov assured journalists of. According to Antimaidan, the analytical center was collecting intelligence data in the interests of the military department of another state.

This is what the official report looks like, posted on the US government website:

The document clearly states the functions assigned to Levada Center under one of the contracts.

Topics that will be covered in the focus groups include the following:

how participants perceive their housing situation and other aspects of their socioeconomic status; their connections with housing issues; basic social and political attitudes;
their views on the United States, the military conflict in Ukraine, Russian military intervention in Syria and confrontation with Turkey, as well as other major international issues;
their assessment of recent government policies and the state of affairs in the country; views on upcoming elections; worries or optimism about the future of the country;
major changes in respondents' economic conditions over the past one or two years and other topics.

Obviously, the work of the Levada Center was not limited to the “research on the problem of housing and family history” mentioned by Gudkov. Anti-Maidan activists argue that the deliberate emphasis on the non-political topic of the contract looks, at the very least, suspicious.

At the same time, according to the Federal Law “On Non-Profit Organizations”, the Ministry of Justice still has every reason to recognize the Levada Center as a “foreign agent”: in the event of a decision to conduct an audit of an analytical organization, it will not matter who specifically transferred the funds - Pentagon or University of Wisconsin. Thus, Gudkov simply testified against himself.

In connection with Gudkov’s statement, Antimaidan reformulated its appeal to the Ministry of Justice. Now it reads like this: “Does Levada Center, which receives foreign funding (and this is already a confirmed fact), participate in political activities carried out in the territory Russian Federation, in the interests of foreign sources?

I quote in full: “The majority of Russians consider it unacceptable when government officials threaten members of the opposition and classify those who criticize the government as “enemies of the people.” This was reported by the Levada Center. As sociologists have found, 59% of survey participants share this opinion. Another 15%, on the contrary, called such statements acceptable, but only 4% of respondents are “firmly convinced” of this. In addition, every fourth ( 27%) could not determine their attitude to this issue.” For the sake of color, I’ll clarify that the message was taken from Rosbalt, “Rain” dripped about the same thing today, further on the list.

When do you think we had time? And who was the survey conducted among? The numbers are really wild. Looks like a scam, or the survey about http://aftershock.news/?q=node/368050 was conducted in the Levada Center itself or on Dozhd. How many people were surveyed, who took part in the survey, how were they surveyed? In general, a naked order. I became interested in what this “Levada Center” is, who created it, and who heads it, and how much money it lives and lives on. Here's what we found out. Let's start with the creator of the project, whose name it is believed to bear - Yuri Aleksandrovich Levada...

Now about the history of the Center itself. Levada Center emerged from the bowels of VTsIOM, which was organized and for some time headed by the well-known Tatyana Zaslavskaya. In 1992, when VTsIOM started working, she left it and became president of the Intercenter, created by the English professor T. Shanin with money from Soros.

In 2003, Levada and his team from VTsIOM were asked. He rushed to VTsIOM-A, which he had created in advance, just in case of emergency, but this name was banned. That’s when the Yuri Levada Center appeared. And he is again taken under the wing by the same Zaslavskaya, and she herself is elected honorary president of this organization. It is clear that Soros’s money is starting to work for Levada. And as we know, whoever pays the money calls the tune.

Levada and Zaslavka are no longer there. But their work lives on. The center was headed by Levada’s colleague at VTsIOM, 70-year-old Doctor of Philosophy Lev Dmitrievich Gudkov, who turned out to be a worthy successor and proudly carried the banner of the 5th column. His surveys, supposedly of public opinion, and his interviews fully corresponded to the requests of customers. Well, it’s convenient. It’s not me, but the voice of the people, public opinion, you can’t argue. To illustrate, here are some of his statements...

“Vladimir Putin, 100 days into his third presidential term this week, is rapidly losing the support of his fellow citizens. Such data is contained in the results of a survey conducted by Levada Center. According to his data, only 48% of respondents speak positively about the activities of the head of state.” (There was actually an increase in support).

“First of all, of course, she stands out for her principled position in connection with the migration crisis in Europe - such a clearly defined moral position, a humanistic position, among European politicians. This is very impressive for Russians, at least for those who follow events in Europe. Secondly, Merkel is perceived as a strong figure opposing Putin. She focuses on herself all the expectations or illusions of the opposition as a person who takes a moral position in relation to the aggressively authoritarian and adventurous power of Putin. Merkel, like Margaret Thatcher once was, is a figure of an iron, strong-willed politician who defends European and Western values. It's a pretty consistent image."

So the sociologist let it slip. She is the hope of the opposition, and our opposition is 5 percent. This means that the first place was secured by a majority of 5%, that’s all sociology is. This is how polls are done, and after that, stuffing.

It is surprising that such a serious state matter as a public opinion poll is carried out by a foreign agent operating with funds from foreign grantors. An agent who is in opposition to the government, which is supported by the overwhelming majority of the Russian population.

Levada Center is tightly integrated into the international system of organizations conducting subversive or near-subversive activities against the Russian state. If anyone thought that the authorities knew nothing about the activities of pseudo-sociologists and their solicitations from foreign intelligence services, I will disappoint you. They knew.

Two years ago, the RUSSIAN INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES CENTER FOR CURRENT POLITICS prepared a Report

“Methods and technologies of activities of foreign and Russianresearch centers, as well as research structures and universities receiving funding from foreign sources.”

It also talks about the Levada Center. Here are some excerpts from the report:

"Autonomous non-profit organization Analytical Center of Yuri Levada (ANO Levada-Center)The Levada Center, as a mechanism for collecting and analyzing sociological information, is an important tool for manipulating public opinion and providing informational influence on the state apparatus and political institutions.

Levada Center carries out orders from government-sponsored foreign funds, the results of which go directly to foreign government departments. In addition, the Levada Center, as a non-state structure, has no legal restrictions on transferring its own “field notebooks” and information databases to foreign customers.

At the same time, Levada Center experts constantly put forward the thesis that the discrepancy between their data and the election results means the presence of falsifications and fraud during the elections themselves. These statements are widely circulated by foreign media, from where, already in the status of “reliable sources,” they are republished in Russian opposition media.

Financing. Grantmakers include the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the MacArthur Foundation.

Reference: According to information on the website of the National Endowment for Democracy, since 2009 NED has financed 4 Levada Center projects: Public opinion during the 2009 elections to the Moscow City Duma; Quantitative research on the effectiveness of PR strategies for NPOs; a series of interviews on xenophobia and nationalism after the events on Manezhnaya Square in December 2010; polls related to the 2011 parliamentary elections and the 2012 presidential elections.

In particular, the latest grant received $71,242 for the following purposes: “to conduct a series of public opinion polls about the upcoming presidential and State Duma elections.” The first surveys served as a baseline survey during the election campaign, followed by two additional surveys after the election. Levada Center will also conduct six monthly surveys monitoring public opinion regarding the potential impact of the elections on social and political issues in Russia.

The result was the report “Russian Parliamentary Elections: The Electoral Process under an Authoritarian Regime.” The report includes materials from surveys of participants in the “For Fair Elections” rallies in December 2011 - February 2012, financed by the fund of rally organizers and Novaya Gazeta. Direct executors - L.D. Gudkov, B.V. Dubin, N.A. Zorkaya, M.A. Tight.

NED also funds projects in Russia through the Polish Institute of Public Affairs (IPA). In 2009, the MacArthur Foundation allocated $150,000 to the Levada Center for the project “Monitoring Socio-Economic Transformations in Russia.”

Around the Levada Center, workaround financing options and channels for receiving unaccounted funds have long been established - from “black cash” to “payment of fees for consultations and lectures,” crowdfunding, concluding agreements for commercial suborganizations of the Center, “donations” from domestic interested commercial structures, etc. .d.

Foreign contacts. Levada Center partners include: The EU-Russia Center (Belgium), Center for the Study of Public Policy (UK), US Agency for International Development (USAID, USA), Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (Germany), the Ford Foundation (USA), MacArthur Foundation in Russia (USA), Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung (Germany), Open Society Institute .

Leading employees of the Center completed internships in research companies in the USA and Western Europe. Levada Center is included in the list of independent think tanks in Europe presented by Freedom House. Levada Center data was used to compile The Economist Special Report on Russia.

Influence on Russian politics. An analysis of the tasks within the framework of these grants shows that their goal is to collect sociological information to develop methods and tools for influencing the social and political situation in Russia, as well as to search for the social base of the opposition for subsequent work with it.

For the National Foundation for Support of Democracy, the Levada Center prepared a report “Prospects for Civil Society in Russia” 2011. The report was prepared based on materials from 103 in-depth interviews with leaders of non-governmental organizations and civil associations in 6 large Russian cities in October 2010-February 2011. Thus, Levada Center handed over to the US State Department, through which NED is financed, a database of regional-level opposition activists, containing all the necessary information for the subsequent involvement of “protest activists” in the work, ranging from personal data to specific political views.

In 2011, the Polish Institute and Levada Center received funding for the Training program for Russian policy and opinion makers. The task was to select 10 such promising Russians for further training. Duration of the program: November 2012 – March 2013.

Levada Center, in partnership with the Memorial International Society (with the support of the Open Society Institute), conducts a series of discussion seminars with the participation of Russian and foreign experts. Seminars in the second half of 2012 were devoted to discussing the international experience of socio-political movements in Poland, Czechoslovakia, the USA, the USSR and Russia. During these seminars, the experience and methodology of coups and “regime change” were studied.

Conclusion. Levada Center receives foreign funding and conducts political activities and is therefore subject to the law on NPOs acting as foreign agents.”

Autonomous non-profit organization "Analytical Center of Yuri Levada" (ANO Levada Center) is a Russian non-governmental research organization. The center regularly conducts its own and custom sociological and marketing research, being one of the largest Russian organizations in your area.

The Levada Center team began to take shape in 1987 within the framework of the All-Union Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM). Academician Tatiana Zaslavskaya became the first head of the center. In 1987-1988, a network of sociological centers was deployed in the republics of the USSR and regions of Russia. This made it possible in November 1988 to conduct the first mass surveys on representative samples of the country’s adult population, in next year Research was already carried out on a systematic basis. In 1988, sociologist Yuri Levada (1930-2006) came to work at the center, who in 1992 replaced Tatyana Zaslavskaya as head of the organization.

In August 2003, the Ministry of Property Relations of the Russian Federation decided to change the status of the center, which led to a change in the center's leadership. The research team, disagreeing with the changes made, left the organization in its entirety, creating the “VTsIOM Analytical Service” (VTsIOM-A). By court decision, the name was changed and today the organization continues to operate under the name “Yuri Levada Analytical Center” (“Levada Center”).

The director of the center is sociologist, Doctor of Philosophy Lev Gudkov (since December 2006).

The center's staff consists of specialists in the field of sociology, political science, economics, psychology, marketing research, organization of mass surveys and data processing. Leading employees completed internships in research companies in the USA and Western Europe.

Levada Center has an interviewer network of 67 regional partners and maintains partnerships with public opinion research centers in the CIS and Baltic countries. The results of the center's research are regularly published by leading information publications in Russia and the world.

The center's partners and customers are Russian and international companies, research and non-profit organizations.

An important area of activity of the Levada Center is scientific work. The journal "Bulletin of Public Opinion" and an annual collection of the main results of mass public opinion polls in Russia are published, distributed free of charge.

Since 1991, the Levada Center research team has regularly conducted a series of studies on the eve of the State Duma elections and the Russian presidential elections.

In 2008, a basic department was created Analytical Center Yuri Levada at the Faculty of Sociology of the National Research University " graduate School Economics" (NRU HSE).

A prosecutor's inspection of documentation took place at the sociological center's office.

In May, it became known that the Levada Center received a warning from the Savyolovskaya Interdistrict Prosecutor's Office of Moscow, dated May 15, 2013. It talks about the inadmissibility of violating the law on NPOs, and also warns about liability in the event of carrying out political activities and receiving funding from foreign sources.

However, funds received from foreign funds constitute an insignificant part of the Levada Center budget: in different years approximately 1.5-3%.

Deputy director of the center Alexey Grazhdankin said that during the proceedings on the issue of whether the publication can be considered sociological research political activity, Levada Center has suspended work on scientific projects and research commissioned by foreign organizations and foreign institutions, but has not yet completely abandoned foreign funding.