According to the poll, 61 percent of respondents consider Mr. Putin "the politician of the year". In this "nomination", he is followed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), with 20 percent, and Russian Emergencies Minister Sergey Shoigu with 13 percent.

Representatives of all social and demographic groups say that the president is "politician No1". Mr. Zhirinovsky is popular among young people between 18 and 24 years of age. 31 percent of pollees of this group called him "politician No1". Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov is more popular with people over 60 years old than among Russians in general.

In this "nomination", Mr. Putin is the doubtless leader, according to supporters of leading political parties, except for adherents of the Communist Party and LDPR, who prefer their own political leaders, Mr. Zyuganov and Mr. Zhirinovsky respectively. However, among voters who supported these parties there are a lot of those who actually like Mr. Putin (44 percent and 55 percent correspondingly).

About one third of respondents (29 percent) believe that Mr. Chubais is the "negative" politician. In this category, he is followed by Boris Berezovsky (20 percent), Vladimir Zhirinovsky (18 percent), Gennady Zyuganov (13 percent), and Mikhail Khodorkovsky (9 percent).

Political preferences of pollees are one of the factors that influence their estimation of a specific politician as "2003 Russia's Antihero". Those who vote for the Communist Party, LDPR, and the Rodina bloc most frequently mention Mr. Chubais in this respect. Supporters of Yabloko disapprove of Mr. Zhirinovsky and Mr. Zyuganov. SPS's electorate speaks against Mr. Berezovsky and Mr. Zhirinovsky.

As for those who vote for the United Russia party, their opinion on the Russian "antihero" split between Mr. Chubais and Mr. Zyuganov. It is interesting that the least share of those who pointed to Mr. Khodorkovsky as to the "antihero" are among supporters of SPS on the one hand and LDPR on the other hand. At the same time, the electorate of the Yabloko party that actively supported the Russian tycoon considers him "negative" (14 percent). It is only Rodina that has a greater share of his opponents (17 percent).

The poll was conducted in 100 settlements of 39 regions and republics of Russia on December 13 and 14, 2003. VCIOM polled 1,600 people with a possible statistic error of 3.4 percent.

On these days, VCIOM also conducted a poll on the upcoming Russian presidential elections. According to its results, almost 80 percent of Russians were ready to participate in the elections if they were held the following Sunday. 46.9 percent of pollees would have taken part in them for sure. 28.8 percent were most likely to have done this. 9.5 percent of respondents did not decide yet. At the same time, 7.8 percent of pollees would not have gone to polling stations the following Sunday, and 2.21 percent found it difficult to answer.

According to VCIOM, if presidential elections were held the following Sunday, 71.7 percent of Russians would have voted for Vladimir Putin, 5.4 percent - for Vladimir Zhirinovsky, 5.2 percent - for Gennady Zyuganov, 0.9 percent - for Yury Luzhkov, 0.3 percent - for Mikhail Kasyanov, 0.2 percent - for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and 0.1 percent - for Anatoly Chubais.