More than a third of Russians (36 percent) say they believe in magic, according to a new sociological survey by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center. A further 27 percent of respondents told pollsters that they have personally encountered magic in their lives.
According to the survey, women and the middle-aged were most likely to say they believe in magic. Nearly half (42 percent) of women and persons between the ages of 45 and 59 said magic is real. Only 29 percent of men expressed belief in magic, and just 24 percent of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 said there is magic in the real world.
Belief in magic is also higher in smaller towns and villages. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, for instance, 83 percent of respondents said they’ve never encountered witchcraft or wizardry in their lives. In Russian villages, this figure dropped to 67 percent.
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