Some 60 per cent of Russians think democracy is important, a finding which is considerably less than the 90 per cent average found in a worldwide study, a Russian polling institute said yesterday.

Among the Russians surveyed, 60 per cent considered it important to live in a democracy, while 29 per cent considered democracy to be of "little or no importance", said Denis Volkov, a sociologist at the Levada Centre which conducted the Russian part of the global study.

In comparison, the study by WorldPublicOpinion.org found an average of 90 per cent of people in 23 other countries thought that it was important to live in a democracy.

The study conducted in Russia also found that some 67 per cent of Russians thought it very or somewhat important that people with political views different from the majority could express themselves freely and without fear of prosecution.

Nearly half of Russians (48 per cent) thought that people could act fairly freely in contemporary Russia.

"Democracy is perceived by ex-Soviets in a specific manner," said Mr Volkov. "It symbolises in their eyes, next to free expression, a higher standard of living like that of European countries."

He added that "there is still not a national educational system to teach Russians that democracy also entails separation of powers and an independent judiciary."

Levada conducted the study in late May among 1,600 Russians.

The democracy study was conducted in countries throughout the world, notably in China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Kenya, Nigeria, Poland, France and the US.