Abstract
According to representative all-Russian surveys of the Institute of Sociology of the Federal Scientific Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the 2000–2020s two problems are explored: whether over the last “crisis” decade there has been an increase in institutional trust as social capital, or its reduction, and also to what extent institutional trust is really a resource in Russia today that brings additional benefits. With regard to trust in state institutions, the impulse to “unite around the flag” associated with the beginning of the Special Military Operation continued to operate in 2024, although with weakening force; it overlapped with the rise of institutional trust indicators that began in 2021, interrupting their decline in 2016–2020. The hierarchy of objects of trust was constantly headed by the President and the Russian army, which in recent years were trusted by almost 4/5 of Russians. At the same time, Russians more often did not trust political institutions not related to the “vertical of power,” although the general trend of the 2020s featured increasing confidence to them. Trust in political institutions clearly shows a “comeback”: Russians with higher institutional trust (in particular, in the President) more often took social actions that contributed to the stability of the situation in the country (in particular, they more often participated in the 2024 presidential elections), more often with they perceived the country’s development path with optimism and were less likely to experience negative social feelings (for example, that “we can’t live like this any longer”).