All news

Only 3% of Russians plan to celebrate Halloween — survey

According to the survey, the growing number of Russians believe that this holiday is extrinsic to Russian culture and tradition

MOSCOW, October 29. /TASS/. More than 90% of Russians know about Halloween, but only 3% plan to celebrate it, according to a survey released by the the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center.

The number of people who know about Halloween increased since 2017 to reach 93%.

"Despite this, the number of our citizens who plan to celebrate this holiday remains unchanged in the past two years and stands at 3%. Most of them are young people aged between 18 and 24 (13%)," the Russian pollster said.

According to the survey, the growing number of Russians believe that this holiday is extrinsic to Russian culture and traditions. A total of 67% of respondents mentioned this as one of their reasons not to mark Halloween.

About one third of respondents (34%) refuse to celebrate Halloween, because they consider it irrelevant. Other popular reasons not to celebrate the holiday, given by Russians, are that they "see nothing good in it" (16%) or consider it to be a pagan holiday (7%). Two percent of respondents said they would be busy on that day.

The majority of respondents - 68% - said they did not care whether other people celebrate it. 18% demonstrated a negative attitude to those marking Halloween, 13% have positive feelings toward them.

The survey was conducted on October 27, 2019, among 1,600 respondents aged 18 or older. The margin of error is estimated to be below 2.5%.

Halloween is marked annually on October 31, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. Initially, Halloween was marked in English-speaking countries, but is now gaining popularity in Europe, Latin America and several Asian countries.