The All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) asked Russians how they will remember 2005. The largest category of respondents (47%) said they will remember it for higher electricity and gas bills, and higher costs for communal services; 46% said they will remember this year for higher gasoline prices.

When asked to name the political event of the year, 36% of respondents mentioned the death of Altai Governor Mikhail Yevdokimov in a traffic accident. The guerrilla raid on Nalchik was mentioned by 27%, and the imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky was noted by 22% as the political event of the year. Only 10% of all respondents mentioned the national projects outlined by President Putin.

VTsIOM analyst Leontii Byzov says that there is nothing new about the public's indifference to politics. According to Byzov, this trend was first noticed in the mid-1990s, when the public grew disillusioned with politics and stopped taking it seriously. The trend peaked two years ago. "Pollsters have a term for it. They call it a negative consensus between the citizenry and the authorities: we leave you alone and you leave us alone too, we don't expect anything from you and you don't meddle in our affairs," Byzov said. "It is this negative consensus that made 'Putin's stability' possible in the first place."

According to the poll, the percentage of Russians who were optimistic by the year’s end dropped from 38% in 2003 to 30% in 2005. The number of who described themselves as pessimistic rose from 12% to 17%.