Human Development Report 2001

The first chapter “The Role of the Generations in the Globalisation of Present-Day National Russia” forms a link between the previous Human Development Report 2000 for the Russian Federation, which was devoted to globalisation, and the current Report for 2001, which analyses the problems from the perspective of the different generations. The generations - large social groups of people born approximately at the same time in history and possessing a similar set of values, related social experience, and corresponding perceptions of the world - are directly affected by globalisation. A peculiar symbiosis between active global and traditional trends is occurring in the country, which makes the situation in Russia unique. The relative stabilisation of such a crisis-stricken society as Russia (which in no way means it is free of crisis phenomena which are at times very severe) ensues from Russia’s integration into world processes, and not from its withdrawal from them. In this sense, Russian society is influenced by these trends to a greater extent than the fairly traditionally stable Western societies and is acting as a kind of probing ground in which trends can be tried out which will only fully manifest themselves globally in the future. The diagram of common and diverging values of the different generations in present-day Russia shows both the unity of a large number of indices and certain generational differences. Meanwhile, the logic of globalisation is gradually, and sometimes rather rapidly, winning over the generations, primarily, the younger ones, by actively incorporating them into socially productive activity focused on a global future.