Hungarians only like the Pope more than Putin

An interesting duality can be observed in the Hungarian public opinion concerning the country’s foreign affairs. Although Hungarians had a pro-Western attitude for decades, yet among the internationally most determining political personalities, Vladimir Putin is leading the list. According to Hungarians Putin is more sympathetic than Angela Merkel, or Donald Trump for that matter. He reached to the skies and became the second most popular public figure in the eyes of the Hungarians. Only the Pope is more popular than him. The lord of the Kreml is sympathetic for 44% of the Hungarian adults, according to the poll of Medián this year. Angela Merkel won the sympathy of only 38%.

HERE you can read about the meeting of Angela Merkel and Viktor Orbán.

So the question of Péter Krekó in one of his analysis is legitimate. Are Hungarians pro-Russian? He concludes that the image of Russia significantly changed since the ‘Tovarisi konyec’ posters in 1989. According to the Tárki publication, the more general the questions are in a poll between East and West, the more Hungarians gravitate towards the latter. But concerning the concrete persons of international political life, the tendency has been the opposite for the past few years now – can be read on Hvg.hu.

According to the 2016 sampling of Globsec and Political Capital, Hungarians placed Russia the third, just behind Germany and Austria in the list of those countries whom Hungary should maintain a close relationship with. Moscow preceded the UK, the USA, Poland and France.

If you are interested in gastronomy as well, you can read our article about the Hungarian chef, who made Putin’s breakfast.

The sympathy index of the USA and Russia has shifted during the last decade. In a scale of up to a 100, the index of the former fell from 73 to only 54, and the index of the latter rose from 36 to 48. Although the negative historical events and the conflicts of the past few years should have had the opposite effect on the sympathy index of Russia.