The all-Russian empirical data revealed that 30.6% of Russians are in the state of poverty or misery: the smaller the size of the settlement is, the poorer people live there. As the population ages, it is more prone to poverty and misery. Poverty is very strongly correlated with social and political deprivation. The poorer the population is, the wider is its range of problems directly related to survival, the more often the main source of information for it is television, the more it is limited in its information and technological capabilities. The deeper the economic deprivation of the Russians is, the more it extrapolates to the perception of the situation in the country as a whole, the less they are satisfi ed with the domestic policy of the authorities, the greater is the dissatisfaction with the economic, social policy and development strategy in the country. Their satisfaction with their lives among the Russians is also directly related to material well-being: the lower the standard of living, the greater the mass dissatisfaction with it. The dominant mood among them is pessimism, including the expectation of hard times, a serious increase in prices. These categories of the Russians are more often on the verge of social tension, among them there is a higher probability of mass protests.