More than half of Russians regret the breakup of the Soviet Union and believe that it could have been avoided, a recent poll by an independent pollster revealed on Tuesday.

      A total of 57 percent of respondents polled by Levada Center bemoaned the collapse of the Soviet Union, while 30 percent said they had no regrets about it. Thirteen percent had difficulty answering.

      As would be expected, elderly people tended to be more nostalgic that younger Russians. Only 37 percent of respondents aged 25 to 39 said they regretted the collapse of the USSR. That figure, however, reached 86 percent in the age group of 55 and older.

      Only 29 percent of Russians said the breakup was inevitable, while 53 percent said it could have been avoided. The rest of the respondents were undecided. About 1,600 respondents of different age and occupation in 45 Russian regions took part in the poll.

      The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union was a socialist state governed by the Communist party and existed between 1922 and 1991. Basically it was a union of several subnational Soviet republics with a centralized government and a very strong Communist ideology. On 25 December 1991 the Union was officially dissolved and all the republics attained independent statehood. The Russian Federation became the successor state, structured as a multi-party representative democracy.