51% of Russians believes that the historical founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin, played a positive role in national history, according to a poll that was released on Tuesday.

This figure is up by 11 points compared to a similar poll in 2006. For 38% of respondents “Lenin played a rather positive role”, while 13% considered that he played an “absolutely positive” role in the nation’s history. In contrast, 26% believes that Lenin’s role was “probably negative” or “completely negative”. The latter percentage was at 36% in 2006.

The poll was conducted in 45 regions of Russian on a representative sample of 1603 people, by the independent Levada institute.

Nearly 60% of respondents over 55 years old appreciate Lenin, while people under 30’s acceptance stands at 40%.

Russia celebrates the 144th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who was born on the 22nd of April 1870 in Simbirsk.