Russians becoming less zealous believers - poll

"Fifty-six percent of Russians consider themselves to be Orthodox believers, according to a poll of 2,000 respondents conducted by the Yury Levada Analytical Center in July. One-third of respondents said they considered themselves atheists, and the remainder said they belonged to other religions. A total of 59% of respondents said they never attended church services, up 4% since 2005, and only 2% said they attended church every week and 4% every month, a 1-2% decrease over the same period."

Interfax, August 8. 2007

There's a lot of talk about the religious backlash in Russia, but if 33 per cent are still Atheists there, then that's a percentage which is quite high. And 2 per cent weekly church attendance is not exactly a backlash.
It's quite natural that the Orthodox church regains some territory. After all, the Communists did not really promote Atheism and reason. They were just content with banning religion, something that surely don't work in the short run.

Religion clashes with science in modern Russia

"Ten leading researchers have forwarded a letter to President Vladimir Putin, calling him to take urgent action against "the advance of clericalism." The signatories include Nobel laureates Zhores Alfyorov and Andrei Vorobyev, and fellows of the Russian Academy of Sciences Mikhail Sadovsky and Sergei Inge-Vechtomov, so the president can hardly shrug off their request.

What prompted them to sound the alarm was the recent 11th World Russian National Sobor (Assembly), held under the aegis of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose resolution calls on the government to add the ABCs of religion, under the name of Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture, to the list of compulsory school subjects. The Church thinks all children should be taught one Christian denomination - the one to which the majority of the population belongs.

[...]

Everywhere you go in Russia, you see a cassock. Priests bless warships and submarines, and sprinkle holy water over ballistic missiles. The Church has even published a Businessman's Manual of Morals. It fulminates against Western liberal values as erroneous and downright immoral.

The pendulum has swung to the side opposite militant atheism, and it is now likely to upset Russia's cultural balance."

RIA Novosti, 23/ 07/ 2007