Another serious blow was a very high percentage of people who stated that they were religious. 55.3 million, or 56.7%, of those who provided answers stated that they were religious (the question was asked only of people older than 16 years old), 42.2 million stated that they were atheists, and around 1 million refused to give an answer. Historian Valentina Zhiromskaya stated that people expected to be persecuted if they declared themselves as belonging to a religion, but considered the answer to be important: "If many people would say that they are religious, the authorities would have to open the churches", was a common attitude. The Soviet authorities were so upset by the results of the census that they did not include a question on religion in any future censuses.