«Oh, how many wonderful discoveries await us...» Moreover, in the most unexpected places and for unusual reasons. For example, just the other day at the MSU board of trustees meeting, timed to the 270th anniversary of the country's main university, one of such discoveries was made, and the president couldn't believe it. The following dialogue took place between the head of state and the mayor of the capital:
V. Putin: Sergey Semyonovich, what is our average salary level in Moscow?
S. Sobyanin: 140–160 thousand rubles.
V. Putin: Come on! More.
S. Sobyanin: No more.
V. Putin: Average salary.
S. Sobyanin: Yes, the average salary is 160.
V. Sadovnichy: At MSU — 180.
V. Putin: Well, then it's done, yes.
This is an approximate example of what and how the head of state really thinks about socio-economic indicators: Putin simply did not believe that the average salary in such a wealthy city as Moscow was so small. Although in reality, this is a very decent income, albeit rapidly eaten away by inflation, which has become chronic.
The university's board of trustees, whose 85-year-old rector recently had his term extended by the president personally for another five years, as if conducting an experiment — why not follow the same path in the same age brackets — became a reflection of today's state thinking. Huge funds are directed on a non-competitive basis to those points that seem important not even to the abstract state or the Kremlin, but personally to the autocrat. For example, in general — for the defense of the Fatherland. In particular — for old attachments, the same MSU, which, according to the results of the meeting, may receive additional funds at the expense of other universities. And this does not mean that the country's main higher education institution is fabulously rich — everything is known in comparison with spending on industries not quite related to human capital, where the "ready-made metal products" jingle alarmingly.
In fact, the development of education after three years of anthropological catastrophe is largely aimed at the production of such products and related ones. This motive was also voiced during the board of trustees meeting. Science and knowledge as such are not a priority, but their narrowly applied aspect — as the president directly stated, everything should be built around "national development goals" and especially "technological leadership".
For this, children after the 9th grade are redirected to colleges. For this, engineering education, solid disciplines are primarily encouraged. There is nothing wrong with this, except for the skewed goal-setting, like the structure of today's militarized economy — "in the interests of the national economy and industry". With such narrow pragmatism, it is impossible to achieve truly large-scale successes: if you are going to imitate the 1960s, then science should be fashionable and fundamental, scientific research should be encouraged and even celebrated. And here — to design and sew iron.
MSU Building. Photo: ranglen86
Humanities faculties in such a logic also remain far from science, especially since they are actively sovereignized and closed off from scientific exchange with the West (however, this applies to technical and natural science disciplines to an even greater extent — for example, astronomers almost make lenses by hand, it is impossible to order them somewhere in France, and we still do not make them). The humanitarian block becomes a servant of messianic ideology and a midwife of military actions. In the Kremlin dialect, this is called "value and worldview sovereignty", as a result of which some "Orthodox sociology" is born or "Fundamentals of Russian Statehood" are published. And we also need to "talk about the achievements of our people" — what does science have to do with it? If we continue to sovereignize in this way, then "on the dusty paths of distant planets" our traces will never appear.
Education has been taken seriously. Ideas appear to reduce the number of exams within the OGE after the 9th grade for those going to colleges — the new proletariat does not need this, they need to be brought to the labor market as soon as possible to work for the front, for victory. The freezing of the "shelf life" of the Unified State Exam for front-line soldiers is being discussed: in such logic, entering a university is a reward for serving the regime, not the selection of the best. This is social engineering in its purest form — creating a whole layer of "new people".
Another innovation — the Bologna system is being liquidated from September 2026, although the "unique Russian" higher education, judging by everything, will remain two-tiered — the new structure will not become a big obstacle for students striving to study in the West.
On the actual Tatiana's Day, the state prepared a gift for students, and to a greater extent for female students. Since the Kremlin in its current state is constantly buying something with taxpayers' money — contractors for trenches, "birthing centers" to give birth to future contractors — in terms of increasing birth rates, they followed the same mercantilist path. Putin instructed to increase maternity and childbirth benefits for female students and postgraduates. The amount will now strive, depending on the region, to 90 thousand rubles. That is, they are buying pregnancy from female students receiving sovereign education for purposes... what? Technological sovereignty? Or the protection of our values?
Demographically, this is a stimulation of earlier childbirth (against the global trend), especially among those who should be getting an education and contributing to sovereignty. Nothing is said about whether these female students are married, despite the fact that the stability of early student marriages is low, and the new benefit creates incentives to give birth without marriage for money. And what is the outcome? Single mothers? A same-sex family from a joke — grandmother, mother, daughter?
And another question arises: well, even if this logic of industrial production of future "Going Together" is preserved, but where is the money from? It turns out that even in more prosperous, much more prosperous years, the state had this money. Why didn't it invest in human capital with the same intensity as it does now in human material?
But in the end, as the student anthem sings, Vivant omnes virgines, long live all the girls. Let Tatiana's Day not turn into Tatiana's shadow — you can't make everyone sovereign. Education, science, creative enthusiasm, pre-exam excitement, and even some student traditions, dating back to truly meaningful times, like the same Physics Day at the same MSU, will still remain.
And let the boring men in suits continue to cut money for their innovative clusters, which they still can't build, and it's even clear why. Don't pay attention to them, which most students do. It's said: Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus — let's have fun while we are young.
* Andrey Kolesnikov is considered a "foreign agent" by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.