Since Putin Came to Power, Four Russian Schools, Three of Them Rural, have Closed Every Day

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 31 – Since 2000, four schools have closed in Russia every day, three of them in rural areas. As a result, pupils must travel further to go to school, many go into cities to study, the quality of education they receive has declined, and ever more Russian parents are electing to home school their children.

            These trends in turn are accelerating the death of the Russian village and the depopulation of rural Russia, developments that a Nakanune news agency report says are threatening the country’s ability to modernize at home and to defend itself against national security threats from abroad (nakanune.ru/articles/114235/)e.

            The closure of schools in rural areas is casting a shadow on the entire country, the news agency continues. Not only are children having to travel up to 17 kilometers each day to get to school, up from 12 only 18 years ago, but ever more of them are forced to go into nearby cities to get any education, effectively condemning their villages to an early death.

            Statistics confirm this. In 2005, 99 percent of village pupils studied in rural schools, but in 2017, only 85 percent do. The remainder either study in cities, are homeschooled or have dropped out of the educational system altogether.

            “Of course,” the agency continues, “urbanization is a global process … but for Russia with its enormous distances and very small population, further urbanization will mean the risk of a loss of territory. And the mass liquidation of rural schools under the pretext of their unprofitability will only promote that process.”

            “The logic of the market,” Nakanune says, “where schools are rating by their effectiveness in these terms is murderous for Russia.” With their death, the village school ceases to be an anchor for the village and an escalator for young people there, thus further depressing birthrates and killing off the villages more quickly.

            This trend has been made worse, educational officials say, by the desire of the school system to make instruction “fun” rather than substantive. Parents can see this and are drawing their own conclusions, pulling their children out of schools and educating them at home so that they will be better prepared for universities and life.

            The Russian government doesn’t currently maintain statistics on home schooling, but it is clearly a growing phenomenon, especially in villages. Some activists estimate ther are as many as 100,000 young people being home schooled on a voluntary basis – that is, not because of problems with their health but because of the decision of parents.

            That is still a tiny fraction of all Russian pupils – less than one percent – but the share is growing, up by more than seven times over the last decade, at least in part because of the impact of the closure of schools in rural Russia.

Moscow’s Plan to Divide Russia into 14 Economic Regions Acts as If Markets Don’t Exist and isn’t about Economics Anyway, Garifullin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 31 – In Soviet times, Moscow divided up the USSR into economic regions at various points, something that could be said to make some sense when there is a planned socialist economy. But now, the government is calling for dividing up Russia into 14 economic regions without acknowledging the existence of markets, Ilnar Garifullin says.

            The plan, outlined in a 114-page draft decision on spatial development of the country (economy.gov.ru/wps/wcm/connect/4e13f48c-257a-4878-858f-c2159aa5320b/spr.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=4e13f48c-257a-4878-858f-c2159aa5320b), virtually ignores the transformation of the Russian  economy over the last 27 years, the historian says (idelreal.org/a/29461665.html).

            Over the course of that period, Garifullin says, “in place of the planned-administative economy has arisen a market economy with all ensuring consequences, the chief of which is that the economic development of a territory is defined by market processes and the movement of capital and not by the order of the state.”

            “How in such a situation the state can directly regulate economic development of this or that territory is a question without an answer.”

            Despite the plan’s claims to be based on existing “socio-economic ties” in the regions, Garifullin continues, a glance at the lines it draws shows this is not the case and that the proposed divisions are being imposed much as Stalin did when with the stroke of a pen he drew the borders of the national republics – but even he had more logic on his side than this plan does.

            Commenting on the latest plan, some experts are “carefully” suggesting that the new division is designed to set the stage for the elimination of national republics and oblasts and their replacement by gubernias.  If they read the entire document, however, they would see that there is no reason to be cautious about making such suggestions.

            The document shows that Moscow wants to equalize the situation throughout the country and eliminate the current division between donor and recipient regions.  Moreover, it shows that the center plans to have these economic regions rather than the existing federal subjects make decisions on things like the number of schools and social infrastructure more generally.

            That will take away what remains of federalism.  And if that is not enough, point seven of the document speaks only of protecting “the rights of indigenous numerically small peoples” but not of the rights of those which now have national republics.  They will be stripped of their last powers and so will be vestigial until they are eliminated altogether.

            “The practice of enlargement and ‘optimization’ is extremely popular with the Russian bureaucratic machine” which always talks about improving the lives of people and reducing the size of the bureaucracy but acts to do just the reverse, Garifullin continues. And that has real consequences for most of Russia.

            “This means the further dying out of villages and small cities and the expansion of ‘new Moscow’ in which, according to the calculations of analysts, if the current trends continue, 20 years from now a quarter of the population of the country will live.”

            And it means something else as well: the equalization of conditions everywhere else, a situation that history shows in the case of Russia means that all will live poorly rather than some having a chance for a better life.

Universal Patriarch to Grant Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephaly, Greek Church Source Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 31 – The Universal Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, Bartholemew I, has decided to grant autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, according to a Greek church site, giving a major victory to Kyiv and inflicting an even larger geopolitical defeat on the Moscow Patriarchate and the Kremlin.

            Archbishop Yevstraty Zorya, the press secretary of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, citing the Greek outlet Orthodoxia.info, says that Bartholemew informed Moscow Patriarch Kirill about his decision during the latter’s recent visit to Constantinople (nv.ua/ukraine/events/varfolomej-proinformiroval-hlavu-rpts-o-svoem-reshenii-otnositelno-avtokefalii-est-osnovanija-dlja-sderzhannoho-optimizma-upk-kp-2491600.html).

            Yevstraty added that the headline in the Greek source could be translated as “The Die is Cast! Ukraine is Receiving Autocephaly.” He said that Patriarch Kirill left his meeting with Bartholemew “in not the best spirit.” But Ukrainians are celebrating what will be a major victory for them. 

            A spokesman for the Universal Patriarch told Orthodoxia.info that “no one wants yet another split,” something Moscow has threatened if Constantinople proceeded. “Everyone wants unity in the Church.” But he added the Universal Patriarchate won’t be guided in its action by “threats from anyone,” a clear rebuff to Moscow.

            According to the spokesman, the Universal Patriarch took the decision about offering autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church in April and is now in the process of implementing it. And in the months since, Constantinople has signaled that it intends to meet Ukraine’s request although it has not provided a specific date.

            It is important to recognize what the grant of autocephaly in Ukraine will and won’t do. It will elevate the status of the Ukrainian church and underscore its separation from Moscow, but it won’t end the existence of the Moscow Patriarchate’s network of churches in Ukraine, although it will undoubtedly cause many of them to shift their subordination to Kyiv.

            Most important, it will undermine the Moscow Patriarchate’s claim to speak for all Orthodox on the former Soviet space and cost the church itself a great deal of its income given that half of its existing congregations are in Ukraine rather than in Moscow. And it will call into question Moscow’s claim to be the largest Orthodox church in the world.

            Obviously, Moscow both religious and secular isn’t going to accept this without a fight. But the decision of the Universal Patriarch means that Ukraine has won a major victory, one that it is likely to build on in the future and one that may serve as a model for other post-Soviet states as far as Orthodoxy is concerned.