Higher Education in Russia Now in ‘Systemic Crisis,’ Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 4 – Higher Education in Russia is now in a state of “systemic crisis,” according to Rostov sociologist Vitaly Kovalyov, with the state caring only about numbers and failing to come up with a new plan, students increasingly convinced they’ll get degrees without working very hard, and professors outraged by the decay around them.

            In a new article in Science, Culture, Society, the professor at the Southern Federal University notes that Moscow keeps pushing off the date for the introduction of some replacement of the Bologna system and seems to care only about retention and graduation rates (journal-scs.ru/index.php/scs/article/view/UFFHNM discussed at nakanune.ru/articles/124859/).

              Kovalyov interviewed students and faculty at a number of higher educational institutions and found that the former felt that they couldn’t be expelled lest the institution’s numbers would look  bad and the latter that this was forcing universities to view students as “customers” above all else.

              Half of the teaching staff told him that they have “lost their freedom” in making decisions and just under a third (31 percent) said the quality of staff was declining as a result. According to Kovalyov, the more qualified the professors, the more intensely such feelings were held.

              Only if the government recognizes that it needs highly skilled professionals and changes its educational model, the sociologist concludes, will Russia get the people it needs to ensure that its economy will grow and the country will prosper. Just putting up rosy statistics as now isn’t going to work. 

Single-Person Households in Russia Increasing Rapidly at Both Ends of the Age Spectrum, Institute of Sociology Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 4 – The number of single-person households in Russia is increasing rapidly both because of the share of younger Russians who have never married and that of older ones who are living longer even though their partners have died, according to the Moscow Institute of Sociology.

            Both are a matter of concern to the state. Fewer marriages among the young are further depressing the birthrate the Kremlin cares so much about , and that in turn is reducing the number of people who can help the older generation and forcing the government to spend more to compensate (ng.ru/economics/2026-08-04/1_9552_marriage.html).

            Census data show, Institute researchers say, that the number of never-married Russians increased from 70 per 1,000 in 2002 to 104 per 1,000 in 2020. The data also show that in 2002, 658 out of every 1,000 women over 70 were widows, with 427,000 of those aged 70 to 74 and more than 620,000 of women 75 and older.

            According to Oksanda Kuchmayeva, Ekaterina Vasiliyeva and Ekaterina Knyazkova, the share of single-person households has more than doubled in the last decade alone “with the greater number of people living alone found within the country’s working-age population.

            Among men, those under 45 dominate the category of those living alone; while among men, they are “typically widows over the age of 60. Thus most of the men living alone have never married, although a quarter of those doing so are divorced. Only one woman in five now living alone has never married.

            Among the young, Russians living alone have higher incomes, more space and higher expectations of what their lives should be like than those who don’t, the sociologists report.  Among the elderly, the reverse is true on all three metrics, the Institute of Sociology finds.

            One of the consequences of this trend, the sociologists point out is an increase in “the elderly dependency ratio and a projected increase in the state’s social obligations toward the support and servicing of elderly citizens living alone,” a large and growing problem for an already cash-strapped government.

In the Last Decades of Soviet Power, the KGB Used Movies and Books to Change Its Image and Win Support for the Organs, Mayofis Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 4 – Russian support today for the security services did not come out of nowhere in Putin’s time but rather was the result of the massive effort by the KGB in the final years of Soviet power to recast the organs not as the feared representatives of the Stalinist state but as the defenders of the country and its population.

            That is the conclusion Maria Mayofis, a Russian historian of culture now teaching an Amherst College in the United States, draws in a detailed new article for the Important Stories portal (istories.media/opinions/2026/08/04/nash-otvet-bondu-kak-kgb-menyal-svoi-obraz-s-pomoshchyu-kino-i-knig/).

              She says that according to documents from the Lithuanian Special archive analyzed in 2017, this secret plan to redefine the image of the KGB was outlined as early as 1963, a decision she suggests was prompted by the fact that by the late 1950s, the very word “chekist” had become almost a term of abuse.  

              The KGB supported the production of books and movies, Mayofis says, “to explain to the mass viewer and reader what the KGB did, to show that work in it was important and honorable, to show who in the modern world is dangerous and why, and to convince people that only state security can eliminate such dangers.”

              Exploiting Russian interest in Western entertainment figures, like James Bond, the KGB operatives sough to present “the Soviet intelligence officer is primarily an intellectual: his weapon is not a physical force or technical innovations like Bond, but rather analysis, memory, endurance, composure, multiplied by personal courage.”

              But beneath all this was the message that Russian security services were not only essential to the survival of the country but were always right, even when the political leadership of the country ignored them as Stalin ignored warnings from Soviet agents that Germany was about to attack the USSR.

              That this image has survived helps to explain Putin’s power, especially now when representatives of the security services like him are in the top positions of the Russian government. 

Siberians Now Search 50 Percent More Often than People West of the Urals Do for Information about MIAs in Ukraine War

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 3 – Moscow works hard to hide information about things it doesn’t want anyone to know both from its own people and from the outside world; but in many cases, the central Russian government fails in this effort because it unwittingly allows the release of information that reveals much about what it is trying to hide.

            The latest example of this concerns MIAs in Putin’s war in Ukraine. Moscow hasn’t been willing to publish data about them, but those who search for information via Yandex about MIAs have found a treasure trove of information that speaks volumes about the regional recruitment and losses in the Russian Federation (baikal-stories.media/2026/08/03/bez-vesti-propal-na-svo/).

            Prior to the summer of 2023, the data show, almost no one asked Yandex for citations about MIAs; but now more than 100,000 people are doing so every month with this metric reaching 116,000 in June 2026 alone. That figure understates the numbers, of course, because people ask for information in various ways.

            But the figures one can obtain in this way are striking: People east of the Urals ask for information 50 percent more often than do Russians on average, with residents of Buryatia doing so 4.5 times more often than this average, while residents of Moscow and Moscow region ask about MIAs only half as often as the all-Russia average.

            That reflects the higher number of soldiers sent to Ukraine from Siberia and the Far East in general and Buryatia in particular and the far lower numbers dispatched there from the city of Moscow and the surrounding Moscow Oblast, thus confirming stories about the pattern of recruitment but also showing where anger about MIAs is likely to be greatest.

            More than that, this report should serve as a reminder to everyone that when Moscow stops publishing data, there often are alternative workarounds that allow observers to get the information they seek. 

Six Years Ago, Bashkirs Showed Power of Protesters who Demand the Russian Authorities Live Up to Their Own Laws

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 3 – Six years ago, the people of Bashkortostan came out in defense of Kushtau, a mountain that has been part of their national space for centuries; and they did so not by means of a frontal attack on officialdom but by demanding that the authorities live up to their own laws.

            Remarkably, they won, although their protests, unlike those taken in the name of the defense of the environment or of religious interests, the ones in Bashkortostan have attracted far less attention since they don’t fit into the idea of many about what a protest in Russia should be (nemoskva.net/2026/08/03/kushtau-zhivi-3-avgusta-godovshhina-protestov-protiv-vyrubki-shihana-kushtau/).

Many environmental movements arise because of a threat to the well-being of the people who live in an area. That was the case at Shiyes. Others appear because they affect places that have a religious or ethnic significance that people want to preserve or revive, as in many parts of the Russian North and the North Caucasus.

            But the case of the movement around Kushtau, a mountain in Bashkortostan, the situation was different and more complicated; and the reasons that the protesters, although powered by ethnic concerns, have achieved at least a partial victory is that they invoked federal laws to protect their republic against its own rulers.

            Bashkir activists were very clear that those seeking to defend Kushtau didn’t do so for religious reasons as some Russian commentators have insisted, pointing out that Muslims have no tradition of defending such a geographic landmark (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/08/status-of-bashkir-language-also.html).

            At the same time, these activists generally conceded that the development of the mountain by a soda company would not have a direct negative impact on the population around it. There would be some damage to rivers and to the range of plant and animal life but not necessarily a disaster to the Bashkir population.

            Given that thousands of protesters have come out to oppose the development of  Kushtau and more than 10,000 have signed a petition against that move, the question inevitably arises: “why is this Bashkir mountain so important” for Bashkirs?  The answer, Vasilia Yagodina of Knife Media says, is instructive (knife.media/kushtau-ecology/).

            More than two hundred million years ago, what is now Bashkortostan was covered by a Urals Sea. The four isolated mountains (shikhans) are the ancient reefs from that sea, and they can be seen from almost anywhere in the republic, thus making them symbolic of Bashkortostan in a way that Ararat is for Armenia.

            Originally, there were four shikhans, Kushtau, Orkatau, Toratau, and Shakhtau; but during Soviet times, the last was destroyed by being mined for soda. Now, Bashkirs fear that the development of Kushtau in the same way will cost them an important symbolic part of their national landscape.       

            Over the last two decades, scholars in Bashkortostan have sought to document the flora and fauna that are unique to that place and that would be lost if Kushtau were to disappear under industrial development. Their work has been widely covered in the Bashkir media, and Bashkirs know far more about the mountain’s ecology than many, including the government, think.

            They know that if these plants and animals are destroyed, they won’t be replaced; and they know that if yet another shikhan is reduced to nothing, they will lose something that has been part of their physical and mental maps for hundreds if not thousands of years, Yagodina continues.

 

            But they know something else that Ufa appears to have forgotten: the destruction of these forms of life and the environment which supports them is a violation of at least two federal laws, “On the preservation of the environment” and “On the animal world.” Consequently, they believed they could use Moscow laws against republic leaders.

            They want all three of the remaining shikhans to become a protected area and national park, and the strength of their protests forced Ufa to promise that, although in the years since, the authorities have not kept their promises, something that has kept the Kushtau issue at the center of Bashkir thinking.

Putin has Learned Three Important Lessons from World War I, Gayvoronsky Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 3 – Many commentators now draw parallels between Putin’s war in Ukraine and World War I, Konstantin Gayvoronsky says; but they typically fail to see that it is the three lessons the Kremlin leader has clearly drawn from that conflict that are already defining the Kremlin leader’s policies.  

            First of all, the Russian military historian now in emigration says that Putin has clearly learned a lesson Tsar Nicholas II did not: it is a major mistake to mobilize too many people lest doing so put strains on the country beyond its capacity to bear  (themoscowtimes.com/2026/08/03/putin-can-learn-3-big-lessons-from-world-war-one-a93402).

As even analysts at the time said, the tsar had mobilized three or four times more people than he should have and even suggested that a much smaller Russian force would have had a much greater opportunity to hold out and win than the behemoth he put in the field and then saw his empire dissolve.

Second, the Kremlin leader has learned that the legislature can turn against the ruler “at the world possible moment.” As Gayvoronsky observes, “the February Revolution in Russia did not begin when soldiers sent to suppress unrest in Petrograd shot their officers … it began when the Provisional Committee of the Duma proclaimed itself the new authority there.”

            By doing so, he argues, the Duma “legitimized the soldiers’ revolt across the country” and transformed “the supreme command briefly into an independent political actor,” forcing the tsar to abdicate. Putin has done everything possible to geld the current Duma and ensure no deputy will ever ask as Milyukov did “is this stupidity or is this treason?”

            Second, the Kremlin leader has learned that the legislature can turn against the ruler “at the world possible moment.” As Gayvoronsky observes, “the February Revolution in Russia did not begin when soldiers sent to suppress unrest in Petrograd shot their officers … it began when the Provisional Committee of the Duma proclaimed itself the new authority there.”

            And third, he has learned that it is critically important to his political survival that no general become a charismatic competitor lest such a military leader be able to mobilize troops and public opinion against the Kremlin leader and his regime. Nicholas II made a mistake in that regard but one not nearly as serious as Kaiser Wilhelm did.

            Putin understands as Wilhelm did not that “over time, a popular commander becomes not an asset but a threat. Indeed, it is not even clear which is more dangerous: to win with such a Hindenburg or to lose without him. So there will be no Hindenburg [under Putin] Indeed, there will not even be any new Brusilovs or Kornilovs in his war.

            “What will happen next, we do not know,” the Russian historian acknowledges. “But there certainly will be no analogue to February 1917 in Russia or November 1918 in Germany.” Putin learned enough not to make the mistakes of either of the rulers whose regimes collapsed at that time.

Soviet-Era ‘Sausage Trains’ are Returning in Updated Form, ‘Altyn Orda’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 2 – In Soviet times, people living in rural areas often took trains to distant cities in order to get butter, sausage and other foodstuffs that they could rarely find in their villages and towns. This practice became so widespread that Soviet citizens typically referred to the vehicles carrying them as “sausage trains.”

            Now, the Kazakhstan’s Altyn Orda portal says, “the sausage trains are back” in the form of cars and buses carrying Russians not into cities in their own country but instead into neighboring ones like Kazakhstan for gasoline and food (https://altyn-orda.kz/putin-vernul-rossii-kolbasnye-poezda-teper-rossiyane-edut-za-benzinom-i-produktami-v-kazahstan/

            The portal says that “in the summer of 2026, residents of the Samara, Saratov and Orenburg regions began to increasingly come to Kazakhstani gas stations. Particularly noticeable is the flow of cars with Russian numbers in Uralsk and other border cities” in northern Kazakhstan.

            The reason this is happening is “extremely simple” – gas in Kazakhstan is almost half the price of gas in the Russian Federation and there are no long lines at as stations, except perhaps when cars from the Russian Federation arrive in larger numbers than anyone anticipated.  

            The picture of Russian cars crossing the border to buy gas in Kazakhstan is “almost symbolic: a country that has called itself an energy superpower for decades has to send its citizens to find and buy gasoline” for their cars in neighboring countries – and while they are there, to buy food and other consumer products as well.

            Vladimir Putin has often spoken about “the return of Russia to its former greatness,” Altyn Orda says. And in one sense, he has “fulfilled this promise: Russia really has returned to the past,” including now with an updated version of the notorious “sausage trains” of the late Soviet period.

            “And while Russian television continues to defeat NATO, Europe and the entire collective West, residents of Samara or Orenburg are solving a much more practical task: travelling to Kazakhstan, refueling and loading the trunks of their vehicles with food products as well,” the portal says.