Anger about Putin’s Closing of Village Schools So Intense and Widespread Moscow has Decided Not to Shutter Any More Before Duma Elections

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 3 – When Vladimir Putin came to power, there were more than 45,000 village schools. Now, there are fewer than half that number, the result of his “optimization” program that has accelerated as the Kremlin ruler searches for places to take money to pay for his expanded war in Ukraine.

            But many in Russia’s villages are angry because the program has been carried out with little regard to local interests or even demography – in some places schools have been shut down even though there are many young families present – and villagers have protested against the program.

            (On this rising tide of protest beyond the ring road and outside of even smaller cities and only rarely being reported in Moscow, see tribuna.nad.ru/uroki-optimizacii-kak-v-komi-razrushayut-selskoe-obrazovanie, rtvi.com/stories/inache-my-vymrem-reforma-shkol-privela-k-ih-likvidaczii/, sreda42.pro/articles/tpost/x6yiijnb11-zakritie-shkol-v-kuzbasse-masshtabnaya-o and deita.ru/article/573872).  

            Now, in a concession to the power of rural anger about this program, the Russian government has decided to suspend the closure of any additional village schools until after the Duma elections lest villagers among Putin’s most loyal supporters vote against his United Russia Party (zebra-tv.ru/novosti/vlast/vo-vladimire-na-god-priostanovyat-obedinenie-shkol/ and svpressa.ru/politic/article/505379/).

            That may not be enough because many rural Russians are suspicious about why Moscow is closing their schools and about what it will do next. One retired teacher in a village near Arkhangelsk recalled the words of a local priest: village schools weren’t closed “even in the Great Fatherland War, so what is happening now that makes this necessary?” (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/02/28/urok-muzhestva).