Putin’s ‘Optimization’ Campaign which First Hit Medical Points and Local Governments is Now Leading to School Consolidation – and Parents are Protesting

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 29 – Putin’s “optimization” campaign, a response to declining population in rural parts of the Russian Federation designed to save money for his war in Ukraine, has now moved beyond government offices and medical points and is leading to school consolidation. Outraged parents are protesting against the bussing of their children to distant schools. 

            Villagers in Siberia are especially angry, according to regional commentator Aleksey Aksyutenko. If in European Russia alternative schools are close by, east of the Urals, they are distant; and closing a school means children must travel by bus long distances or parents will have to move, threatening the survival of the villages (svpressa.ru/society/article/529592/).

            Not surprisingly, parents are taking to the streets in villages in Siberia – Svobodnaya pressa gives one example --and equally not surprisingly, officials are threatening those taking part with criminal reprisals if they don’t send their schools to distant places, something that will eliminate much of the savings Russian officials are counting on by the closing of small schools.

            Two things are surprising, however, Aksyutenko says. On the one hand, Russian law requires the parents of children must be given multiple options if schools are closed; but in the current round of school consolidation, officials in the regions have not done so, further angering the people.

            And on the other, these officials are taking this step only a few weeks before the Duma elections, angering people who might otherwise have been expected to vote the way the Kremlin wants. After all, official moves which affect children almost invariably produce a far stronger reaction among Russians than those which affect only adults.