Russia: Year in Review

RUSSIA REPORT CARD:

In 2010, did Russia make Honor Roll, or get detention?

PHYS-ED: B
We are pleased with Russia’s recent progress, particularly in soccer, where organisation and hard work were rewarded with the coveted World Cup prize. However, this victory was considerably tarnished by our poor performance at this year’s interscholastic Olympiad, particularly in ice hockey and figure skating, where Russia should have received top marks. We were especially concerned with an incident of unsportsmanlike conduct towards an American pupil, after which the pupil Plyuschenko was called in to the headmaster’s office for awarding himself a fake platinum medal. Let’s hope such episodes are not repeated in 2014 and 2016.

COMPUTER SCIENCE: A for effort
We commend Skolkovo, Student Council (SC) President Dima’s science fair project, modelled after a computer lab at Silicone Valley High many years ago as well as our school’s former research campus – Akademgorodok – which was largely abandoned after the change of administration and cuts in funding. Dima envisaged the lab as a way to improve the school’s technology ranking and prevent the top pupils from transferring to elite foreign schools. Though the SC has been criticised for playing too large a role in the project and using school funds, such critics should remember the tremendous hand Silicone Valley High’s Student council played in building its computer lab. We wish Dima all the success with his project, but hope it doesn’t become an expensive enrichment scheme for his friends Vlad Surkov and Viktor Vekselberg.

ECONOMICS: C+
Despite the cuts in school spending around the world, Russia has fared better than most thanks in large measure to prudent policies by the SC and treasury. However, most pupils aren’t too impressed and think our school will need three or four more years to recoup recent losses. Moreover, the student council has failed to solve the school’s dependence on selling off its natural resources, despite some nanotechnology bakesales and SC PM Vova’s farcical attempt at promoting a yellow Lada schoolbus. While the school coffers remain too firmly controlled by the student council to encourage wider participation, the council has made too little use of its powers to distribute scholarships and free lunches to the majority of pupils who continue to struggle.

HISTORY: A-
We’re pleased to notice some improvement in Russia’s history scores. In recent years, our pupils have struggled to accept and understand certain key concepts, particularly regarding the administration of former Headmaster J.V. ‘Stalin’ Djugashvili. This was not helped by the SC PM’s sneakily stapling flattering references to Stalin into the history textbooks and allowing his face to appear on school buses. However, following the tragic death of the visiting Polish SC president, president Dima has taken the lead in the SC resolution to condemn the Katyn Massacre, and has spoken categorically against former Headmaster Stalin’s rehabilitation.

GEOGRAPHY: C+
Russia earned herself no favours in a dispute with a neighbouring Japanese school over the disused Kuril smoke shed at the far end of the sportsfields. While SC president Dima was well within his rights to visit the shed and reiterate its rightful place on our campus, the statesmanlike thing to do would have been to make a big song and dance of giving them back their dingy little hut. Moral victory+one less thing for the already overstretched janitors to maintain.

SEX ED: A-
Even though several of our exchange students have regrettably been sent home, and didn’t manage to learn much during their time abroad, the girls have done a lot to promote our school among teenage boys all over the world. They also did a great job teaching our US and UK rivals a thing or two about sex ed: dalliances with pretty Russian girls can spread harmful secrets!

EXTRACURRICULARS:

MOCK TRIAL: F
The mock trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky left much to be desired. Just because it is not a real trial does not give the student council prime minister the right to interfere in the judgement with comments like “Mr. Khodorkovsky’s crimes have been proven” and “he should sit in jail”. The SCPM, who is not even a member of the mock trial team, appears to have a longstanding personal feud with Misha dating back from middle school – when his student council presidency was briefly challenged by Misha – and is intervening in the trial to settle a personal score. Besides many other irregularities, the mock trial team is also late in handing in the verdict, and will continue to lose points for each day of delay. We suspect that perhaps the team is not taking this subject seriously because it is not for credit, but if they want to be admitted to the top American and European universities to which they applied, they must demonstrate more maturity.

WOODWORKING: F
The pupil Deripaska has again been caught dumping runoff and chemicals from the woodworking shed into the school pond, which is threatening to kill off the school’s unique collection of rare fish. The pond is a student run project but despite pupil demands to have the shed either closed or relocated, the issue has been ignored by the student council prime minister, whose election posters and lollipop donations were partly funded by Deripaska.

MODEL UN: A
Russia put in a superb showing at this year’s Model UN conferences, culminating in this week’s signing of the START treaty. It has also emerged the least hurt of its rival schools by the student council memos leaked by a nerdy Australian pupil (everyone in the school already knows that the Student Counil is corrupt!) Dima met with the American SC president and negotiated a disarmament treaty; our school just recently signed a military cooperation pact with India; it has mediated very well with Iran and outmanoeuvred the British school for the World Cup prize. On top of it all, without derailing our friendship, SC PM Vova was able to subtly embarrass our American rivals (it’s only a friendly rivalry!) over their hypocritical criticism of Russian and Chinese schools (accusing us of bullying and school newspaper censorship while themselves engaged in bullying and trying to censor Assange) by jokingly nominating him for the Nobel Scholarship.

SCHOOL NEWSPAPER: C
We are very concerned about the recent bullying of school newspaper reporter Oleg Kashin. The fact that his lunch money was untouched when he was brutally beaten raises suspicions that it was not a mere act of hooliganism but the latest in a trend of attacks against student journalists, many of whom have faced intimidation from the student council. Before he was beaten, Kashin was denounced by a group of Middle School supporters of SCPM Vova, who accused him of lacking school spirit. While we do not suspect Vova or his SC friends of ordering the beating of Oleg, his encouragement of overebullient school spirit, empowerment of the class jocks and harassment of the newspaper editors has created a climate very amenable to such bullying.

DISCIPLINE PROBLEMS:
Please see the principal after class about Khimky, Rechnik, nationalist riots, police brutality. (Or, alternatively, just leave a $100 note under the door)

HEADMASTER’S COMMENTS: Great potential, but could do miles better if it only applied itself more.

MOST UNEXPECTED EVENT: Not that Luzhkov was kicked off the student council, but that it took this long to do it.

STUDENT OF THE YEAR:

Last year, FPA Russia blog modelled itself on Time magazine in giving the award to a man who caused more problems than he solved. This year, we have decided to break with Time Magazine by actually having the guts to award it to Julian Assange, for giving Russia a cheap moral victory.