The Russian government together with the Russian ministry of education, recently, decided that a new program will be introduced in Russian schools from second grade to eleventh grade.

This program (created as a propaganda) brainwash kids into political supporters of Putin’s regime. The lessons mainly focus on the “revitalization” of Russia under Putin as well as traditional values and presenting Russia as a good and democratic country with a powerful leader. “Important Conversations’’ are one of the central parts of this plan, the class uses first period on Mondays, immediately after the anthem and flag-raising for those conversations. In this hour, the school teachers, using government provided plans, talk to children about what they believe is “important”. The lessons begin with a theoretical portion which is usually a story about how powerful, plentiful, and wonderful Russia is. Then it moves into something more interactive such as a quiz or discussion of proverbs and riddles, and then finally ends with a section on the “special military operation”.

 Reportedly, students are told the message, “if you love your homeland, you’ll give up your life for it”. This reasoning is worrying both school teachers and parents alike.

By the third grade, students are reminded of new proverbs such as “For your homeland-mother, it is not scary to die.” And from 5th grade on, all lesson plans include the following text from the state provided documents to teachers:

“Manifestations of real patriotism can be seen today first and foremost in the special military operation. President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin announced the start of this operation on 24 February of this year/last year.”

Another example of “real patriotism” that is taught to kids takes the form of a short story about a Russian “hero” which is the story of captain Alexander Rodionov, who discovers a group of Ukrainian nationalists and decides to push them into a minefield.

Those were just some of the many examples of the rather terrifying things that Russian kids are taught from beginning to end of their school time. At the same time, parents have been doing as much as they can to stop this practice, often writing letters and notes for their children to exempt them from the first period of class as they themselves know about how propaganda fueled those “conversations” truly are. But because of the regime that goes on in Russia, parents that are extremely mad and rage at these additions to their children’s education must be mad silently, for if they speak out too loudly then they risk losing their jobs, gaining negative social status, kids being expelled from school and the parents being put in prison. 

Despite the parents and teachers being often extremely against promoting this state propaganda to young kids, the money that they pay for taxes still goes into the pockets of the Kremlin and back into the “Important Conversations” as well as “patriotic lessons”.