Oligarchs in classrooms will highlight collective retrograde amnesia among Russian elite

Thus, in a poll conducted by the Silver Rain radio station, over 80% of the respondents disapproved of oligarchs going in any capacity, apart from on selfless philanthropy grounds, near the public educational system. A similar data was also registered in a poll conducted on the TRCW website, where an equally landslide majority justly questioned the logic, necessity and moral content of the oligarchs’ so-called ‘histories of personal life success’ and their relevance to mainstream Russians’ children. Besides, most citizens, judging by their vocal responses via the Internet and other independent media, were particularly aghast by the Kremlin’s chosen ‘financial criterion’ — the U.S. billion-dollar eligibility benchmark. To them, this is the ultimate reflection of the utter moral decadence and full erosion of Russia’s core traditional social values that have inflicted the country since the collapse of the Soviet system of life orientation guidelines in the 1990s. 

The Internet bloggers were, as usual, more ‘enterprising’ in condemning the notion of seeing the oligarchic billionaires in Russian classrooms, using soul-twisting parodies to highlight the utter thoughtlessness of the idea itself. One such blogger, nicked Kommari, offered the oligarchs a lesson plan on the topic. The lesson, abridged here for brevity and cleaned of unprintable obscenities, ought to go thus. “I, an ordinary Russian billionaire, would like to tell you my road to success. My success story began in the 1990s, when the Soviet Union was about to collapse, and my dad, a big party boss and a top Gorbachev confidant, asked me to organize a firm for siphoning state funds. This gave us a direct access to the Central Bank, where we took loans that we did not refund because by then USSR had caved in. Then came the ‘Chubais voucher privatization,’ also more popularly known as ‘the greatest robbery of state properties in the 20th century,’ which enabled us to grab the most lucrative Soviet industrial assets for a chicken fee. 

However, my real life-turning point came when our so-called ‘young reformers’ in President Yeltsin’s administration initiated the dubiously famous ‘shares-for-loans auction,” a policy, whereby our cash-starved government would give up state companies — factories, oil wells and plants, airports with aircraft, etc. — as collaterals for private investors’ capital. But we took these companies and, naturally, gave nothing back to the government. After this, came the state bonds, more famously known as the GKOs, and the default and the economic crisis that it produced in 1998. I still remembered the ugly scene at banks, one of which banks was mine, as depositors tried in vain to retrieve their life savings. But little did the rowdy crowd know that our bank’s vaults were completely empty, as our ‘cronies’ in the Chernomyrdin cabinet had notified us well ahead of the imminent financial debacle.  

Of course, there were some sharp guys — nosy journalists, city mayors, business competitors, etc., who guessed what was going on and tried to meddle or even disrupt our show. To avoid such a negative scenario, we brought in our security guys, mostly ex-elite KGB officials — our protection unit — to keep these people at bay. But those, who did not get the unambiguous verbal message or were either too obstinate or wanted larger parts of the show for themselves than they actually deserved, were unceremoniously liquidated. Besides, it was around this time that I got married to one of Yeltsin’s wife’s nieces, thus making me a key member of the nation’s political family, and hence a direct to access to our country’s finances meant for social and welfare services, defense, etc. 

The cash flow was so intense that we soon lost count of our riches. Of course, we had to share with our ‘partners’ in the government, security services, etc., but the cash load was so huge, and we were so few that everyone had a generous share. This was how I became a self-made U.S. dollar-denominated multibillionaire before my 30th birthday. Today, all my wealth, dear pupils, is now in the West, because, I, not being an idiot, have long realized that our cow, Mother Russia, cannot be ruthlessly milked forever. However, when ‘our cow’ will eventually give up, I shall finally move to my castle in the Swiss Alps, and be forever grateful to the ‘loonies in our government’ that gave me the endless opportunities to repeatedly cheat them and the whole country without any negative consequences, and thus become stinking rich. This is my real life success story, dear pupils, and I hope you enjoyed it and that some of you will try to emulate my path as you grow up.”

Though a parody, this story, with little or no modifications, typically illustrated the way most of today’s Russia’s richest business tycoons hit their ‘goldmines in the wild 1990s.’ If anyone misses the real gist, here are the basic outlines: Today’s Russian oligarchs came into their riches not through hereditary family wealth such as the British Kings, Fords, Rockefellers, or hard work coupled with ingenuity as done by such capitalism geniuses and workaholics as Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, etc. but via Soviet assets — stolen, seized, raided, grabbed, etc. — during the ‘robbery-privatization spree’ of the 1990s, quasi-legal acquisitions of Russian natural resources companies in the ‘shares-for-loans auction policy and perennial siphoning of state budgets into private coffers.  

Based on these premises, and also on the forum discussions on the Internet, the most striking features of Russian oligarchs that made them ‘stinking rich’ are absolute lack of social, moral conscience and principles, and hence their full adaptability to changing political tendencies in the country. Others include blatant selfishness, wiliness, greed, as well as readiness to cheat, betray or even kill childhood friends and business partners for material gains, etc.  So, what can such people really teach young schoolchildren — how to cheat the government and citizens and go scot-free, how to illegally seize state assets generated by sweats of Stalin’s Gulag victims, or how to burn millions of euros in questionable parties filled with morally decadent male and female prostitutes in France’s Courchevel ski resort and Spain’s rowdy Ibiza clubs? Or how to raise children that have no respect for money, evident in a recent case, where an oligarch’s son recklessly spent 100,000 euros on only alcohols in the Italian Billionaire’s Bar in a single night, while others regularly crash Bentleys, Lamborghinis or Ferraris in the Swiss Alps or on the French Riviera when they are supposed to be in elitist private schools in Europe. 

It is a bit surprising that the Kremlin did not extend this invitation to such out-of-state-favor oligarchs as Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky, Lebedev, Chichvarkin and other ‘unlucky’ billionaires that had lost their businesses or had their billions decapitated via state manipulated trials and measures. These people also have some real life stories of ‘falling from grace to grass’ to tell, though for objective reasons, they will not be available for classroom tutorials anytime soon.

All these and other moral considerations raise the question of what has become of the Soviet-era principles of setting rigid moral, ethical and social standards and profession orientation guidelines that once sent the likes of Gagarin, best Soviet and later Russian scientists, doctors, politicians, actors and other respected members of society to the classrooms, to highlight their life experiences as a proof of hard labor being the only key to reaching life objectives. And lastly, since when has wealth, albeit illegally gotten, become the sole eligibility yardstick to young children’s minds and souls in Russian primary schools? 

These are all rhetorical questions, and consequently, no concrete answers are expected. This is why I’m in full solidarity with the ordinary Russian folks, who believe that people with such backgrounds, qualities and life principles — even if they are billionaires on the Forbes wealth list — have nothing good to teach children from their achievements, and therefore, should be kept away from the youth as far as possible, much as the oligarchs have already segregated themselves from the society by living in fully gated properties in city centers and highly secured estates in countryside homes.  They do not share the same dreams and aspirations with most Russians and their children in normal lives. Why then should they enter their lives through public schools?

And, this also, why I equally fully agree with Russians, who are ready to welcome ‘the oligarchic billionaires’ in the classrooms only on one condition and, that is ‘as incognito altruistic philanthropists.’ In this capacity, they can do lots more than their physical presence and ‘questionable life success histories’ to help the nation’s educational system. Specifically, their 8-, 7- or even 6-digit donations can significantly help boost the teachers’ wages, raising their social and financial status, thus making them more eager to give more to their pupils. Similarly, their cash can buy more books, teaching facilities, install modern amenities and other vital items necessary for making Russian schools better adapted to the 21st century educational requirements, thus putting their graduates in a more vintage position to realize their inborn potentials, and hence reach their life goals as good citizens of this great nation. 

We all know how the oligarchs actually got their wealth. While the methods used by them were not all illegal, as they operated by the official rules that existed at the time, the methods were also not entirely purely legal. Therefore, calling on them to share these questionable achievements with primary school children will be tantamount to giving them a legal sanctimony, whitewashing their shady pasts, and thus making them honorable members of the society.

Such a display of ‘collective retrograde amnesia’ by the Russian elite is, in all ramifications, tantamount to a miscarriage of social justice, especially for those who had fallen victims to the ruthless, quasi-legal, and at times, even outright illegal business methods used by the oligarchs to amass their ill-gotten wealth in the ‘wild era of Russian capitalism’ in the 1990s. Therefore, it will certainly be much better if the Kremlin forces the oligarchs to do more philanthropy — read ‘return what they had taken or even stolen from society to schoolchildren — rather than giving them an educational platform to boasting about their questionable life success stories in Russian primary school classrooms.