Kremlin's "lesson" for children: Clothes for soldiers are being sewn in schools, and Barbie dolls are to be classified as extremist

The independent Russian online media outlet "Ne Moskva" (No Moscow) examined a list of educational films. More than 40 percent deal with wars and armed conflicts. First-graders are recommended the Soviet drama "A Girl Seeks Her Father." It tells the story of the young daughter of a partisan commander who is left alone and hunted by fascists to be used as a hostage. Starting in fifth grade, children in Russian schools are bombarded with war-related topics.

The main characters in the films fight, starve, suffer, die, or lose loved ones. Among them are scenes that are difficult to watch even for adults: "Go and See," "Ordinary Fascism" (both rated 18+), or "Burned Alive," about "fireplaces of living people" in the Smolensk region.

88 percent of feature films for grades 1 to 11 are Soviet productions. They are intended to educate children about the work of spies, American conspiracies, the fight against saboteurs, and other topics—within a corresponding ideological framework that closely parallels contemporary Russian propaganda.

Naturally, the Russian State Duma is also concerned about the moral education of children. According to the deputies, traditional values ​​are being undermined from everywhere today – by characters with "internal and external flaws," such as Shrek and the Grinch, and by bloggers whom teenagers aspire to emulate. They also propose banning clothing with foreign logos – especially "USA" and "NASA," which, according to deputy Yana Lantratova, is "a disgrace for the children of a great space power." Furthermore, deputies are calling for Mattel, which produces Barbie dolls and the card game Uno, and Lego to be classified as extremists.

The State Duma is considering banning books for children and parents that address topics such as "treason, antipatriotism, and imitation of animals." One example is a book for toddlers in which a girl is transformed into a ladybug. This approach is reminiscent of the decades-long ban on Kafka texts in the Soviet Union. Instead, one can now read "Stories for Children about the Special Military Operation," with detailed descriptions of bombings, or the "Military ABC," where each letter is associated with the war.

The school system is becoming increasingly Sovietized. Even for the youngest children, patriotic assemblies are held, including flag-raising and the singing of the Russian national anthem. The position of "Advisor to the Director of Education," a kind of political commissar, has recently been created, and the uniform is gradually returning.

The influence of state-run children's and youth organizations is also growing. The all-Russian "Movement of the First" has opened chapters in every region of the Russian Federation, as well as in occupied territories. It was founded in June 2022, modeled on the Soviet Pioneer organization, to educate and organize youth leisure activities and to form a worldview "based on traditional Russian spiritual and moral values."

According to the Ukrainian information portal "Freedom," more than 13,000 children are involved in the annexed Crimea, nearly 11,500 of them from Sevastopol. There are more than 60,000 participants in the Moscow-controlled areas of the Luhansk region, and about 18,500 in the Donetsk region. A total of 7 million children and young people are participating in the "Movement of the First," as President Putin proudly reports.

The military-patriotic movement Yunarmiya (Youth Army) commemorates the Soviet volunteer organization supporting the army, air force, and navy. Last year, kindergarten children in the Rostov region were inducted into the Yunarmiya. During the ceremony, the new recruits were presented with a model of the destroyed Bakhmut.

An acquaintance of mine says that she and her husband tried to explain the truth to their son gently and slowly. He is eight years old, and they fear that he might say something rash at school or—worse still—argue with the teacher. "They have a terrible teacher," she says, "who convinces the boys that they all have to go to war, that it's their duty." Another acquaintance, herself a Russian teacher at a private school, teaches her daughter at home, which will not go unnoticed and will sooner or later arouse the suspicions of the authorities.

Teachers also fear denunciations, which is why they either remain silent or try to minimize the ideological damage to the school system. However, all schools are required to maintain accounts on the Russian social network VKontakte and publish reports on "patriotic events," and the regional education ministries constantly monitor this situation.

The latest edition of the "Environmental Studies" textbook for third-graders has removed chapters on European countries and their cultural heritage, as the independent Russian-language online media platform "Viorstka" discovered. Instead, students will learn more about Belarus, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, North Korea, and Mongolia. Starting with the new school year, social studies will be removed from the curricula of 6th and 7th graders. The subject covers various aspects of social life, particularly the fundamentals of law, politics, and economics. To this end, the publishing house Prosveshchenie ("Enlightenment") has published the first textbook on drone construction for 8th and 9th graders. It covers the basics of unmanned aviation, the design and classification of drones, and career prospects in the industry.

All knowledge transfer is centralized and ideologically coordinated. In the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, students, just like in Russian schools, sew clothes for Russian soldiers in craft classes and learn remote control of weapons in robotics courses. A special course, "Preventing the Spread of Neo-Nazi Ideas Among Children and Adolescents," has been developed for teachers to work with "potentially dangerous children in the occupied territories." Alexei Lavrentyev, chairman of the "Movement of the First" in the Kherson region, stated that children in the occupied territories must be given back their traditional Russian identity, "in a gentle way."

All Russian schools, as well as those in the occupied territories, offer a basic military training course and a mandatory five-day military service for boys in grades 8 to 10. In military barracks, the young people learn the basics of military training and first aid during combat operations, protective measures during air raids, and other defense methods.

The situation is no better in kindergartens. Militarized festivals and relay races are held, and the days of the "annexation of new regions" are celebrated. Since October of last year, "Talks on Important Matters" have also been held in kindergartens; every Monday the federation anthem is sung, the flag is raised, and "child-friendly" patriotic speeches by former soldiers can be heard. In 2024 alone, at least 10,000 kindergartens spread Kremlin propaganda, and more than 200,000 patriotic activities were carried out. That means one in three kindergartens in the country, according to calculations by the independent newspaper "Novaya Gazeta Europa," operating from exile.

On the website "zavuch.info" ("zavuch" means deputy headmaster), teachers published an open letter criticizing the Russian Ministry of Education and reporting on the problems in the modern education system. In their appeal, the teachers emphasized that they had lost faith in their profession and in school as a place of growth, culture, and education. "We have raised the children to lie – because the system itself is built on falsehood," they stated.

"And if we lose the school, we lose the country. Without a single shot. And without an external enemy," wrote the authors of the letter. The teachers made a number of demands to Putin, chief among them a vote of no confidence in the Minister of Education and his entire staff. The Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Information Technology and Mass Communications found that the website "zavuch.info" contained information "aimed at destabilizing the socio-political situation in the country and posing a threat to public security" and blocked it.

Irina Rastorgujewa was born in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, in 1983 and lives as a freelance author in Berlin. Her book "Pop-up Propaganda: Epicrisis of Russian Self-Poisoning" was recently published by Matthes and Seitz.