Student protests in Moscow

It looks like students in Russia are becoming more confident in voicing their opinions.  4,000 of them took to the streets of Moscow today to protest about their pitiful monthly stipend of $14-21 :

In the crowd were students from various Moscow
universities and several groups from Lipetsk, Voronezh and the Moscow
region. Some students came to the rally with their professors. Another
rally of 2,700 students was held Tuesday in Nizhny Novgorod.

At the Moscow rally, students held banners and
posters that read "Hands Off Free Education!" "A Hungry Student Is a
Force to Be Reckoned With!" "How About Trying to Live on a Salary of a
Young College Professor?" and "Enough of Dumb Reforms — Remember
College Professors."

Many protesters waved flags of the nationalist Rodina
party, while others carried Communist, LDPR and Labor party flags.
Rodina leader Dmitry Rogozin was among those who addressed the rally.

$14 is nowhere near enough to live on, even at Russian prices, and I honestly don’t know how many of these students survive.  During my time living in a Russian student dormitory, I almost never saw a Russian cook a healthy meal.  Stodge seemed to be the order of the day, with the mold being the closest I’d find to something green in our kitchen.

The same article goes on to note that university professors also receive horribly low salaries - even for Russia.  Taking a job in the university sector is now such an unattractive option that universities are dying - literally.

Professors who attended the rally said that nearly
all schools that depended on state funding had a severe shortage of
junior professors, as few graduates opted for a job that pays an
official salary of 1,800 rubles ($65) per month.

"We have only elderly professors left," said Galina
Romanova, a veteran professor with the Moscow Aviation Institute. "It
is not clear who will teach in our institute in five to 10 years’ time
when they die."

Tagged as: Domestic Politics