«If you can’t resist the state, at least don’t accept it as normal.» Why the film about propaganda in Russian schools won an Oscar

- You launched the research project “Not the Norm“ about propaganda in schools and kindergartens soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. How much evidence have you collected since then?

- To be honest, we don’t keep such statistics – we only record the number of publications. But right now we’re preparing to publish an archive that contains data from more than 30,000 Russian schools – these are their official VKontakte pages and more than 70 million posts. Of course, all kinds of posts are included, not just propaganda; there’s plenty of regular content too. We’re currently organizing the archive and preparing a website to make it publicly available. We’ve already conducted a number of studies using it: we’ve done regional samples, for example, with data from Chuvashia. Recently, a piece with “Verstka” was published based on this archive. Back then, there were about 60 million posts; now it’s over 70 million.

We have studied not only militaristic propaganda in schools but also reproductive propaganda – in recent years, it has become a leading topic of indoctrination.

We only publish a part – what seems most significant or indicative: new forms, new topics, especially egregious cases. But that’s far from the full volume. If we show a few schools, in reality there are dozens or hundreds of such cases across the country.

- How did you even decide to start collecting evidence of state propaganda in schools?

- The original idea of the project was a bit different. We started this in 2022, almost immediately after the full-scale invasion began. At the time, it seemed to us that lining children up in the shape of the letter Z and similar events were the initiatives of individual teachers or principals. We thought it would be a minority – some especially zealous school principals trying to curry favor. And we wanted to document them, because the war would end sooner or later, but these people would remain, and it’s important to preserve evidence of their actions – what we consider crimes against education and children.

But already in 2022, with the start of the new school year, it became clear that this was a systematic state policy.

The original idea of the project lost its meaning. And that’s when we started studying forms of indoctrination: how it develops, what practices and topics appear. But even that turned out to be too much – it’s physically impossible to write about every case. So the idea of an archive appeared: to save everything and analyze it later. In real time, it’s impossible; you’d need a large department.

This way, you can look at trends – by year, by quarter – and preserve this for history. And it’s important that this archive will be available not just to us.

We can’t, like Pavel Talankin, get inside a school and film what’s happening. We only see the outer layer – official public pages. But since 2022, schools are required to maintain them, and it’s essentially a reporting system: photos, videos, events. Of course, it’s a filtered picture, but still an important projection of what’s happening inside.

- What did you think of the film “Mr. Nobody vs. Putin” – I mean, from the perspective of a researcher fully immersed in this topic? The school that Pavel films – how typical is it? Do you see anything else in this story, through your lens, that might not be visible to other viewers?

- First of all, I’m very glad that Pavel Talankin and his team won the Oscar for this film. Their award drew attention to a topic that is still greatly underestimated in society and the media.

It’s important to understand that the film shows 2022–2023. Now, in 2026, things have gotten noticeably worse. Indoctrination is intensifying: “Conversations about Important Things,” a new position in schools – upbringing advisor, militaristic movements, training camps. All this is developing very quickly.

So the film is absolutely accurate, but already a bit about the past – the situation is more intense now. And yes, it’s a typical school. Not an exception. In any region, the picture is about the same. Moscow and St. Petersburg might be a little different, but in smaller cities, this is exactly how it is.

And probably the most important thing – in the film, there’s Pavel, an adult whom children can come to, talk to, trust. In most schools, there’s no such person. Children are left one-on-one with the system.

- I watched this film on Arte with French dubbing. It was an interesting experience: I felt as if I was inside the head of a typical educated European viewer, choosing which documentary to watch in the evening – “oh, a fresh Oscar winner, interesting.” And I have no complaints about the form of this artistic statement: otherwise, it’s impossible to show how terrifying this is. We actually find ourselves inside the school system and see everything through the eyes of someone who is against it. But Pavel had the opportunity to document this and then leave the system. What options do other teachers have? Those who are also against it, but can’t leave? Maybe this isn’t a question, more an observation – but I’m interested in how you see it.

- Yes, I completely agree. I had roughly the same thoughts.

By 2026, the situation for teachers has become more dangerous. I think there may even be quite a few teachers who disagree. But they have no way to express it. At most – quiet sabotage. Trying not to participate.

As a result, even those who are against it stay silent. And only one position is voiced – the state, militaristic one. And no alternatives. If there were another point of view, the situation would be different. Children would have a choice. But now there is no choice.

- Basically, we’re shown how radiation works. You’re inside a kind of Chernobyl, where everything is poisoned, but life goes on: people are happy, dress nicely, celebrate holidays. There’s just a constant background, but everyone is used to it. And the children filmed by Talankin – they’re normal kids. Absolutely normal, lively, cheerful. But what will happen to them after such intense ideological treatment?

- I don’t have an answer to that question. I’m not a psychologist. I worked as a teacher for only a year – I taught computer science at a boarding school for visually impaired children, that was in 2015, long before the war. It was a very good school, with motivated teachers. Now, by the way, it’s also largely militarized – the teachers have no choice.

I hope it doesn’t affect the children that much. But if you look at the numbers – they’re frightening.

There are about 19 million schoolchildren in Russia. Even if 10% of them believe the propaganda and tie their lives to the army – that’s almost a million people. That’s more than all the known Russian losses in Ukraine over four years of war.

I want to believe that most children don’t accept this. But even a small minority is already a huge number. Most want a different life, a different future for themselves. But even an absolute minority is still a huge number of ruined lives that we get as a result of massive militaristic school indoctrination.

- You talk about a better future, but let’s look at the residents of the city of Karabash, where the events of “Mr. Nobody vs. Putin” take place. What can you become in Karabash? You can become a teacher at the same school you graduated from and where your mother has worked all her life, as Pavel Talankin did. You can try hard, build a career at this school, and get an apartment from the Russian Copper Company, which supports the entire city of Karabash. There’s a chance you’ll become a rosy-cheeked RMK manager in a sharp suit handing over the keys to this apartment – but obviously, such a fate is reserved for a lucky few. There’s also the option to go to war in Ukraine, like the Wagner veterans who show how a butterfly mine works and how to kill people. Or you can become a mother wailing at the funeral of a son killed in Ukraine. Some other future is only possible if you leave (which Pavel Talankin demonstrated to us very effectively).

In such circumstances, I’m afraid I can’t be as optimistic as you. Perhaps even more dangerous than the number who believe the propaganda is the fact that it is becoming the norm for the majority. Children and adults swallow ideological messages like a cutlet in a school cafeteria – and it becomes their natural state. This is the conformism everyone gets used to. The film vividly shows the generation that grew up in the USSR, which easily returns to the familiar conditions of childhood – these elderly women in pseudo-folkloric, custom-made costumes singing patriotic songs with an accordion. And the new generation may not know anything else at all. Is this “new norm” being formed in Russia now?

- I really want to believe it’s not. But you’re right: this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There’s an environment – hopelessness, lack of prospects. Against this background, propaganda intensifies. Both children and adults make decisions in these conditions. And the state actively uses this.

What to do about it – I don’t have an answer. This requires much more sweeping changes than just changes in the education system.

- In essence, it’s a pretty simple social contract: send your children to war – and you’ll live better, get a few million rubles in death benefits and solve your financial problems.

- Yes. It’s a simple, understandable prospect. And that’s why it works.

- Your project is called “Not the Norm.” To me, it’s not just a colloquial expression, but also a reference to Sorokin’s “Norma”: when life goes on as usual, there’s just one mandatory absurd element (for Sorokin, it’s eating a small amount of excrement daily, a well-developed metaphor for Soviet everyday life in the 1970s–80s). But I guess you didn’t mean that.

- When we chose the name, we mainly thought about the literal meaning. The state is trying to normalize war, to make it part of everyday life. And unfortunately, it’s succeeding.

But we want to say directly: this is not normal. What’s happening in schools and in society is not normal. Even if you can’t resist, it’s important at least not to accept it as the norm. Don’t agree internally. That’s the minimum you can do.