Education, Arts, Sciences, and Sports

Education, together with its outcomes in arts, sciences, and sports, is an important subject of geographic research. Each country and region has its own distinct style of education and its own educational system. Comparisons among countries, and among regions within each country, must be made if we are to understand the particular nature of each place. It is impossible for us to comprehend what is happening in politics or economics, for example, unless we also know the educational background of the society in question.

The Soviet Union was proud to be one of the most educated societies on earth, achieving virtually 100% literacy by the early 1970s. Soviet education was universal, public, comprehensive, and free; what still astonishes many Americans is that it was free all the way through college. The U.S.S.R. also had a world-class scientific research program and was famous for its accomplishments in arts and sports, although these were not uniformly distributed. However, much has changed since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Today one can still get a free education in any republic, but there are new hidden or indirect costs that used to be either nonexistent (textbooks or tuition) or very low (paper and other school supplies) in the Soviet period. This chapter first considers the Soviet educational system and the changes made to it in the post-Soviet era. It then considers achievements in the areas of arts, sciences, and sports. As usual, these are discussed primarily from the perspective of Russia today, with some examples drawn from other former Soviet Union (FSU) republics.

Education

The Soviet system of education was based on the old, tsarist-period model, which was good but incomplete. In 19th-century Russia, only the privileged classes had a chance of receiving an education through college. The education of the nobility during this period was of excellent quality. Youth from noble families were educated by private tutors at home in early childhood. It was common for aristocrats' children to grow up speaking fluent French, some German, a little English, and only occasionally Russian. Boys would then enroll in a “gymnasium” or “lyceum” at the high school level. After this, some would join the army's cadet corps to become career officers. Others would enroll at a university, the first one in the country having been established in Moscow in 1755 by a decree of Empress Elizabeth. Estonia has the oldest university in the FSU at Tartu, which was established by King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in 1632. Girls had few higher education options until the late 19th century, when college-level classes became available to them. The clergy, who constituted their own class of society, prepared their sons to become clergymen through parochial schools and seminaries. In contrast, the working class, and especially peasants, received very little formal schooling—at best, 4 years at a local parochial school. After the liberal reforms of 1861, it became fashionable for landlords to establish secular local schools run by the zemstvo (the local council), as well described in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Despite all this, less than half of the total population was literate by the time of the Bolshevik Revolution.

The Soviet System of Primary and Secondary Education

The Soviet government had very progressive ideas about universal schooling for all, to ensure both a qualified workforce and compliant Marxist citizens. Universal, compulsory 8-year education became the norm by the 1930s, and 10-year education by the 1950s. The normal school week lasted 6 days (including Saturdays), but school days were shorter than in the United States, with classes out by 1:30 in the afternoon. After-school programs were also available. There were many specialized schools (with emphases on math, physics, arts, languages, etc.) and, in remote areas, boarding schools with a 5-day week. In the early Soviet period, the schools were coed; they were then replaced with separate classrooms for boys and girls in 1943, but then went coed again by the mid-1950s. Experimentation with the curriculum was continual. Anton Makarenko, one of such experimenters in the 1920s, emphasized collaborative learning environments.

Of course, the main emphasis of the Soviet school system was on raising loyal citizens of the socialist state. To that effect, classes on the Soviet version of world history, the Marxist theory of economics, and Marxist philosophy, as well as antireligion classes, were offered. In high school, basic military training was also provided to both men and women. The rest of the curriculum emphasized mathematics, Russian language and literature, natural sciences, history, geography, and foreign languages. Social sciences (sociology, psychology, economics) were taught very little, because they were thought to be too subjective, reactionary, and contradictory to Marxist precepts. Foreign-language instruction generally started in the fifth grade. About 80% of students learned English, with substantial minorities learning German or French. Other world languages (Arabic, Japanese, Hindi, or Spanish) were available at a few specialized language schools, which one could enter on a competitive basis.

One great advantage of the Soviet curriculum was its uniformity. This ensured that all the material was learned everywhere in the country in the same grade, so that students who moved from one school district to another would still be literally “on the same page.” In addition, all students wore school uniforms, patterned after those of the prerevolutionary gymnasia. Boys wore dark blue pants, white shirts, and dark blue jackets; girls wore brown dresses with aprons (black on regular school days, and white for major state holidays). Uniforms reduced the anxiety associated with deciding on what to wear and instilled respect for authority. The choice of regular children's clothes in stores was notoriously limited anyway, so having uniforms was helpful to parents.

The difficulty of the curriculum was increased gradually. Schooling in demanding subjects (math, physics, and biology) started early, usually in fifth grade. For example, in biology classes, botany would be taught in fifth grade, zoology in sixth, and human anatomy in seventh. Moreover, in contrast to some U.S. curricula in which the natural sciences are taught all together even in high school, the U.S.S.R. system would add subjects while continuing to teach the earlier ones. For example, physics would start in the sixth grade; when chemistry was added in the seventh, more physics would also be taught.

After 8 years of schooling and after passing exit exams, students would graduate from middle school. Depending on their academic aptitude and aspirations, they would then either enroll in high school (9th–10th grades; 11th grade was added in the late 1980s) or enter a professional–technical school (known by its Russian acronym, PTU). A PTU gave its students exposure to the high school material but in a less demanding way, while additionally providing the necessary skills for a blue-collar profession. Typical PTUs would train factory workers, carpenters, bus drivers, auto mechanics, and the like. Some programs were in high demand, such as the ones training jewelers or restaurant chefs—both lucrative professions with possibilities of making private money on the black market. Students who stayed at the regular high school would typically attempt to enter university upon graduation. There were exit exams in a few subjects at the end of the 10th grade that had to be successfully completed. A typical set of questions for 10th-grade graduation was comparable in difficulty to a moderately difficult exam for a freshman-level U.S. college course. There was also a third option: a technical college (technikum). Students would enter them after eight grades, as in the case of a PTU, but continue studies a year longer to learn a more advanced profession (e.g., accountant or electrician). Graduates of many technical colleges were allowed to transfer to universities.

Besides the official school program, there was a wealth of after-school opportunities, ranging from music programs to sports camps to young-naturalist clubs. Many of these were conducted by enthusiastic teachers at the regular schools after hours. Others were conducted at independently run youth clubs. Every large city had at least one of those, commonly known as the City Young Pioneer Palace (or, nowadays, the Palace of Youth). Many smaller municipal districts had one as well. Even in the countryside there were similar opportunities provided by local municipal units or state farms. In fact, some of the best schooling and after-school opportunities were offered not in the biggest cities, but frequently in medium-size provincial towns (e.g., Penza or Murmansk), where there were more demanding teachers and more incentive to try harder to make it to a big university someplace else.

An important aspect of the Soviet education was the Young Pioneer movement. The Young Pioneers were a Communist version of Scouts. Primary school children were automatically enrolled in Oktyabryata (Young October Youth) in the first grade by being given a five-pointed red star badge with a picture of the young Lenin on it to wear, and told to love the Motherland and Lenin. In third or fourth grade, virtually all children would then be enrolled as Young Pioneers. The Young Pioneers wore bright red neckties, and were supposed to swear an oath of loyalty to the Soviet state. This presented a problem for a handful of religious youth, who would sometimes object to the oath on religious grounds. The repercussions of doing so could be severe, all the way to expulsion from school; parents could also be sanctioned by their employers. Not surprisingly, then, over 95% of all schoolchildren of the Soviet period were Young Pioneers. When students turned fourteen, they could join Komsomol (the Young Communist League). This required passing a test on the basic history of the movement and swearing another oath. Eventually some Komsomol members would end up as full members of the Communist Party. The main incentives to join Komsomol in the late Soviet period were career advancement and easier access to the best university programs.

It is worth noting that although many Young Pioneer and Komsomol projects involved indoctrination in Communist ideology, most emphasized developing a collective spirit while engaged in useful and even fun activities. Many worthy social initiatives were carried out under the Komsomol banner. For example, there was a tradition of collecting scrap metal and newspapers for recycling once or twice a year. Schools would compete, winners would receive prizes, junk would be cleared out of local neighborhoods, and of course the environment would benefit. Other worthy projects included after-school poetry and art classes, agricultural experiments in the school garden, sports events, summer camps, concerts and plays, and charitable work to help war veterans or needy families).

The Soviet System of University Education

A Soviet college education was offered free of charge to all qualified students who could pass the entrance exams. There were universities offering 5-year degrees in all of the humanities and sciences, engineering, law, medicine, and so forth; there were also technical/engineering institutes (many are now known as technical universities). The difference between a university and an institute was in the breadth of the programs offered. Moscow State University (MSU), for example, had 29 schools, called “faculties,” offering degrees in every imaginable subject. Moscow Physical Technical Institute, on the other hand, offered mainly programs in physics, chemistry, or engineering, but not necessarily programs in history or foreign languages. The total enrollment at MSU (among the largest in the country) was about 35,000—smaller than some of the biggest U.S. universities, but still large. Regional universities would typically enroll between 3,000 and 10,000 students.

In order to take advantage of the free college education, one needed to prove oneself. This was done in a few ways. High school seniors graduating with honors (a near-perfect grade point average) received a gold medal, were exempt from college entrance exams, and could apply to any university they chose. The vast majority had to take between three and four entrance exams. There was no national test similar to the SAT in the United States, and it was not possible to apply to more than one university at a time, so the choice had to be made very carefully. Each university had its own system of tests designed and administered by the faculty. For example, the School of Biology at MSU would test applicants in math (a written test with five very difficult problems to be worked out in about 4 hours), the Russian language (a critical written composition based on a choice of three topics pertaining to Russian literature), chemistry (an oral exam based on three broad questions in organic and inorganic chemistry), and biology (an oral exam similarly based on three broad questions in biology). Each year the School of Biology at MSU would accept about 200 new students from a number of applicants ranging between 1,500 and 2,000 in a typical year. About onethird would flunk the math test; another third would be eliminated by the written composition test; and the remainder would struggle with the chemistry and biology oral exams. Eventual winners were those who not only did not fail any of the tests, but generally received a minimum of two A's and two B's. The students who failed could try again a year later, or apply to other, less competitive schools with lower standards of admission. Because MSU was so competitive, one needed to know considerably more than was taught in a regular school curriculum, so hiring a private tutor in high school was almost a necessity. At least in my own experience, the critical test was the math exam, for which I had to prepare for about 2 years by spending between 3 and 4 hours per week solving sample problems.

The U.S.S.R. was one of the top five providers of college education worldwide, with over 126,000 foreign students enrolled in 1990. Only the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France had more international students than the U.S.S.R. that year. The majority of foreign students came from the socialist countries of Europe (Poland, Bulgaria, East Germany), Communist Asia (China, Vietnam), socialist Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Rwanda), and Communist or socialist-leaning Latin America (Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru, Brazil). There were admission quotas in place for the foreign students, but their education was free, provided that they could pass the entrance exams in Russian. Although students from the capitalist countries were not explicitly excluded, it was harder for them to apply, due to the logistical difficulties of getting Soviet visas; the fear of living in a hostile country under an oppressive government also deterred many Americans and Western Europeans. MSU, the top school, had students from over 60 nations in the late Soviet period. Other popular schools for foreign students were medical and dental academies, language colleges, and the technical/engineering institutes.

Once accepted at a university, students would typically study for 5 years to earn a diploma. Students chose a broad field of study (e.g., biology or physics) when they applied to the university. Some specialties were considered priorities for the state (e.g., physics and civil engineering); these would have very attractive stipends, in addition to the free tuition. The Soviet universities had very few general education courses and virtually no electives. This may seem strange, but given the rigorous high school curriculum, a good general education had already been acquired by the age of 17. Electives were not available because the experienced faculty in each field of study had already figured out all the necessary coursework. This was an undemocratic but efficient approach, ensuring that free resources would not be wasted on teaching subjects that the students might never need later on. The results were young specialists with narrow, but deep, technical knowledge in their subject areas. Additional cultural breadth could be acquired by reading good books or going to concerts, museums, and theaters, which Soviet youth commonly did.

Beside full-time university programs, there were many evening college programs for working adults, as well as correspondence courses for those living in remote locations. Unlike in the United States, one could not enter a university much later in life; only evening and correspondence programs were available for students over 30.

Textbooks were obtained from the university library for free (they were loaned out for 1 year). They were usually not new, but adequate. The rooms at the university-run dormitories were free, and an allowance provided for some food (about enough for one meal per day); the rest was a student's responsibility. If you consider that health care was likewise free, and that bus transit cost almost nothing (the equivalent of 50 U.S. cents in big cities and less in the provinces), you can imagine that being a university student in the U.S.S.R. was not a bad thing at all.

It is important to stress that because of the rigorous testing and limited state resources, far fewer students were enrolled in the Soviet university system than is common in most Western countries. In the heyday of the Soviet Union, only about 20% of all young adults (ages 18–25) were enrolled. In the United States, the initial college enrollment rate today is about 50%; however, there is also a correspondingly high dropout rate of about 30% in the first 2 years. Therefore, less than 35% of the total U.S. population actually graduates from college in a given cohort, and just over 25% of those in the general population have college degrees. In the Soviet system, family culture definitely reinforced the need to be in college (as is common today in many Asian countries), and dropouts were rare.

Young men had an additional incentive for staying in school: They were required to serve at least 2 years in the military, unless enrolled at a university full-time. In a few dozen of the best universities, male students could go through military training while enrolled in their academic programs, and would graduate with a specialty and rank without ever being required to do active duty. The exact specialty depended on the university and the program: Physicists were trained as artillery or radio communications specialists, biologists in germ warfare, and linguists in the foreign languages most needed for military purposes.

A university education resulted in better employment opportunities, although the wage differential in the Soviet Union was lower than that commonly found in Western countries. For example, wages for a qualified worker in some occupations (metallurgy, mining) were essentially the same as (or even higher than) those of an assistant professor with a PhD, or a physician. However, education had many other benefits, including better working conditions, more interesting jobs, social connections, and usually longer vacations. To ensure that the graduates stayed in their profession, the state had a placement program that guaranteed employment to the young specialists for 3 years upon graduation. However, frequently people were placed in less than desirable companies, and sometimes in cities other than where they had been born or attended school. Muscovites and Leningraders were especially affected by the transfers to different places, because life in their two cities was so much better than in other parts of the country. On the other hand, attending a university or getting a job placement in a different city afforded one of the few sure ways of changing one's place of residence in the U.S.S.R. Graduates were also sometimes placed in jobs where they had studied, which allowed many to receive residence permits to stay in Moscow, Leningrad, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, and other desirable big cities.

Schooling of Ethnic Minorities under the Soviet System

The Soviet system of primary, secondary, and university education was remarkably uniform. The other republics of the U.S.S.R. and ethnic/ national units within Russia had additional language instruction in the local language, especially in primary and middle school. Most of the high school classes were taught in Russian, to ensure cultural Sovietization and to facilitate career opportunities in adult life. This was not done (as often erroneously assumed by Western scholars) to promote Russian culture or language per se, or to oppress the minorities. It simply made practical sense to the state to use one common language of communication, just as is done in the United States or United Kingdom with English. Minorities had the options of studying in their own republics/regions all the way through college or going to another one of their choice. The best universities in the country had a small number of seats reserved for talented minority group members who were recruited through their republican/regional boards of education, as a form of affirmative action. In many cases, the system was rigged in favor of the local party bosses' children, but genuinely talented ethnically non-Russian students could usually make it through. Bribery was not uncommon; particularly notorious in this regard were Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, where (rumor had it) entire university diplomas could be sometimes purchased, and certainly admission into the most prestigious schools could.

In the distant villages of Siberia and the north, it was not possible to provide adequate schooling to very small, scattered populations. Therefore, members of many ethnic minorities would send their children to Russian-language boarding schools for weeks on end. It was beneficial with respect to education, but it also severed the critical ties between the older and younger generations, and precluded the passing down of oral traditions. The overall impact of the Soviet period on these cultures was not much better or worse than that of mainstream U.S. culture on the Alaskan natives.

Changes after the Fall of Socialism

The basic system of education described above is still in place, in Russia as well as in other FSU republics. Some pertinent comparisons with other countries worldwide are provided in Table 15.1. Although there is no single rating of the best universities, one such rating is provided in Table 15.2. Many traditionally well-known but nontechnical universities are not included, because the rating was made to reflect the probability that recent graduates will be employed in today's Russia (based on expert opinions), not on the quality of the education per se. Besides MSU and St. Petersburg State University, other very good general schools include Tomsk, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, and Novosibirsk State Universities; the People's Friendship University in Moscow; the Foreign Languages University; the University of International Relations; the First and Second Medical Universities in Moscow; Moscow State Pedagogical University; and a few others. Not surprisingly, many universities are located in Moscow and St. Petersburg: In 2000, 171 (19%) were found in Moscow and 77 (8%) in St. Petersburg, with a total of 914 colleges and universities, public and private, in the entire country. In 2004–2005, 3.4 million students attended universities in Russia, or a little over 20% of the college-age group.. The overall enrollments in universities have more than doubled, from only 1.6 million in 1995; this reflects improved economic conditions, better state subsidies, and the increasing importance of having a university diploma to land a good job.

In 2002, 19.1% of adults in Russia had some college-level education (it was about 27% in the U.S. in the same year, although the latter nation tracks 4-year bachelor's-degree programs, not 5-year diplomas). In the same year, however, it was revealed that for the first time in 70 years, 1.6% of school-age children did not attend any primary or secondary school—a scandalous and sad admission in a country that had formerly prided itself on its 100% literacy rate. It is interesting to note that women in Russia are now better educated than men. For example, 16.6% of women but only 15.8% of men had completed a college degree, according to the 2002 census. Universities are concentrated in the largest cities, in distinct contrast to the United States, but similar to Canada, Australia, and some European countries. In 2009, 12 universities besides MSU and St. Petersburg State were proclaimed “federal” universities, with corresponding increases in financing levels, as a strategic move to prevent declines in the quality of university education. Of these, about half are in the distant regions.

There have been many changes, both good and bad, in the educational systems of Russia and its neighbors since the fall of the Soviet Union. Some specific changes include the following:

• There is greater emphasis on the local languages in the newly independent republics. In some (e.g., Ukraine), the university language of instruction is now Ukrainian, while many local schools continue to teach in Russian in grades K–11—a reversal of the Soviet policy, when university instruction was given primarily in Russian. In other countries (e.g., Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan), quite a bit of Russian instruction is still allowed at the university level. The Baltic states are now part of the European Union (EU), and have adopted many European policies and standards with respect to education.
• All FSU republics have literacy rates over 90%, and some have rates over 99%. However, armed conflicts in Tajikistan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova have led to a decrease in schooling in those republics. Undoubtedly there are now more illiterate adults in these countries than before the breakup of the U.S.S.R.
• An increased interest in studying foreign languages, typically English, is observed throughout the FSU. Although teaching English has always been common in the past, many programs now approach Western levels of quality, in particular because better texts and native-English-speaking tutors are now available. The Soviet intelligentsia could read in English, but few could speak it well, due to a lack of practice. Now, with opportunities for foreign travel readily available, many people have taken up studying English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Turkic, Arabic, Thai, Hindi, and other useful languages for traveling abroad. A working knowledge of English (and also German and French) helps people to get better-paying jobs with Western firms or Russian companies doing business internationally, as well as to get promotions. About 25% of youth in the big cities in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan now have at least some command of spoken English, and the percentage is higher in the Baltics. (Even in the Baltics, however, the rate is much lower than in the Scandinavian countries.)
• In Russia, a national standardized test known as the EGE (modeled after the SAT) has recently been introduced, supposedly to root out corruption and bribes among the college examination boards. MSU and a few other top schools in Moscow and St. Petersburg refuse to accept it, considering it a short-lived fad and an unnecessary concession to Western standards of assessment based on multiple-choice tests.
• There is greater conformity to international standards of awarding degrees, mainly based on the U.S. model. Specifically, in 2007 universities in Russia switched to the familiar system of 4-year bachelor's degrees and 2-year master's degrees. The traditional 5-year diploma system currently coexists with the bachelor's/master's system, but it makes it difficult for Russian graduates to compete for admission into schools abroad. Nevertheless, the professors in Russia have opposed the move on the grounds that the old system worked just fine; they believe that requiring another year over 5 may strain their budgets, and that teaching for only 4 years is not enough.
• An alarming recent trend is the simplification of the K–11 school curricula. The old Soviet system emphasized natural sciences, but deemphasized social sciences (e.g., cultural geography was not taught at all, and was considered part of economic geography). In what many consider a misguided quest to “do as the Americans do,” the Russian Ministry of Education has been systematically cutting the numbers of hours allocated to traditional disciplines since the late 1990s. This dilutes what is perceived as “too difficult coursework” in math, physics, biology, history, and literature with courses in such trendy subjects as human relations, home economics, psychology, family studies, and applied art. Although they are of course useful, the latter subjects cannot replace the classics and the “hard” sciences, and it is becoming clear that present-day Russian schoolchildren already know less than their predecessors did merely a decade ago about the traditional subjects.
• Privatization of education is ongoing and takes many forms. Private schools and colleges (most of dubious quality, but with high tuition rates) exist now in Russia along with the public ones. Even in the latter, some things now cost a lot of money: The costs of textbooks, school supplies, and new equipment have risen astronomically. Many upper-class parents simply choose to send their children to elite British, Swiss, or French schools now, to avoid the hassle of dealing with the quality issues at home. To get into any good university still requires a lot of tutoring and cramming, usually accomplished by paying hard cash to tutors (in the best case) and to admission committees as bribery (in the worst). The majority of state universities continue to offer tuitionfree education to about half of all students, based on merit. At MSU, tuition is already approaching the levels charged by the cheapest state universities in the United States ($5,000–$6,000 per year), in a country with only one-quarter of the average U.S. income per capita.
• For obvious reasons, Communist youth organizations have declined. There are no longer Young Pioneers in red ties. However, some new alternatives now exist: Major political parties (e.g., the Communist Party and the pro-government United Russia) offer experiences for youth through their respective nationwide programs.
• The decline in international student attendance is unfortunate. A recent report suggested that there are now only 96,000 foreign students studying in Russia, compared to 126,000 in 1990. The country has dropped to sixth place worldwide in the number of foreign students—behind not only the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, but also Australia, and just barely ahead of Japan. Most of these students also now come from the poorest countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, rather than from the former socialist countries of Europe.
• Ominously, the number of hate crimes involving foreign students, especially black students, has greatly increased. Although individual cases of verbal threats or physical assaults may not always be racially motivated, visual appearance, ethnicity, and foreign status clearly play a role in many attackers' decision to pursue these students. The worst and most frequent cases of physical attacks, some fatal, have been reported in Voronezh, St. Petersburg, Tver, Vladimir, and Rostov-on-Don—all predominantly workingclass, Russian-populated, almost 100% white areas, with high rates of unemployment and many struggling households. Moscow sees some attacks as well, but Muscovites are also much more used to seeing people of color and seem to accept foreigners more readily. Russian citizens of the northern Caucasus republics are, on the other hand, favorite targets everywhere in Russia, partially as a backlash from the Chechen conflicts (only a few of these students are in fact ethnic Chechens, but Russian youth may not be able to tell the difference). Overt racism was rare in the Soviet Union, where students were always taught that workers of all lands are brothers. Given the new realities, why do the international students still keep coming to Russia? Because a Russian university education remains among the best in the world and is still very affordable. Many provincial universities have plenty of room available for foreign students and have low living costs and tuition relative to universities in Europe or North America.

Let's talk now about the fruits of education: arts, sciences, and sports.

Arts

The importance of Russian literature has already been discussed in the context of cultures and languages. Other Russian arts worthy of note are visual arts (painting and sculpture), performing arts (opera, ballet, drama), and cinema. There are hundreds of art galleries, museums, and theaters in Russia, and thousands of movie theaters. Their geographic distribution is discussed here, along with some specific highlights of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods.

The arts were well supported during the Soviet period. Especially promoted were the art types associated with socialist realism (e.g., monumental paintings of workers and peasants, socialist films), as well as the classics. Artists, directors, writers, and musicians were supported by state salaries and benefits distributed through the professional unions. To become a member of one of these unions required considerable talent, personal connections, and a bit of luck. Some of the best talents were to be found in the informal sectors (e.g., local artist clubs or youth organizations). Because the socialist state had free education and a low cost of living, some gifted artists would work in dead-end official jobs and create their pieces in their spare time. State support for the arts has receded with the post-Soviet economic reforms, although it has improved somewhat since 2000. There are now also many philanthropic private foundations and corporate sponsors supporting the arts, as is common in the West.

Visual Arts

The main collections of Russian visual arts are concentrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery and St. Petersburg's Russian Museum house the premier collections of Russian art, including ancient icons, classical paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries, and modern art. Icons can also be viewed at the Rublev Museum in Moscow, and in many old churches, especially inside the kremlins. After the icons, the best Russian paintings are either those by the late-19th-century realist artists (Ge, Kramskoy, Kuindzhi, Levitan, Perov, Repin, Savrasov, Shishkin, Surikov, Polenov, Vasnetsov) or those by avant-garde artists of the early 20th century (Kandinsky, Malevich, Chagall), depending on your taste.

World art is on display at Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Other great art museums of the FSU include the State Art Museum of Belarus in Minsk, the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kiev, the Research Museum of the Russian Academy of Art in St. Petersburg, and art galleries in other major cities. In addition, some former country estates where painters used to live have been turned into museums: The Polenov Museum in Tula region and Abramtsevo near Moscow attract thousands of visitors annually.

Nationwide, in 2005 St. Petersburg had the highest number of museum visitations per 1,000 people per year (3,658), with Yaroslavl in second place, Volgograd in third, Vladimir in fourth, and Moscow in fifth. In Siberia, the highest attendance was noted in Khakassia Republic and the Krasnoyarsk region. Not all of the museums attended are art museums, but these data do give an idea about the distribution of the greatest interest in and opportunities for museum attendance. Even in St. Petersburg, the attendance level is only about 60% of the 1990 level, which may be indicative of the social changes going on. On the one hand, museums may now be too expensive for some people. On the other, more well-off citizens now have many more entertainment options, including eating out, visiting amusement parks, boating, golfing, or driving around for pleasure.

Many museums of local studies (kraevedcheskie) contain wonderful collections of local folk art, including wood carvings, dolls, toys, ceramics, porcelain, lacquer boxes, embroideries, mosaics, metal designs, jewelry, samovars, and more. Small towns in the European part of Russia (Palekh, Zhostovo, Gzhel, Pavlovsky Posad, Dymkovo) continue making traditional wooden and porcelain souvenirs, as well as tableware, shawls, and toys, for sale; many of these are exported, and some are counterfeited. Artisans in the Urals specialize in stone cutting, producing goblets, eggs, and fine jewelry from malachite, jasper, opal, chalcedony, and other semiprecious stones. The Caucasus has many local specialties: Dagestani metal engravings, Ossetian wood carvings, Adygei embroidery, and so on. Kazakh and Kyrgyz specialties include highly decorated dresses, woolen rugs, pillows, and cushions. Uzbek, Turkmen, and Tajik crafts include robes of cotton or silk, Persian-style rugs, and pottery.

Theaters

Theaters in Russia are mainly concentrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Bolshoi Theater is world-famous, specializing in classical opera (Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades) and ballet (The Nutcracker, Giselle, Swan Lake). Its counterpart in St. Petersburg is the Kirov, or Mariinsky, Theater, whose school of ballet is considered to be one of the world's finest. The Maly Theater is right across the street from the Bolshoi in Moscow, specializing in dramatic productions. Other excellent choices in Moscow include the Chekhov Art Theater MKhAT, the Theater of Nemirovich-Danchenko, and the Taganka Drama Theater. In the past 20 years, many small drama studios have sprung up, producing plays to suit the tastes of an increasingly discriminating public. Some theaters in Moscow are so popular that tickets are sold out months in advance. St. Petersburg, true to its nickname as “the cultural capital of Russia,” leads the country in the number of theater visits per year (576 per 1,000 people in 2005), trailed by the Moscow, Omsk, Udmurtiya, and Tomsk regions. The Opera and Ballet Theater in Novosibirsk occupies the biggest theater building in Russia. In each FSU republic, the capital city will typically have at least one main drama theater and frequently an opera/ballet house.

Cinema

Lenin famously proclaimed that for the Bolshevik state, the main form of art would be cinema. He correctly recognized the propaganda potential of the new art form. The Soviet films were lavish productions heavily promoted by, and serving the interests of, the state. Perhaps the best known are the epics The Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1928) by Sergei Eisenstein, although the musical comedies Vesyolye Rebyata (1934) and Volga-Volga (1938) by Grigory Aleksandrov are also great Soviet classics. The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) lists over 6,700 entries for Soviet films (i.e., those made prior to 1991). Many great movies were made about World War II (e.g., Soldier's Ballad and The Cranes Are Flying). Only a handful of Soviet or Russian films have ever been nominated for American Academy Awards; this is not surprising, given the specific expectations of American film critics about movie making, and given the political situation that existed during the Cold War. The most recent two to receive the Best Foreign Film Award were Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980) by Vladimir Menshov and Burnt by the Sun (1994) by Nikita Mikhalkov. More deserving movies by Andrei Tarkovsky, Eldar Ryazanov, or Georgy Danelia were never nominated for Oscars. Soviet and Russian movies have fared considerably better at the main European film festivals (Cannes, Berlin, Vienna).

In the late 1970s, over 150 full-length movies were made in the U.S.S.R. per year. Russian film production practically ceased in 1992–1996 due to lack of funding, with merely 20–30 produced per year; it began again in the mid-1990s with Hollywood-wannabe gangster flicks sponsored by shady businessmen. By comparison, Hollywood produced over 400 movies in 1996. However, since the late 1990s there has been a resurgence of genuinely good films in Russia, due to an increase in state funding, better corporate sponsorship, and growth in DVD sales. About 120 new movies come out every year in Russia now, according to the IMDB; this puts Russia in a tie with Germany, but behind India, the United States, Japan, China, France, Spain, or the United Kingdom. Some movies are also now being produced by post-Soviet filmmakers abroad, especially in France. Also famous are films of the highest artistic quality produced by Georgian and Armenian filmmakers. The number of modern multiplex cinemas in Russia went up from 8 in 1995 to 185 in 2001, and DVDs are available everywhere in street kiosks, although few are licensed copies.

Television, Radio, and Newspapers

A few comments can be made about TV and radio as well. In the Soviet period, both were very popular, and indeed indispensable—for the state to control the masses on the one hand, and for the masses to gain access to information and culture on the other. The most conspicuous feature for a Westerner at this period would have been the lack of commercials, because all channels were state owned. The information was carefully censored, of course, but the news coverage was very thorough. The main prime-time news program Vremya (Time), on TV Channel One, lasted 45 minutes, and approximately 20 of these minutes were spent on covering a range of international topics from many countries in the world—not just one or two main stories of the day, as on U.S. television. When the Soviet Union or its allies were depicted, only positive achievements were highlighted. Life in the West was typically shown as consisting of unemployment lines, urban pollution, drug-related violence, and war or other conflicts, with only occasional glimpses of nature in some famous national parks. The interiors of Western stores were cleverly never portrayed until the late Gorbachev era, when these became popular. However, many American and European movies were available in cinemas, thus giving Soviet citizens a glimpse into many aspects of contemporary Western lifestyles anyway.

The puritanical Soviet attitude was reflected in the TV programming: There was absolutely no nudity or profanity, and very little violence. Many feature movies were shown, including wartime dramas, contemporary comedies, and even international classics (although the latter were edited for mature content). Only four or five TV channels were commonly available via air broadcast, however, and there was no cable TV until the late 1980s. Radio was ubiquitous in city parks, at work, and at home. Much classical drama, poetry, and music could be heard.

Soviet citizens also read a lot of newspapers, many of which were posted on billboards in city parks. In short, the mass media worked toward making Soviet citizens a very literate population. Today TV channels are much more numerous than in the Soviet period, but they remain heavily controlled by the authorities after a brief period of less control during the Yeltsin period. About 20 channels are commonly available on local cable, and hundreds of international ones via satellite dish. Much TV and radio production is also now heavily commercialized, with as many commercials as in the West.

Sciences

Major Accomplishments of Russian and Soviet Scientists

Russian scientists made famous discoveries in all major scientific fields—from physics to biology, from anthropology to history, from chemistry to geography—both before and after the Communist Revolution. One of the earliest was a self-taught peasant, Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765), who would become a secretary of state, a cofounder of MSU, a president of St. Petersburg University, and a codiscoverer of oxygen. He made contributions in physics, chemistry, geography, astronomy, linguistics, and history, along with some major accomplishments in poetry and art.

Some major scientific names from the late 19th and early 20th centuries include Nikolai Lobachevsky, Pafnuty Chebyshev, and Alexander Lyapunov in mathematics; Dimitry Mendeleev, Alexander Borodin, and Alexander Butlerov in chemistry; Vasily Dokuchaev in soil science; Pyotr Semenov-Tyan-Shansky in geography; Ivan Pavlov, Kliment Timiryazev, and Ilya Mechnikov in biology; and many others. There were also dozens of explorers on both sea and land serving under the Russian crown, including Vitus Bering, who discovered Alaska in 1741; I. Kruzenstern, who circumnavigated the globe and made important oceanographic studies; Y. Lisyansky, who studied the Pacific islands; and so on.

As described earlier in this chapter, the Soviet Union put a heavy emphasis on scientific education, especially in the natural sciences. Math and physics were two areas in which the Soviets traditionally excelled. Both were critical in the creation of better weapons during World War II, as well as in the country's becoming the second nuclear power in the world (1948), the first to put a human-made object in space (1957), and the first to send a man into space (1961). The names of Igor Kurchatov and Sergei Korolev are forever connected with the development of the Soviet nuclear and space programs. Andrei Sakharov and Yakov Zeldovich helped to develop the Soviet thermonuclear weapons, but they also designed the peaceful Tokamak, a bagel-shaped prototype plasma reactor to produce controlled thermonuclear fusion. The Nobel Prize for discovering and developing the first lasers went to Soviet physicists Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov. Lev Landau and Vitaly Ginzburg won another Nobel Prize for contributions to the field of superconductivity; Landau also coauthored one of the best textbooks in theoretical physics ever written. Chemistry, both organic and inorganic, has been another strong point of Soviet science. For example, Alexander Nesmeyanov and associates developed a new technology in organic chemistry synthesis that allowed the combination of metal atoms with organic compounds, and K. Adrianov was the first in the world to synthesize complex silica–organic structures.

The Soviet Union led the world in genetics research until 1937 with such famous names as Nikolai Koltsov, Nikolai Vavilov, and Nikolai Timofeev-Resovsky, but faltered later as an attack against genetics was launched under Stalin—curiously, in the name of misunderstood Darwinism. The campaign's champion was Trofim Lysenko, a barely literate prot?g? of Stalin, who claimed that with proper socialist methods of cultivation a pine tree could be forced to produce oak branches, and a cuckoo could beget a hawk. Lysenko wanted to rid “Marxist” biology of Western superstitions, as he understood them. To do this, he started a massive witch hunt that decimated the ranks of Soviet genetics researchers and left the country 20 years behind the rest of the developed world in biology research by 1950. Despite the major setback caused by Lysenko, research in molecular biology and biochemistry was reaching new heights in the U.S.S.R. by the mid-1960s. For example, the Soviet molecular biologists A. Belozersky and A. Spirin predicted the existence of matrix RNA in 1957.

Geography was considered primarily a natural science, and many developments occurred in climatology, geomorphology, glaciology, oceanography, and biogeography. An important contribution of Soviet geographers, especially Lev Berg, to the whole discipline was the development of the landscape science approach (Shaw & Oldfield, 2007). Cultural and human geographies were all treated as expressions of economic geography, which had to be explicitly socialist and Marxist. Among famous Soviet geographers, Vladimir Vernadsky proposed the concept of the “biosphere” as a unified global self-regulating system and the “noosphere” as a new sphere governed by human reason; Berg developed a complex method of researching geographic landscapes; and Y. Gekkel managed to produce the first map of the Arctic Ocean floor. Gekkel's students were at the forefront of oceanographic research in the 1950s and 1960s, and the Soviet Union was the first country to produce a complete atlas of the world's oceans, using extensive submarine research. V. Sukachev studied the biogeography and ecology of “biogeocenoses” (local ecosystems within a given landscape). Boris Polynov made substantial contributions to the understanding of soil evolution and development of physical landscapes. Nikolai Baransky and Nikolai Kolosovsky worked in the areas of socioeconomic development, regionalization of human landscapes, and economic complexes of production. Yuri Saushkin was a prominent urban geographer who made contributions to our understanding how cities evolve in time and space. This list could be greatly expanded, but it gives an idea of the breadth and depth of Soviet geographers' interests.

The social sciences did not fare as well as the natural sciences. Some fields (e.g., sociology) were considered “bourgeois” and thus suspect. In a country with 3% of the people controlling virtually all aspects of the economy, it was dangerous to pry into the class structure of the supposedly “classless” society. Psychology was likewise suspect, given the prominence of Western thinkers (e.g., Freud and Jung) in developing subjective theories of the human mind and supposedly reactionary views on the nature of humanity itself, all of which were disapproved of by the Soviet Marxists. Excellent research was nevertheless carried out in history, archeology, and anthropology, although it had to be conducted under the politically correct Marxist umbrella. The anthropological research included the discoveries of several Paleolithic cultures of Eurasia, thorough anthropological studies of the early Slavs, studies of early Central Asian civilizations, and profound insights into the development of Eurasian cultures. There was also much groundbreaking research in linguistics, helped by the tremendous diversity of native languages in Northern Eurasia. Regional studies were done not only inside the U.S.S.R., but in other socialist countries—especially in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, where the Soviet Union had many allies.

The Structural Organization of Scientific Research

There were two main forms of research in the Soviet Union: fundamental and applied. The former was carried out by hundreds of universities, and especially by the research institutes and centers of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (today the Russian Academy of Sciences, or RAS). The RAS remains a formidable organization of fundamental science, with over 2,000 institutes under its wing and three regional branches. The Soviet applied research was carried out in hundreds of institutes and construction bureaus run by dozens of government ministries. For example, the Ministry of Oil and Gas had a few institutes devoted solely to natural gas and petroleum research. Quite a bit of research also occurred at the factories themselves. Many world-class discoveries and patents were produced in the applied labs of the Soviet period. For example, Soviet applied scientists invented many of the most modern methods in metallurgy (production of alloys from rare earths, continuous steel pouring), developed artificial diamonds, and made major discoveries in the organic synthesis of plastics.

In 1993, at the beginning of Yeltsin's reforms, there were still over 2,000 institutes, 865 bureaus, 495 research and development (R&D) firms, 29 research factories, 440 universities, and over 340 factories involved in R&D in the Soviet Union. The number of scientists was impressive. The mid-1990s International Science Foundation project sponsored by George Soros counted over 5,000 specialists just in the field of biodiversity in the FSU. Some fields (e.g., physics and chemistry) were represented by 10 times as many people. A total of 1 million scientists were working in Russia in 1990, representing about 18% of the world's total. Hundreds of scientific journals were published in Russian, and thousands of conferences were held each year.

Despite so much apparent activity, the U.S.S.R. produced relatively few Nobel Prize winners (15), and only a fraction of the number of publications per capita produced in the United States at the time. One of the reasons for this was that there was no need to account immediately for the results of state-funded research. In the West, science is driven by competition for limited grants. In the Soviet Union, scientific employment was guaranteed for life; there were no monetary incentives for publishing more; and no one had to compete for research grants in an open, peer-reviewed process. The number of scientific journals in each field was relatively limited, and much of what was published required personal knowledge of the specific academics who were in charge. Due to political constraints, it was hard to publish in foreign journals. Moreover, few Soviet scientists were allowed to travel abroad; their mail was routinely intercepted by the authorities; and no one had the hard currency to pay the page charges. In recent years, Russian scientists have published fewer articles than their French or Chinese counterparts, but many are now published in English (including translations of the top Russian academic journals), so Russia remains a major scientific power.

Geographically, Russian science was of course centered on Moscow, because Moscow had the biggest and best universities, the best-prepared students, and lots of industrial enterprises in need of serious research. In the 1960s, however, “science towns” (academgorodki) sprung up away from big cities to allow for the more relaxed lifestyle of the scientific elite, as well as for better control over what type of research was going on (to preclude foreign spying). Such cities are especially common near Moscow, and most were built from scratch (Chernogolovka, Dubna, Troitsk, Obninsk, Pushchino, Protvino, Zelenograd, Zhukovsky). Secondary clusters of scientific research existed near St. Petersburg, Penza, Gorky, Kazan, Sverdlovsk, Ufa, Novosibirsk Akademgorodok, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Irkutsk in Russia, as well as near Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, and Dnepropetrovsk in Ukraine, and in most republics' capitals.

Moscow continues to lead Russia in the number of scientific researchers, with 40% of the total; it also has 80 academic institutes and at least as many universities. St. Petersburg is a distant second, with 15% of researchers and about 30 research institutes. Yekaterinburg, Tomsk, and Novosibirsk are three leading research centers farther east. Ten medium-size cities were recognized by the Russian government in 2007 as “science cities” (naukograds), and are receiving more budgetary support to revitalize their aging research infrastructure.

Unfortunately, after the fall of the Soviet Union, scientific salaries plummeted and many laboratories literally fell apart. This situation was caused in part by the near-sightedness of the Yeltsin period: The government was strapped for cash, and many officials were too busy with personally benefiting from chaotic privatization. Adjustment to the new free-market economic realities was also partly to blame, as were the decreasing societal benefits of being associated with the “knowledge class.” In real terms (after adjustment for inflation), the salary of a PhD-level senior researcher decreased by a factor of 10 between 1989 and 1999, whereas many other professions supported by state budgets did not see a comparable decline. Thus, if in the late Soviet period a Moscow city bus driver had a salary slightly lower than that of a physics professor, by the end of the Yeltsin period the bus driver was making five to seven times more than the professor. The result, predictably, was a drastic reduction in the number of scientists. Many older specialists retired or passed away and were not replaced. Middle-aged scientists had three choices: remaining in science and depending on another family member working in the private sector; leaving for graduate school or a research position abroad; or quitting science altogether and entering the murky waters of business.

The official statistics suggest that the number of researchers was roughly halved between 1992 and 2002—reduced to about 500,000 from over 1 million. These figures included not only scientists themselves, but also lab technicians, assistants, and other staff. The “brain drain” hit all FSU republics hard, particularly the ones with ongoing military conflicts (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Tajikistan) or strong anti-Russian sentiment (the Baltics, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan). While Russian scientists left Uzbekistan or Azerbaijan for Russia, their Russia-based colleagues left Russia for opportunities abroad—first and foremost in the United States, but also in Australia, Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, and Israel. Although the brain drain was not as dramatic as originally feared, it undoubtedly left the country in a precarious position, because the best and the brightest were typically the ones to leave first. Indirectly, by forcing its best talents abroad, Russia subsidized all the recipient countries to the tune of a few billion dollars.

The overall level of state support for scientific research in Russia remains shamefully low. Despite recent proclamations by the Putin/Medvedev government on the need to move from extensive to intensive scientific development, the Russian state spends less than 1.5% of the gross domestic product (GDP) on all scientific research (including military R&D) at this writing. The comparable figure for the United States is about 4%, and of course the U.S. GDP is about seven times greater than Russia's when adjusted for purchase parity. Thus an average university or national lab in the United States today has a budget comparable to the entire budget of a major scientific branch in Russia that includes dozens of institutes. For example, in 2005 the RAS operated almost 400 of its institutes on a budget of merely $500 million. An average research university in the United States will have a comparable budget. In 2010, the Russian government announced the creation of a few national research universities and technoparks to boost research and development.

The number of scientists with Russian or Soviet roots in the United States today is not very large, but includes some well-known figures: A. Abrikosov received the Nobel Prize in physics in 2003 for research that he began in the Soviet Union. V. Voevodsky was a recent Field's Medal recipient in math. S. Brin, the cofounder of Google, is of Soviet extraction and received his early education in the Soviet Union. There are entire departments at many U.S. or U.K. universities where Russian/ex-Soviet physicists, mathematicians, geophysicists, or molecular biologists constitute 25–50% of all faculty members. Russians make up about 6% of the total number of those holding H1B professional worker visas who enter the United States each year, although many of these are information technology specialists rather than fundamental scientists. Even more remarkable is the situation in Israel, where the number of engineers and researchers per capita exceeded that of the United States by 50% (145 vs. 85 per 10,000 population) by 2005—almost entirely due to the influx of post-oviet immigrants with advanced university degrees.

Sports

The Soviet Union was very supportive of sports . The Soviet schools had 3–5 hours of physical education per week. Schoolchildren were also encouraged to join sports clubs, to compete in district and city tournaments, and to earn GTO badges. GTO was an acronym for “Ready for Labor and Defense” in Russian, and the program included a rigorous series of exercises involving track and field, other athletics, sharpshooting, orientation, first-aid skills, and the like. Earning badges in these areas could help young people gain admission to prestigious sports schools. Moreover, it was expected that virtually all young men would have to serve in the military upon turning 18, so physical fitness was expected. In present-day Russia, there is a renewed interest in youth fitness. Sports programs around the country are enjoying something of a renaissance, stimulated by a fresh infusion of federal and corporate cash.

Although the Soviet Union had all kinds of sports programs, this section focuses only on soccer (called “football” in Russia) and ice hockey as two popular and widespread team games that had, and still have, a strong geographic affiliation with large cities. Ice hockey seems like a natural sport for Russians to play, given Russia's climate. Invented in Canada, it quickly diffused to Europe in the early 20th century, and became especially popular in Czechoslovakia, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, and Russia. The Soviet Union had about a dozen teams in the “super league” and a great international team. The U.S.S.R. ice hockey team won gold medals seven times in the Winter Olympics, from 1956 (Cortina d'Ampezzo) to 1988 (Calgary), and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) team won in 1992. The top league, now called the RHSL, remains very strong in Russia today, despite having lost many of its best players to the U.S.- based National Hockey League (NHL) and some other foreign teams. In 2003 there were at least 57 Russian hockey players (with the total payroll of the best 20 topping $62,000,000) in the NHL, including the famous goalie Khabibullin (Tampa Bay), the Bure brothers (Florida), Gonchar (Washington), Malakhov (New York Rangers), Larionov and Fedorov (Detroit), Yashin and Kvasha (New York Islanders), and others.

Inside Russia, the best RHSL teams are found mainly in the largest industrial centers, where they were traditionally supported by big industry or government ministries. In Soviet times, the perpetual champion was the Moscow-based Red Army team—which naturally would get the best players, as soon as those had been drafted at 18 years of age to serve in the military. Two other Moscow-based teams were Dynamo and Spartak. Russian hockey teams are less dependent than their NHL counterparts on ticket sales, concessions sales, and apparel sales to fund their hockey. They are mainly supported by large corporate sponsors now, though some may continue to rely on state support.

Each team's sponsor usually runs a youth sports school as well, to provide fresh talent as the players grow older. Today the best teams come from such industrial cities as Togliatti (where the team is sponsored by the VAZ car factory), Novokuznetsk (sponsored by a steel combine), Magnitogorsk (sponsored by another steel combine), Cherepovets (sponsored by the steel giant of the same name), and Voskresensk (sponsored by a chemical plant).

Soccer has always been popular in Europe, including the U.S.S.R. Most major cities have at least one professional club and a major stadium, and the overall sponsorship pattern is similar to that in ice hockey. However, the performance of the international U.S.S.R./Russia soccer team has been much less spectacular than that of the hockey team. The Soviet soccer team won Olympic gold in Melbourne/Stockholm in 1956, in Munich in 1972, in Moscow in 1984, and in Seoul in 1988—a feat that no CIS or Russian team has yet repeated. And no Soviet or Russian team has ever won soccer's World Cup. This is not to say that there have never been enough good, or even great, players; it is just that Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom have generally managed to play even better. Also, after the fall of the Soviet Union, many of the best players left for abroad. Recently Russian clubs have begun recruiting more players internationally, including some of the best from Latin America. It is curious to note that the richest man in Russia in 2007 according to Forbes, Roman Abramovich, chose to invest internationally in U.K. soccer by buying the famed Chelsea Football Club in 2003. He has since poured almost half a billion British pounds into it—a questionable investment perhaps, but a serious cultural statement. Inside Russia, soccer fields as well as hockey rinks can be found in many city backyards, but few of the boys and girls playing in them will ever rise to be international stars. When you travel in Russia, bear in mind that neither American football nor baseball is particularly well known, although some baseball teams have recently been formed in a few largest cities (usually at universities).

Although hockey and soccer are predominantly male sports, Russian female athletes have excelled in a range of sports—from volleyball to gymnastics to figure skating to swimming. The most recent phenomenon is the rise of excellent professional tennis players. In November 2009, 4 of the top 10 players in the global Women's Tennis Association ranking were from Russia (the most of any country), including Dinara Safina in 2nd place. Maria Sharapova, of considerable tabloid fame, was in 14th place. One player in the top 10 was from Belarus. The Soviet female volleyball team was the perpetual winner of the world championships in the 1950s and 1960s. It remained fairly strong in the 1970s and 1980s, and the Russian team remains one of the best in the world today, including winning the 2006 world championship in a match against Brazil.

Review Questions

1. What were the biggest differences between Soviet and U.S. education at the primary, secondary, and college levels?
2. What have been some of the changes in Russian education in the past few years?
3. What are some of the most advantageous places in Russia for receiving a good education?
4. Comment on the spatial and structural organization of Soviet scientific research.
5. To what extent was the geographic distribution of Soviet sports teams similar to that in the United States? What were the differences and why?

Exercises

1. Using the Internet, research the options available to you for study abroad in Russia. How many of the programs offered are U.S.-based? How many are Russia-based? In which cities are they located? How expensive are the programs? What subjects are being advertised? Are those programs a good choice for you? Why or why not?
2. Investigate the 20th-century history of any major branch of fundamental physical science (physics, chemistry, geology, biology, etc.). How many Russian (Soviet) names do you see mentioned? Where were the biggest contributions?
3. Pick any major team sport that you like, and find out whether any Russian/ex-Soviet athletes play for your country's teams. Find out more about how they were chosen, what their strengths are, and why they are now playing abroad.
4. In class, discuss the pros and cons of the Soviet/Russian model of college education, in which there are very few general courses, lots of subject-specific advanced courses, and virtually no electives.
5. Rent any of the recommended movies from Vignette 15.2, and watch it with friends. Then have a discussion of the film. Did you see any cultural or physical geography of Russia (or any other FSU republic) in the movie? How did this movie depict the country represented in it? How is it different from the typical Hollywood fare? Why do you think this may be the case?