The Most Privileged Class

For any nation, its children are its most valuable resource. For this reason, Russian Life asked Yelena Utenkova, on the occasion of International Children’s Day, to look at the state of children in Russia today. She returns with a picture at once sobering and revealing.

Of the many myths the Soviet propaganda machine spun for its people and the whole world, at least one was hard to argue with: “the Soviet childhood is the most cloudless in the world.” Judge for yourself: free education, free summer vacations, free sports, free health care, free libraries, free everything. The Soviet state did its utmost to prove that its motto — “all the best for children” — was more than just empty words.

There was even a humorous practice referring to the Soviet cliche about “capitalist society divided into antagonistic classes.” When touring foreign visitors around a luxurious children’s Pioneer Palace (often the marble mansions of former nobility, with luxurious chandeliers and mosaics), the guide would make a point of saying that, in this place, the children are the most privileged class.

Later, when the Soviet colossus started sinking into the “period of stagnation” in the 1970s, Soviet citizens would find out that the quality of these free services left much to be desired. While the country was plagued by food shortages and other deficits, it was common for nannies in kindergartens and orphanages to embezzle food. Moreover, when the glasnost of the late 1980s shed light on the “glorious” past, there were eerie dark spots. For instance, it was learned that, under Stalin, right alongside the much-heralded pioneer camps, there were camps, or rather zones, for children of “the  enemies of the people.”

But these revelations offer little consolation for most of Russia’s children today, who have less social protection than they have had for decades. The Russian government recently admitted that at least 12 million children (9% of the Russian population) live in extreme poverty. Small wonder that many aging — and not so aging — Russians are nostalgic for their childhoods under Stalin, Khrushchev, or Brezhnev.

Out with the Old

In the former Soviet Union, children’s education was a top priority. Yet it was also highly politicized and often bordered on cruel indoctrination. Children would sing in their music lessons, “You should grow up Communists, and then we don’t care about thunder.” Or they would learn the story of national “hero” Pavlik Morozov, the son of a kulak (a class of rich Russian peasants persecuted during collectivization) who was killed by his elder relatives for having denounced his father to the Soviets. Only much later would children be taught that Pavlik was wrong to betray his father.

But politicized or not, from the earliest years of Soviet power, leaders did their utmost to let children “feel the difference” between Soviet and old tsarist times when – as the official line went – children grew up in inequity, when children of the poor would work from the age of 12 or 14 just to earn enough for bread and water, whereas children of rich kuptsy (merchants) and industrialists would wallow in luxury and exuberance. Many a Soviet child would write an essay for her Russian literature class describing Vasily Perov’s famous painting, Troika (see picture at left), which features three adolescents pulling a sleigh through hard frost, such that it became an archetypal symbol of the difficult fate of children in tsarist Russia.

In post-Soviet times, Russians would read the memoirs of kuptsy or factory owners, recalling how workers appreciated their charitable deeds. Or the accounts of workers, who were less than laudatory of the revolution, recalling how their children received good presents from the bosses, how they would play together with the boss’ children, and how the boss had to flee in 1917, only to be replaced by a drunken worker who let the factory go down the drain.

But a few good deeds could not make up for a system that encouraged child labor and neglected to guarantee children’s basic needs. And the contrast between old and new could not have been more starkly drawn when, at the dawn of Soviet power, the Bolsheviks transformed the Russian aristocracy’s best palaces and mansions into orphanages, schools and sanatoria.

Today, in a cruel twist of fate, the state, short of funds to maintain these mansions, is redistributing them among wealthy Russians and the new nomenklatura (bureaucratic elite). The press has been rife with reports of abuse: Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that at least 300 Russian schools and kindergartens have been turned into casinos; the Moscow city government is allegedly fighting a war to take control of a children’s shelter called The Island of Hope; Novaya Gazeta reported that the International Foundation Soglasiye (Accord), patronized by Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s National Security Adviser Ivan Rybkin, is taking over the upper floor of a 19th century mansion. The mansion, considered an historic monument and once owned by Russian millionaire N. Stakheev, has, until recently, been occupied by the House of Railway Workers’ Children.

Membership haD its Privileges

In the aftermath of revolution and civil war, Russia faced the sad reality of some seven million besprizorniki (homeless children) — orphans of the revolution, so to speak. Forced to live by their own wits in times of famine and destitution, they easily fell into criminal lives of despair, drugs, prostitution and thievery. Activists, like the writer Maxim Gorky (who himself had been a street orphan), worked to set up shelters and orphanages. But the number of orphans was just too large. As a result, the Bolshevik government resorted to forceful, penal solutions, under the guidance of ‘Iron Felix’ Dzherzhinsky (first head of the NKVD – secret police). Notwithstanding the Bolshevik’s 1918 pledge that there would be “no courts or prisons for children,” juvenile criminals were sent to prison (or labor camps). Those children who were sick, were taken care of, and many were put in ispravitelnye doma (reform homes). Many youths also ended up in factories and in the army.

At about this time, in 1922, the new Bolshevik government also began setting up “feeder” organizations to educate, train and recruit future managers and leaders: Little Octobrists (named after the October Revolution), Pioneers and Komsomol. At the age of 7, all school pupils would automatically become oktyabryata. They were also called vnuchata Ilyicha — Ilyich’s grandchildren. When an oktyabryonok turned 10 or 11, he or she would be “accepted into the ranks of the Pioneer organization” and, after 14, would join the Komsomol. In its heyday, the Pioneers boasted 20 million members (almost as many as the number of adult Communists). This well-thought-out, hierarchical system encompassed the overwhelming majority of the new generation, inculcating them with the basic ideological precepts of the new regime, not the least of which was unquestioned discipline.

But discipline had its privileges — like membership in the new social elite. Indeed, to turn down someone’s bid to become a Pioneer or to strip him of Pioneer status (or, worse yet, Komsomol membership) amounted to “ideological capital punishment” culminating in ostracism and denial of social mobility. A non-Pioneer would never make it to the Komsomol; without a Komsomol membership card, you could forget about prestigious (and even not so prestigious) high schools. Non-Komsomol youngsters were virtual pariahs. Many faced limited prospects as low-qualified workers. But this was a very small portion of Russian children — the overwhelming majority put on their red Pioneer ties and stuck to their oath to act “as the Communist party teaches.”

All told, children (those who were Pioneers) lived rather well under the socialist regime. In summer, every child could go to a Pioneer camp virtually for free (or at a large trade-union discount), and, for weeks at a time, city streets were quiet and childless. Meanwhile, every city had its own children’s circles, sports clubs or sections, and artistic studios. That children paid no admittance fees at museums, parks or cultural attractions did much to diminish street hooliganism. And, needless to say, the Soviet police state kept “difficult youth” under close surveillance.

None of this suggests that Soviet children (or their parents) entered into some sort of Faustian deal with the regime — “You become a Pioneer and stick to our dogmas, and we’ll get you into the circus for free.” Children, after all, want to belong; they yearn for a world of absolutes and security. And this is just what the Soviet regime provided. But it did not give choices. There were no alternative social organizations, no wide latitude for complaints. What is more, until the very end, the USSR was a society quite closed off from the outside world. So most of Russia’s youth had little or no idea what they were “missing.” The “pernicious” influences of blue jeans and rock music did not begin filtering across the borders in large measure until just ten years ago.

Children OF the market

Some say that children’s lives in Russia are much more interesting today. But interesting is not always better. An opinion poll recently conducted by the All-Russian Center of Public Opinion asked 12,399 Russian youth to rate how modern youngsters live, compared to 10-20 years ago. While 34% of those polled favored the current possibilities to earn good money and 29% preferred the wider choice of goods and services, much higher percentages placed a greater value on socialist perks. As many as 62.1% of those polled said they would prefer to receive such past benefits as a “guaranteed job even with a lower salary;” 46.3% said they would like “free education, even if it means less choice.” Of course, it is worth noting that most of Russia’s children today have largely grown up in a post-Soviet society. They have not seen first-hand the cost at which these past benefits came; for them, political and economic freedom are a given.

Without question, Russia’s “most privileged class” has lost many of its privileges. “Summer camps” (formerly Pioneer camps) are beyond the reach of a great many Russian parents. Enterprises that used to sponsor Pioneer camps are now trying to get rid of them; they simply don’t have the money to support them. Many have been sold to commercial entities and turned into elite health resorts for rich Russians. Some camps remain, but a month’s accommodation now costs a minimum of $200, which is a lot of money for the overwhelming majority of Russians, for whom the average monthly salary is $150, and for whom wage arrears are a cruel reality. As a result, more and more children are forced to spend their summer vacations in the city. Which does not do them any good.

Tatyana Kravtsova, a factory worker in the Moscow region, is on her second month of forced vacation. Her quandary is typical. “My 10-year-old son has bronchial asthma,” she said. “He badly needs sanitarium treatment. Just three years ago, our enterprise allocated to me free accommodation in Crimea. This is no longer the case. And I don’t have R2 million ($400) to send my kid to the South. I just don’t know what will become of Alyosha in the city this summer.”

Today, Russian parents, especially young ones, joke with bitterness that “children are an expensive luxury.” In order to provide everything necessary for a newborn (excluding medical care), one must spend about R3 million ($500), approximately three times the average Russian salary. True, Russia now has a sated market in consumer goods, but only the nouveaux riches can afford to buy imported Pampers every day. So young parents collect second-hand baby items — strollers, old cloth diapers, shoes, clothing, wooden beds, and bicycles — from friends and relatives.

In the past, it was most common for Russian couples to follow the advice of their doctors and have their children while young, i.e. between the ages of 20 and 25. Now, for professional, financial and personal reasons, more and more women are putting off pregnancy until the age of 30 or 35, and having just one child, which is a contributing factor to the plummeting birth rate in Russia. In 1995, Russia’s population declined by 475,000 persons. According to Goskomstat (the State Committee on Statistics), by the year 2020 the number of working people will equal the number of pensioners.

Laid-back children

This is not to say that economic reforms and political freedom have brought children only despair. The undeniable fact is that Russian children appear more relaxed than they did twenty years ago. They have stopped answering questions in chorus as they did in “the good old days.” They no longer look or think alike. Some ten years ago, foreign visitors coming to Russia would notice that children were a bit stiff, perhaps too serious, too self-restrained. Now children are quick to smile or burst into laughter — without any order from above.

Most importantly, no political organization is putting any psychological or ideological pressure on them — except perhaps for the bunch of children brought to Red Square by their parents in April, when Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov tied a couple of red Pioneer ties to celebrate Lenin’s 127th birthday. Yet, the absence of the honor guard at Lenin’s tomb was a telling signal to those watching the spectacle on TV — a vivid reminder that a whole new generation of children had grown up without being indoctrinated by stories about Lenin.

Along with this freedom of thought comes  more freedom to buy. One can now purchase any imaginable toy (from Legos to 101 Dalmatians paraphernalia), any kind of clothing or footwear. Any parent can send her children abroad — on vacation or to study; coaching is available in any sport.

You “just” have to pay for it. And dearly. Very few families can afford to send their children to a sports or art school. An hour with a good tennis coach costs anywhere from $20 to $50, depending on the prestige of the club and the coach. A month of painting lessons costs $150.

The Down Side

Freedom has other costs as well. The political watchdogs and neighborhood patrols are gone. Hooliganism is on the rise. Over the last ten years, the number of kids hanging out on the street has increased many fold, according to data from Fourth World, a Moscow center offering aid to adolescents. Every third youth in Moscow is a member of an “informal group.” According to Fourth World psychologist Alina Medvedeva, “there isn’t any one, official organization now that would be popular with kids who are dying to join some community, so they just began setting up their own unions.”

“These groups, unfortunately, have more in common with gangs than with youth unions,” Medvedeva explained. “They are warring with each other, organizing the bloody settlement of accounts at their tusovkas [popular gatherings].”

Moscow’s two most popular groups are the Rappers and the Skins, divided according to their musical sympathies: rap versus skin rock (which is a deviation from heavy metal). “It’s great to be a Rapper,” said Oleg, 13. “They are at every school now and we hate skins, their music is trash. Today we are going to meet them and give them hell — yesterday they beat up our guy so we’re gonna fix it now.” Dima, a Rapper of 14, echoed the sentiment, “I don’t go out without my butterfly knife or my mace — what if I meet a Skin on my way?”

Meanwhile, substance use is on the rise. In Moscow, 37% of teen boys and 31% of girls smoke; 90 and 79%, respectively, drink alcohol. About 10% have used drugs at least once. Drug use among Russian youth has increased by 500% over the past three years, according to Deputy Health Minister Alexander Tsaregorodtsev. Last year in Moscow there was a three-fold increase in the number of teens recruited to sell drugs. Tatyana Maksimova, head of the Moscow Inspectorate on Underaged Affairs, said it has become popular for younger schoolchildren to sniff glue and different aerosol products. The Interfax news agency reports that the use of psychotropic drugs among children has increased by 500% in the last three years.

Maksimova said she feels that tougher punishments for drug use is one step that needs to be taken. “We can hold a teenager responsible for being drunk,” she noted, “but we can’t do anything with a child on drugs, because several years ago they changed the corresponding article of the administrative code. Now a gaishnik [an employee of GAI, the traffic police] can’t even detain a driver who is under the influence of narcotics. And, of course, we need to develop our system of medical rehabilitation for drug addicts, which is still at a fledgling stage. There are very few centers in Russia that can help these kinds of teens.”

Doctor Yevgeny Vedernikov, of the toxicology unit for intensive care at Moscow’s Sklifasofsky Hospital said that an increasing number of children from well-to-do families are starting to use drugs. “It’s easy for them to get money from their parents. There’s nothing more for them to want, and they haven’t tried drugs yet. The kids that we have saved from narcotic poisoning go through a phase of “truthfulness” when they tell us how to get drugs, who to go to. And it’s clear that anyone can “sit on the needle” [Russian slang for becoming addicted]. The guy who doesn’t have any money is attracted by older “comrades” into selling drugs. They tell him: ‘Sell ten doses, and you can have the eleventh for yourself for free.’”

“Having abolished old propaganda cliches and slogans, they threw out the baby with the bathwater,” said Fourth World’s Medvedeva. “Such notions as friendship, camaraderie, mutual support, honesty — and other moral norms which Gorbachev would call universal values — were somehow neglected. Many generations of Russians are still nostalgic for the Communist educational system, which, no matter how indoctrinating it may have been, did make a point of bringing up a literate population. Under the Bolsheviks we had our own vices; their utopian futuristic ideals were tough, but today people can’t help comparing the children’s moral and educational levels — what we had then and have now — and the comparison is not favorable for the market reform generation.”

Another deplorable factor is what Medvedeva calls “a loss of national identity”: “No matter how hard I try to initiate my 10-year-old son Mitya into Russian culture, it is a painstaking process. I try to get him to read fairy tales, Pushkin’s poems for children, the stuff my babushka read to me in my childhood. But no, all he takes pleasure in are these Ninja Turtles, Batman, and Bugs Bunny. Oh, and Tom & Jerry... I personally find this last one very violent, no matter how funny it may look. We had our own great Russian cartoons, but now Soyuzmultfilm (the Soviet cartoon studio) has stopped doing them; it just must be short of money like everybody else.”

Children and crime

Low morale — among other things — leads to rampant teen criminality. In ten years, teenage crime in Russia has almost doubled. On the whole, children accounted for 27,000 crimes nationwide last year, including 10,000 drug-related crimes.

In 1996, 5,000 teenage crimes were committed in Moscow alone, up from 2,500 in 1986. The number of serious crimes has almost doubled in ten years. In 1996, there were 60 murders committed by juveniles. Maksimova notes that the number of crimes committed with particular violence has grown sharply. “This can be explained by the changed psychology of children,” Maksimova said. “There are fewer factors holding them back. Children have learned that the only thing that is worth striving for in life is material well-being. And they are ready to do anything to get money. Crimes that don’t make a profit aren’t “fashionable” these days. It’s no accident that the number of rapes committed by teens last year dropped sharply.”

Maksimova also attributed the outbreak of violence among children to violence on TV. Computer games also make a contribution, she said, introducing children from a tender age to violent acts. These trends have disturbing consequences. Russia’s criminals are getting younger. Ten- and eleven-year-old murderers and thieves have begun to appear.

Earning money in such a “romantic” way is now considered heroic. “Saying that you’re a racketeer is a lot more prestigious for a teenager than that you’re a militiaman,” Maksimova said.

One of the main reasons for the growth of teen crime in the last decade is the large number of idle children (recall the disappearance of Pioneer palaces and summer camps). They now make up 54% of children committing crimes (10 years ago, this figure was 5-6%). In the past, when education and subsequent employment were mandatory, a task was found for every teenager. “There was no way they could end up on the street as is happening now,” Maksimova asserted.

Street Kids

In Russia, an estimated 50,000 children run away from home and institutions, and the existing state infrastructure has not been able to meet the challenge of this growing population of street children. According to current statistics from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, of the one million homeless children and teenagers in Russia, more than half are either orphans from birth or have been abandoned by their parents. But using the term “homeless” when referring to these children is somewhat erroneous, because the majority of today’s street children are not orphans. In fact, most of them are out on the street because their parents have sold their apartment, gone to prison, or, even more likely, lost their jobs and lapsed into a life of alcohol or drug abuse.

Those “homeless” children who don’t join the ranks of teen criminals typically end up as young street beggars — a lucrative business with its own adult patrons. Maloletki (small children) are in big demand, especially 3-4 year olds with a physical handicap. “Such children are valued especially highly,” confessed one anonymous nanny from an orphanage in the Moscow region. “Their parents no longer throw them out of the house — they know that somebody will certainly pick them up and give them a lot of money. So now, parents don’t kick these kids out, and they don’t even beat them when they get drunk.”

It sends a shiver down your spine to hear Moscow’s maloletki speak with envy about a 12-year-old one-legged girl who spent the whole month of February in Moscow begging money between Borovitskaya and Savyolovskaya metro stations: “She earned a whole million!” They do not know where to find the good-looking but handicapped girl. “She must be so well-protected, she is always accompanied by big dyadi [guys] who watch over her.”

When street children are rounded up by the police, they are usually taken to juvenile detention centers. In these facilities they can be assured of meals and shelter, but they are also locked in and treated as delinquents, even if they have not committed a crime. These detention centers are “closed” militia facilities, much like a jail. For young children and teenagers, staying in the detention centers, where violations of children’s rights are common, is harsher than living on the streets. These detention centers have always functioned as militia holding centers for juvenile thieves and criminals. In the past several years, however, they have developed into transit shelters for street children and runaways from all over the country. More than 70% of the children who pass through these centers are runaways who have been picked up by the police.

It is the role of the detention center to find out: where the child is from; why he or she is living on the streets; whether any crime has been committed; and, most importantly, where he or she can be sent to next (back home, to a shelter, or to an orphanage, special school, or prison). By law, the detention centers have 50 days to keep a runaway and, during that time, to figure out where the child is from in order to ship him or her on to the next destination. In reality, they often keep children for several months, because there is a lack of space in shelters and orphanages. Furthermore, transportation costs to ship runaways home, especially those who have wandered for thousands of miles, are too great for these institutions to absorb. In fact, as a policy, these centers do not even provide basic hygiene products like toothbrushes and toothpaste to the children (who stay for weeks and even months at a time) because it is too large an expense considering the number of children who come and go every day.

The infrastructure of the traditional state-run orphanages and children’s homes has also decayed along with the public health care system in Russia. The Russian government is barely able to provide enough money each year to pay minimum wages to skeleton staffs, let alone to buy luxuries like fresh fruits, vegetables, juice, and milk. In reality, these orphanages have not received sufficient funds for medicines and medical supplies, personal hygiene products, school supplies, books, building repairs, toys, furniture, clothes, or shoes in years. And with the grave budget problems the Russian government faces, the orphanages are not likely to see this money at all in the near future.

One American medical relief organization is providing some hope on this front. Doctors of the World (DOW)*, which started its activities in St. Petersburg, has, since 1994, provided medical and psychological services to over 2,000 of St. Petersburg’s most vulnerable children in shelters, medical points, hospitals, polyclinics, and orphanages through the St. Petersburg Children’s Health Project. The project employs local medical professionals who work in these shelters, medical points, and hospitals to provide comprehensive health care to children who otherwise would have fallen through the mesh of a crumbling, social safety net.

Unfortunately, non-governmental international organizations like DOW are repeatedly thwarted in their charitable efforts by an obstinate and resentful bureaucracy. Thus, a donation from Heart-to-Heart, a charity organization in California that gave 18 tons ($900,000 worth) of cardiology and neonatal supplies to a St. Petersburg children’s hospital, sat in a warehouse (for which the charity had to pay storage fees) for 11 months because customs officials claimed they found one small bag of antibiotic powder unaccounted for on the customs declaration list. Last summer, several tons of humanitarian aid, including medical supplies, food, and clothing donated by the Mormon church, were stranded in the St. Petersburg port because customs officials wanted to collect $9,000 in duties. Although humanitarian aid is duty-free, officials sought the fees because three tons of the aid were blankets, an item which the customs department does not consider to be humanitarian aid.

Little breadwinners

Today, most Russian adolescents who want to subsist and do it legally have to earn money — if not to make a living, then at least to earn pocket money. In many cases, adolescents even support whole families. It turns out that children are much better adapted to the new, tough conditions of the market economy than their parents. Many parents, in spite of month-long wage arrears, don’t want to look for a better job — inertia is too strong. Plus, engineers find it shameful to sell newspapers or mop the floor. Children don’t.

What are the few legal job options? Tanya Kudryavtseva, 10, says: “I help my mom at the store. This is very interesting, but, most importantly, it helps me to earn some money to go to the Luna Park.” Tanya is lucky. Boys washing cars or selling newspapers face a much more challenging environment. Thirteen-year-old Muscovite Alyosha Cherkashin regularly comes home covered with bruises. “We decided to wash cars on the highway — everything was fine up until recently; we made like R20,000 ($4) per car, so the two of us would wash about 7-8 cars a day. But then we had a run-in with the guys living in the house right across the road. They told us we had taken their place...”

Selling newspapers is no less dangerous. Adolescents have been evicted from Moscow commuter trains and metros by adult sellers, so they have taken to selling papers on the streets. On one of Moscow’s busiest streets, Strastnoy Boulevard, next to the Rossiya Cinema, one often sees 13- or 14-year-old children selling magazines to drivers stuck in bottleneck traffic. Some even sell men’s magazines like the Russian version of Playboy.

Vitya S., who declined to give his last name, said: “Many people give us a hard time, especially old guys. ‘Why aren’t you at school,’ this and that; they call us profiteers. I make like R50,000 ($10) at best. Now I’ve started taking my sister along to up my earnings — she is cute, so they buy more from her, and me and the guys, we make sure she is not harassed.”

Spending half a day in a traffic jam inhaling exhaust fumes takes its toll on a child’s health. According to pediatrician Vera Revyakina, of the Institute of Pediatrics of the Russian Medical Academy of Sciences, during the last four months of 1997 the institute has treated five children with a weakened immune system or unknown allergy. All five were selling newspapers on the street.

Some kids even go so far as to set up their own washing businesses. Maxim Volkov, 13, from Bryansk, who made his business debut in Moscow washing cars, quickly switched to the more lucrative business of washing windows for commercial real estate. When he made his first R4 million ($800), he set up his own business. No longer working “hands-on” himself, he hires boys and conducts negotiations with clients. To commemorate the anniversary of his school in Bryansk, Maxim offered the school director a VCR. Now the latter turns a blind eye to his continuing absence from school. Maxim is also the family’s sole breadwinner — his father was fired from a factory that is under a slow down; his mom lost her job long ago. He gives them money every week to buy food.

Other children are lucky enough to work as top models at fashion shows. Yevgeny Vlasov, director of the Children’s Theater of Fashion, which holds shows at the GUM exhibition hall, hired 30 pupils aged 3 to 10 from families with different incomes — from the children of janitors to the offspring of famous TV stars. For a regular show, he pays them R50,000 ($10), but for a show ordered by a foreign firm, kids are paid regular adult fees.

The New Pioneers

You could say that the children of rich Russians exist on a different plane. Their lives differ vastly from those of the majority of Russian children. They have everything, but, strictly speaking, can hardly be considered Russian, given that they spend such a large part of their lives abroad.

Research shows that there are few “children of the elite” in even the most privileged of Russia’s higher educational institutions. Parents are sending Russia’s future leaders to the best colleges and universities in Europe and America. Express-Gazeta recently published a report on Millfield College in the county of Somerset, England, where Boris Yeltsin’s grandson Boris Okulov, son of the recently appointed Aeroflot head, arrived to study, allegedly accompanied by a bodyguard fluent in English. According to Express-Gazeta, Yeltsin found the $23,000 necessary for his grandson’s “tuition” “from the honorariums in hard currency” received for his memoirs. All in all, according to Express-Gazeta, some 11 VIP Russian adolescents study at Millfield College, including Polina Yumasheva, daughter of Yeltsin’s newly-appointed head of administration, and Alexey Chubais, son of Russia’s famous first vice premier. [Express-Gazeta is known for its “sensational” material, but no official rebuttal has been made to date].

The pint-sized nouveaux riches who stay in the motherland don’t spend their time badly either. According to Ira, a Russian language teacher at an elite school near Moscow, their monthly tuition fees start at $700. At the school, the strictest secrecy is observed. “You can’t photograph the children,” said Ira, who declined to give her last name. “Their parents are afraid of kidnapping. The security is probably tighter than at the Kremlin. Teachers are told that they will lose their jobs if they reveal whose children they have in their classes. When I went there, I went through such a strict check, you’d think I was going to work for the KGB. A commission inquired about my habits, discovered who I spend time with, and carefully studied my C.V. and references.

“We get the children of politicians and famous singers studying here, but mainly the students are children of successful businessmen, often in the shady sense of the word. I sometimes get scared when their parents pick them up. A lot of them look like classic bandits,” Ira admitted.

Parents pay for the perks. Each child has an individual menu at breakfast and lunch. The children have lessons in tennis, swimming, horseback riding, and paintball.

“On a recent weekend,” Ira continued, “I flew with a class to Rome. They were going to practice Italian and look at the Coliseum. They were studying history “on location.” But the behavior of these kids! Almost all had tried drugs. Sex? They’d been at it practically since grade school. They throw parties. But it’s true that things have started to change lately. The youngest students are very well brought up and studious. A whole new generation.”

All in all, life for Russian kids is so hard these days that the daily newspaper Izvestia was prompted to title a recent article, Does Russia No Longer Need Her Children? Sadly, the question is far from rhetorical. Certainly the state is washing its hands. Showered with a myriad of crises and concerned by accelerating market reforms, the state has provided just R19 billion of the R214 billion ($37 million) promised for programs aimed at basic support for children.

Any way you look at it, the picture is grim. Which only adds fuel to the rhetoric of nationalist politicians nostalgic for their “secure” Stalinist childhoods and eager for a return to the past. But the answer for Russia is not to turn back the clock. Instead, Russia needs to invest in her future – in her children. Out on the street, in detention centers, imperiled by drugs and crime, Russia’s children have been left on their own, without hope. If this continues, the result will be disastrous. Russia will simply not be up to the many challenges it faces in the coming years if its government goes on denying children – its most valuable resource – adequate social protections.

Alison Tate also contributed to this article.