No-good ‘foreign agent’ teachers and the problem with pooping in Buryatia

The Russia game is not fun anymore, the news from this corner of the Earth is depressing, and Moscow’s horrifying war on Ukraine has reduced much of the commentary I see to predictable polemics. I’m tired of reading screeds. I’m bored with screaming on social media. The Russia game is not fun anymore, but here goes nothing.

In a fit of self-importance, I’m resurrecting this mighty Substack newsletter and declaring a mission to mix Russia granular analysis (ooh, doesn’t that sound fancy) with countryside asides. Some nitty-gritty and some wacky how-‘bout-that.

On today’s docket: new Duma legislation to expand the teaching ban on “foreign agents” and news of shitholes from afar.

School’s out forever

On Wednesday, March 5, the State Duma adopted the first reading of legislation to impose a total teaching ban on foreign agents, expanding a law that already prohibits such “educational and/or instructional activities” where the target audience is kids. Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said the initiative is part of the parliament’s crusade to convey to “traitors acting in the West’s interests” that they have no chance of “enriching themselves at the expense of [Russian] citizens.”

According to the legislation’s explanatory note, the “total ban” (their words) is necessary to counter foreign agents’ “expanding destructive influence” on “key institutions of Russian society” and offset an “increase in funding for their activities from Western countries.”

It’s a remarkable justification, given that designated “foreign agents” are marginalized in Russia like never before, and much of Washington’s formidable foreign influence is now in ruins, at the bottom of the USAID wreckage, thanks to the Trump administration.

The draft legislation also stipulates that teachers designated as foreign agents would lose their credentials, while candidates for such licenses would get their applications shoved back in their noses. Besides expanding the teaching ban’s student-age range (to infinity), the legislation would bar municipal governments from allocating any budgetary funds to foreign agents. (It’s unclear to me if this impacts welfare payments, such as pensions, but the slope seems slippery indeed.) Additionally, the law would prohibit “foreign agent” organizations from enjoying the regulatory privileges extended to “socially oriented nonprofits.”

Costly caca

Ulan-Ude is the capital city of Buryatia, which you might have heard of because the locals there look Asian. More accurately, they look maybe-sorta-kinda North Korean, which is apparently why the Russian authorities reportedly issued fake documents to North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region that identified the soldiers as residents of places like Buryatia. Fascinating, yes?

Well, I’m here to talk about feces, not troops! Not everything is about the Ukraine war! People need to poop, too. And once people have defecated, they need somewhere to hide it. For many living in Ulan-Ude, the answer is a waste pit — a cesspool, dump well. A stinkhole.

“What are senior citizens supposed to do? Pumping costs 3,500 rubles [$40] a month. And most people haven’t even lined their waste pits with concrete, and they only pump them once every 6–12 months, polluting everything around them,” one local complained. According to the news outlet Baikal Daily, pensioners in Ulan-Ude say online that they want price caps on waste-pit pumpings and a public mandate to encase septic pits in concrete.

While I would advise holding your breath when surveying these unpumped shitpits, you probably don’t want to do it while waiting for a response from the authorities. Baikal Daily reports that Russia’s Construction Ministry says jurisdiction falls to the local authorities under a federal law passed in 2003. Meanwhile, removing liquid household waste is not considered a public utility service, making it a private matter, as we all wish our poop to be — at least, until it’s gurgling up through the dirt.