Russian School Videographer Turns Enthusiastic Propaganda Teacher in Karabash

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Pawel Talankin was employed as a "videographer" at a school in the Russian provinces. In that official capacity he filmed the introduction of patriotic slogans and militarism into the education program. A history teacher at "Schule 1" in the small Russian town of Karabash near Chelyabinsk tells his pupils that the French will soon have to ride again like musketeers on horses, describing this as the near future after the start of the Russian assault on Ukraine. Among the teaching staff he is one of the few who fulfill the new patriotic teaching guidelines with enthusiasm. Where colleagues stumble over official sentence constructions involving "military special operation" and "denazification," vivid comparisons come easily to him: dependent on Russian deliveries of wheat and plant oil, Europe will soon face supply problems. The article appears in the current issue of the Freitag.