Among the hot topics of last week, I do not want to return to the tragedy of one garden park figure. The main thing I could say about this has already been laid out in a column as far back as 2022 and a bit more in my penultimate book, which I unapologetically continue to promote. I’ll just add that the bronze statue, polished to a shine by parishioners in certain places, like a samovar in the Turbin family’s living room, is not the best, in my opinion, work of the wonderful sculptor Mykola Rapai from his hyper-realistic series.
The suffering over the “White Guard” either coincidentally or naturally coincided with the clamor from Polish partners (or perhaps no longer partners?) regarding Ukrainian memory policy. To bemoan the return of Andriy Melnyk, while completely ignoring monuments to the true fascist and at the same time one of the founding fathers of modern Poland, Roman Dmowski, to be outraged by the glorification of the UPA due to the horrific crimes of some of its units and stubbornly ignore the symmetrical actions of the fully glorified Home Army, not to mention the complete picture of oppression of the indigenous Ukrainian population by the Second Polish Republic, which actually gave rise to the OUN-UPA — is not hypocrisy, but rather an indicator of the state of public consciousness in a recently fraternal country. We can only try to calculate why a significant wave of imperial resentment has arisen among neighbors on the crest of a rapid economic boom, although from history we know that such tendencies awaken, on the contrary, during crises — this is a task for sociologists worth more than a million zlotys.
For us, the picture is the opposite, and there is no doubt that the codification of the components of national identity at the state level is overdue, and we also remember who and what hindered this twenty and ten years ago. But no matter how much we realize the necessity and inevitability of gathering stones instead of scattering them everywhere, finally dealing with the collective past, there is an equally urgent task: to deal with the future. What lies in the distant perspective after a hypothetical peace or lasting truce?
- Option 1, likely: a fifth of the territory is under the enemy, industry is partly there, partly barely breathing, the energy sector is disabled, depopulation without options, the state is, to put it mildly, ineffective, waiting for investors — no chance.
- Option 2, desirable: the EU twists our arm and forces us to fully implement reforms (courts, taxes, customs, property rights, etc.), which in turn gives a boost to the economy, and people focus all their freed-up energy on finding opportunities to establish themselves here and now. New industrial islands, primarily in the arms sector, scale up, and a light appears at the end of the tunnel. What exactly, besides a sense of community, which is absolutely necessary in this situation, will provide us with the needed advantage? Mineral resources? Most of them need to be developed from scratch, which requires investments — does anyone believe in Trump’s bubble of rare earths? Land? Does anyone know how many lands will need to be cleared of toxic iron and explosives? Geography? Europe doesn’t need our ports; they have their own. What else? Of course! Ukrainians!
As of today, Ukrainians are an invaluable workforce resource for any economy, preferably for their own, but we’ll see. They are European enough, educated enough, skilled enough, and most importantly, they learn and retrain very easily and willingly. They, meaning us, have quite well-developed work ethics, and they, meaning us, are highly motivated, provided there is a convincing prospect of personal growth and environmental development. Our golden asset is the descendants of unfortunate Soviet engineers. I recently talked about the “120 engineers” (a typical monthly salary in rubles), who made up an incredible 15-18% of the working city population in the late USSR. This specific formation was the subject of books and jokes, a powerless class like all others, but one with invaluable skills.
Let me explain with an example: a typical machine-building plant receives new equipment, the manufacturer’s representative carries out commissioning in a slapdash manner and disappears. But the equipment doesn’t work. Then the local engineer climbs inside this machine with a screwdriver and tester, trying to understand how it should work and how to get it running. And eventually, it starts turning — poorly, with unimaginable defects — but it turns. Or some “closed” (defense) design bureau: they are given an assignment to develop a component for the next wonder weapon, and the specs are such that the existing parts can’t meet them. But they persisted and met them! Such tasks were not encountered en masse in any other country. Limited resources and incompetent management were compensated by training and creativity, resulting not only in the Zenit rocket and the Mriya aircraft but in everything that moved despite economic logic suggesting it should not.
This is called “tradition” or “school.” A Soviet engineer was a product of the Soviet education system, as inhumane and ugly as everything Soviet, yet paradoxically effective in many ways. Preserving it intact during the times of Independence was impossible, as it could only function under serfdom conditions. However, some centers managed to maintain continuity. Today, there’s no need for 15% with screwdrivers, but there’s a huge need for a technical avant-garde — once clumsily called R&D (NIIOKR in Russian), today elegantly simply R&D. The war unexpectedly for many demonstrated the potential of Ukrainian inventors who could take delightful concepts from idea to production faster than in conventionally more “developed” countries, which would have taken years. The poor CEO of a German arms company had to justify his remark about Lego in a Ukrainian kitchen for a long time. Perhaps, after being acquainted with the achievements of our “self-activity” in action, and the ability to integrate these achievements into the most advanced battle management systems, he changed his attitude.
There’s also domestic medicine, which only the lazy and very healthy wouldn’t criticize. They say Ulyana Suprun’s reform addressed some glaring deficiencies but exacerbated others. Nevertheless, our expatriates come home to receive medical treatment at the first opportunity, because in Europe you can wait endlessly for a doctor, while here even in private hospitals, the rates are mild by European standards, and the results are no worse and sometimes better. Don’t tell me about medical errors and glaring cases of negligence and indifference; I can tell those stories myself. But unique operations performed out of dedication, duty, and against the system are only occasionally mentioned. Clearly, the healthcare industry needs more reforms and should be properly supported (and protocols, of course), but the potential is immense. I don’t rule out that in the future, Ukraine could become a point of “medical tourism,” much like people from different countries go to Israel for treatment. Because there is a tradition, there is a school that corruption in specialized universities and beyond has not yet managed to destroy. Again, it’s the school.
We can enumerate the sectors where we, Ukraine, were not just in a deep hole, but in anti-worlds, and without any help from above, thanks to the private business effort, emerged to an honorable European level. Agriculture, for instance, with ultra-modern technologies — here, let’s assume, the millennia-old farming instincts, which the collective farming madness couldn’t eradicate, just needed to be fueled by machines. Light industry. Retail. Public catering. Communication. Digital services. I am an older person, I have memories. Could I have imagined forty years ago that I would be happy to wear domestic shoes and order pizza online? Add to this IT technologies.
And the builders? I specifically emphasize, not developers — that’s a complete bottom — but builders. It turns out it’s quite realistic for walls to be straight, angles to be right, no leaking from the roof, and no drafts from the windows. This, you know, is also culture, meaning decades-long implementation of “half-assed” work standards didn’t eliminate the desire to respect one’s labor. All this is not just operational skills that can be acquired in two-month courses; this is — I emphasize again — part of the national culture, which we mostly don’t consider. Anthropology. The state, in the form of authorized bodies, does not or almost does not contribute to their preservation, it doesn’t even know about them.
And only now, contrary to all the rules of journalism, I will address the informational trigger of this column: NMT. This year’s National Multidisciplinary Test has triggered a strong wave of dissatisfaction from parents and a reaction from officials. In particular, a group of Members of Parliament proposed that from next year, only the Ukrainian language and the history of Ukraine should remain as mandatory subjects, and previously mandatory mathematics should be left to the choice of those applicants who intend to enroll in relevant specialties (bill No. 15254-1 from 02.06.2026).
Teachers are in a panic: “the exclusion will affect the attitude towards the subject, worsen the already catastrophic level of attention and teaching.” Experts are divided, and their arguments cannot be ignored. For: “Why does my child need mathematics if they are purely a humanities student? If they need to calculate something, there is a calculator on the smartphone. And a long test in a camp mode is torture for already exhausted teenagers.” Against: “The easing of test tasks is caused not only by extreme learning conditions during the war but also by the false global trend of ‘child-centrism’, where we pretend not to want to deprive our children of childhood, striving to protect them from stress, but in fact, we condemn them to ignorance, yet still exhaust them with endless clubs and tutors.”
I hated school, although at the same time adored some teachers, almost all in essence. Soviet school—a direct descendant of the pre-revolutionary gymnasium, whose model was formed during the ill-famed memory of Count Uvarov (“orthodoxy-autocracy-nationality”), was in turn borrowed from Prussia (the famous phrase attributed alternately to Kaiser Bismarck and Field Marshal von Moltke: “The battle of Sadowa was won by the Prussian schoolteacher”). It was repressive in its concept, an entry point into the entire repressive machine of the Soviet system. But there were bright spots: the officially quite demagogic pathos of the “thirst for knowledge” occasionally found a response in young souls. I didn’t feel created for mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology—precisely that “typical humanities student.” However, the intellectual challenge, multiplied by teenage excitement, allowed me to joyfully crack problems from the thick volumes of Zhdanov and Marandzhan and prove theorems from Kiselyov. Little of those initial knowledge remains in memory, but one important thing has remained: the understanding of the existence of a certain array of information that is important and relevant to civilization.
I explain it to myself this way: living in a hamlet, you might not know what’s around you, you might not care at all what’s beyond the horizon, you don’t think about it. Or you at least know that beyond the horizon are whole countries and continents, perhaps unknown to you, but you realize that people live there, and if you wish greatly, you too can get there. Modern education should form just such an outline map, which everyone can fill in as needed or out of curiosity, but the outlines are known to all.
Currently, discussions are centered around the system of external independent evaluation, its imperfections or possibilities for improvement. However, in these discussions, the ultimate goal of the process slips from attention: forming a modern personality or at least societal institutions aiding in this mission. School and university are machines for producing social capital, without which we remain an arithmetic sum of disoriented and neurotic individuals, adherents of a flat Earth, hostages of feng shui specialists. 95% of what we were taught in school will prove unnecessary in adult life: some subjects for each of us individually are simply superfluous, we will never encounter their use, while others, on the contrary, will have to be studied from scratch at the university. Thus, secondary education is merely an idea that there is land beyond the horizon, and the exam is confirmation that you are in principle capable of reaching it. It is also gymnastics for young minds softened by consuming TikTok.
Under current conditions, there is no sense in placing excessive demands on domestic schools. Everyone remembers the anecdotal mistake of dreamers from Zelensky’s team during his election campaign: the hastily promised $4,000 monthly salary for a teacher would require half of the then state budget. Considering the peculiarities of the current moment, it is uncomfortable to even broach the topic. But there is something rational hidden in the anecdote: after the war, there will arise numerous urgent tasks and painful problems that will require solutions “yesterday.” Will a place be found among the post-tomorrow priorities for the industry of nurturing personality? Will there be an understanding that after so many trials and losses, it would be a crime before oneself and descendants to squander the chance for meaningful national development? Will someone appear to ignite the fire of naive idealism and say: “here is our main national project: a new, modern, smart, creative, empathetic Ukrainian”?
This is all dreaming. For now, it is at least worth not further lowering the prestige of education and knowledge as such. It would also be desirable to transform the teacher from a slave of journals, reports, inspections, and open lessons into an agent of improvement, or at least to communicate to the busy community the necessity of acknowledging a crisis of priorities.
Such crises are not resolved by a single article. Not even ten. They are resolved by a complete change of orientations in the post-war state, but if citizens continue to become more ignorant and the state aids them in this, there will be no one to read the articles and no one to write them. It will be like the anecdote from the late USSR times about the lumberjack Ivanov, who wrote a letter to the radio requesting the Second Symphony of Mahler to be played. The editorial response: “Comrade Ivanov, don’t torment yourself with foolishness, listen to the song ‘Valenki’.”
