On September 1, nearly 20 Russian regions, along with Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Luhansk regions, officially launched a preschool version of the state-sponsored “patriotic” lesson series Important Conversations. According to the independent outlet Agentstvo, kindergartens have already received teaching manuals for the extracurricular program.
Agentstvo reviewed reports from the first sessions held in kindergartens in the Ivanovo and Chelyabinsk regions. Photos from the lessons showed a textbook titled “Important Conversations for Preschoolers.”
According to Agentstvo, the book was published in 2025 with a print run of 3,000 copies as part of a series for elementary schools called “My History.” The cover features a label indicating that the textbook “complies with the federal educational program for preschool education.” The subtitle reads, “The World We Live In,” and the cover lists topics such as “Family Day,” and “What Can the Kremlin Tell Us?” The book covers 30 “important topics” in total.
The volume was co-authored by Natalia Vinogardova, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, and Irina Khomyakova, a Pedagogical Sciences PhD candidate. Both work at the Center for Primary General Education within the Russian Education Academy’s Institute for Education Development Strategy. The institute is also responsible for designing materials used in the Important Conversations curriculum for older students, Agentstvo notes.
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Thanks again to Meduza. really doing important work as one of the very last independent Russian media outlets. I listen to their podcast for years now.
And yeah, fuck ruZZia for basically genociding Ukrainian kids and fucking up their own.
