‘Important Conversations for Preschoolers’ Moscow brings its pro-war lesson series to kindergartens across Russia and occupied Ukraine — Meduza
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A new school year is underway in Russia, bringing with it a fresh round of the Kremlin’s “patriotic” lesson series, Important Conversations. This year, the Education Ministry is introducing a newly designed version of the program specifically for kindergarten and preschool students, rolling it out in nearly 20 regions across Russia as well as in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. Meduza explains how the Kremlin has tailored these pro-Putin classes for its youngest pupils yet.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/4352168

Archived version

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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