Daily Journal:

We have exams and consultations as usual, since the session is in progress. Two representatives of the trade union arrived and encouraged a number of students to attend the action, which was held in the courtyard of the institute with vague demands, mainly related to the renaming of the faculty. The children then tried to burn their posters next to the cars. This, of course, is not good. But now everyone has dispersed, the teachers are at their workplaces, the drawing and painting exam is proceeding as usual.

No reorganization of the faculty was planned. There is a manipulation of public consciousness. I myself am a graduate of the same faculty, I graduated 20 years ago. We have a unique educational institution that trains book artists - illustrators, type designers, book designers, book designers. Our faculty has been doing this for a very long time, the faculty is older than the institute: in February the institute will celebrate 80 years, and the faculty will celebrate 90 years, because it comes from VKHUTEMAS, and initially all programs and all traditions come from there. Andrei Goncharov’s daughter still teaches at our faculty; she gives lectures based on her father’s notes, which he took at the lectures of Florensky and Favorsky, so the continuity is complete and there are no disruptions. It is not clear what the instigators of rocking the boat are trying to achieve. I have a feeling that some third forces are involved, perhaps even political ones. There is an attempt to involve artists in the matter. Artists are sincere, naive people, therefore, calling them only good slogans, they are raised to some strange actions supposedly for the preservation of the university. In fact, they are the ones who are trying to reorganize. Our faculty has never trained painters.

This initiative comes from one department, and not even the entire department, but only its leadership; the employees of the department, normal, honest people who want to work, are misled. There are two or three instigators, with the involvement of an external person, Alexandra Parushina, who is not a teacher at our university, they are constantly trying to attract the public in one way or another, to organize meetings. Their goal is only constant loosening, turmoil, fuss, who knows what, instead of the educational process. One of these instigators let it slip that their goal was to take away our university’s teaching license for artists. At the same time, naturally, having let it slip at the academic council, he now hides it with all his might. The instigators of these riots are Parushina, the head of the department Alexander Kotlyarov and Vladimir Shishkov.

I am a normal artist and teacher, I do not belong to any bodies that are able to find an investigative connection between all these events and understand who may be interested in this. I can only assume that some third parties are interested in eliminating the institute as a competitor.

We have been shaking since September, and only because of the top of the drawing department. They try to incite students into their actions; they hang proclamations on the walls containing expressions in which it would be inappropriate for teachers to address children. In fact, there are three graduating departments at the faculty - the Department of Illustration, the Department of Artistic and Technical Design of Printed Products and the Department of Graphic Design and Animation, where normal work is carried out, where honored artists and national artists work. And the department of drawing and painting is buzzing, trying to present everything as if someone wants to close them. Nothing like that happens.

It all started with completely internal things: how the teaching load is calculated in the pedagogical process. The Department of Drawing considered it possible for itself to calculate the load from one number of students, but actually go to another number, that is, in fact, it tried to legitimize the additions. Why should one teacher work for three hours with twenty-four people, that is, an hour with eight, while another will work for only an hour, and he will be assigned three? The administration was always cooperative; it allowed the workload to be calculated based on eight people, but demanded that they walk normally. And they began to have one teacher for twenty-five people instead of the required three, as they wanted. They struggled for a long time with the fact that our faculty dean was not an artist. Now they have received a dean-artist, this again caused negativity in them.

There is no pressure on the department. There was a decision by the academic council of the institute to recognize Kotlyarov’s work as unsatisfactory. In connection with the organization of this whole strange and destructive process. The decision to rename is connected with returning the historical name to the faculty on the eve of the anniversary. The faculty was called KhTOPP for forty years, and all currently practicing book artists graduated from KhTOPP. It was renamed in 2004 to the Faculty of Graphic Arts; it was just a copy of the English name, but it does not reflect the true meaning. Therefore, there is no crime in renaming, it is only the restoration of historical justice. The board of trustees, also, naturally, existing in this agitated situation, tried to come up with some ways to resolve it in order to stop this mess. Indeed, they interfere with work and interfere with teaching. Parushina, who is not directly related to the teaching staff, comes during classes, gathers all the teachers in the department and begins to agitate.

I talked to many good artists I knew who happened to be among the signatories. They say: “Well, we signed up for good words, and only then, after reading it, we realized that we were being used in someone else’s game.”