The war in Ukraine greatly changed education in universities and colleges in the Belgorod and Kursk regions. During air raid raids, teachers are forced to interrupt classes and hide in corridors and basements together with students. Universities are recruiting volunteers to clear the rubble after shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. And in university dormitories there are sometimes not enough places, because the rooms are given over to temporary accommodation centers for refugees. Journalist Anastasia Karyakina talked with students and teachers in the border regions and tells how the sound of sirens and helping the front became a routine part of their lives.
We are releasing this story together with the publication “Thunderstorm”
The names of the characters have been changed for their safety.
“The discussion started - we continued it in the basement”
One night in the hostel, Arina dreamed that a siren wailed: there was a knock on the door and they asked her to leave. But it turned out that it was not a dream. The girl is a first-year college student at the Kursk State Agrarian University (Kursk State Agrarian University); since last year, a missile threat has often been declared in the city. Arina is upset that because of this, classes are interrupted and teachers do not have time to complete the material:
“Even if the sirens [sound] three or four [times] a day, they can last for half an hour, for 40 minutes, for an hour. This is half of the couple missing. We often had situations when the whole couple disappeared and there were changes.
Arina admits that she feels “creepy” during sirens, but still not as much as before:
“We seem to have gotten used to it, everything is the same every day, now somehow it’s not scary at all.”
Kursk State University (KSU) student Anastasia says that they first heard the sounds of sirens in early 2024. It happened that couples were canceled altogether. According to Anastasia, in the summer, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces captured Sudzha, it was scary, but then she “abstracted herself mentally.” Only when the air defense works at night does the girl still feel anxious.
“When pairs are held in person, students are taken either to the basement due to frequent sirens, or to the corridors, and part of the pair is also not held,” explains Anastasia.
A student of the Kursk State Medical University (KSMU), Inga, with whom the journalist spoke in early December, assures that periods of missile danger most often do not last long and such a situation in the city does not interfere with studying:
— Alarms still happen during school hours, but they usually last no more than 10 minutes. Classes are interrupted, we go to the basement in such situations, or to a room without windows, or as soon as we have time to go out into the corridor, it [the missile danger] is already cancelled. After cancellation, we immediately return [to the auditorium].
According to the telegram channel "RSChS Alarm Notifications I News of Kursk", in December-January, sirens in the city were turned on several times a day and varied in duration - from one minute to several hours.
A teacher at one of the Belgorod universities, Dmitry, also believes that suspending classes for a few minutes due to sirens does not particularly harm your studies: “Not every minute in class is worth its weight in gold. <…> There is a lot of scholasticism at the university, that is, dead knowledge. I don’t see anything sacred in what the teachers say.” He also told how once during a missile threat his taxi was hijacked three times. That day he had to travel between university buildings in different areas of Belgorod.
KSU teacher Valentin is sure that everything depends on the students’ desire to learn, and not on sirens. When warnings about the missile danger were first sounded, it was unpleasant, he admits, but now everyone is calm about it.
— We went down to the basement. They called off the missile threat and went back up. They discussed something in the basement, if they started discussing it at the seminar. The discussion began and continued in the basement. At first this was a hindrance, but now it has become the norm, a commonplace, ” explains Valentin.
Not every educational institution has bomb shelters; sometimes students are not informed about this at all. Arina, a first-year college student at Kursk State Agrarian University, says that most often during a missile threat, students hide in the corridors and on the first floor. Also, according to students, they are taking refuge in the Kursk Pedagogical College and in the building of the Kursk branch of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. A student of the latter, Alla, believes that it is quite safe and that air defense works well in the city:
— At first it was scary, because you wake up at night with the windows shaking. Sometimes there are small explosions. [We] have already learned to distinguish what exploded, where it exploded - on the ground, in the sky, at what distance, in what direction. Sometimes there are strong explosions, then you start to worry, or if, for example, air defense work caught you on the street. This is where it gets a little exciting. But not much. <…> Well, yes, the siren is screaming. So what? There are explosions. Everyone is already used to this, it seems to me.
Staying means death Residents of the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk region are asking to take their relatives out of the combat zone, but the humanitarian corridor is still not open
“Beds are needed in temporary temporary accommodation”
After the start of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' invasion of the Kursk region, many residents of the border areas were evacuated. In Kursk, some of them were moved into student dormitories. The same thing happened in 2023 in the Belgorod region : then students from Belgorod State University and BSTU were urgently evicted. Shukhov, explaining this by the fact that there are not enough places in the city for evacuees.
At the same time, university administrations were in no hurry to provide rooms in university dormitories to their teachers from the affected areas, said Dmitry, a teacher at a Belgorod university. Some of his colleagues, working in Belgorod, lived in shelled Shebekino and during the evacuation, instead of the dormitory of their university, they were sent to other temporary detention centers.
— There was a story when one of the teachers ended up in a temporary temporary detention center in worse conditions than in a student dormitory. They put you in a room, there are four other people there, some granny who won’t let you open the window, there’s no ventilation, and it generally hurts your eyes. I helped in the temporary detention center when there were shellings: I delivered food to the rooms, in the canteen I helped with organizing meals after work. One of the teachers was placed in a temporary temporary accommodation facility in a summer house, some kind of camp. There were terrible problems with the Internet there,” says Dmitry.
According to him, this teacher was moved to a student dormitory only when his colleagues stood up for him in front of the university management.
First-year student at Kursk State Agrarian University Arina says that because of this, she was not given a room right away, and living conditions in the dormitory have changed greatly due to evacuees from border areas:
— They smoke on the floor, which is not allowed, they litter in common places, for example in the toilet, in the kitchen.
Since the beginning of the school year, Arina has been studying remotely from home, because renting an apartment in Kursk is expensive. In mid-October, she was finally given a place in the dormitory, but with the condition that she would make repairs to the room at her own expense. “These were the most uninhabited rooms that had been empty for about five years,” says the girl.
The editors have at their disposal a video of Arina’s room: mold was visible on the walls, the wallpaper was torn off, the room was empty. According to the student, the furniture, including beds, had to be knocked out “with a fight”: the commandant referred to the fact that they were needed for temporary temporary detention.
Red carpet A few weeks in the life of a temporary detention center where families from Ukraine, Russia and the Gaza Strip found themselves
“Usually the guys help themselves”
After February 2022, new war-related subjects appeared in Russian universities and colleges. For example, in colleges in September 2024, the course “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Homeland” (BSD) was introduced. Arina says that in these classes they are literally prepared for war : students disassemble machine guns, listen to lectures about military regulations and speak in class with the teacher in a military way - for example, they use the phrases “let me ask” and “I serve the Fatherland.”
— The teacher talks about the realities [transmits practical knowledge necessary in wartime]. And in fact, it’s calming,” says Arina.
In 2023, universities introduced the educational module “Service Learning” - participation in “public projects” that will “benefit the country.”
Some of them are also implemented as volunteering. Students of Kursk universities said that there are always volunteers for him - for example, collecting anddistributing humanitarian aid for refugees and military personnel, weaving camouflage nets, making trench candles and collecting tin cans.
— Usually during a physical education class or during a break, if there is a window, they ask those who want to come over. I myself have never weaved [nets]. I haven’t heard of anyone being forced, usually the guys themselves help ,” said KSMU student Inga.
Summer in Kosovorotka Russian children, whose fathers went to war in Ukraine, were taught in the camps to ride tanks, dance in circles and be friends with China
Students, in turn, involve preschoolers in supporting the Russian army in Ukraine. So, in Kursk they held a master class in a kindergarten on painting Christmas tree decorations for the Russian military and wrote letters to them together with the children.
But there are also volunteer activities that are typical specifically for border areas. For example, since the end of 2023, students from Belgorod universities began to be regularly involved in “liquidating the consequences of shelling and evacuating the population” in the city. Volunteers were trained in rescue work free of charge and provided with uniforms and equipment.
BSTU student Alexey said that there are many people who want to clear the rubble after the shelling. He himself went to such work several times in Belgorod and Shebekino:
“I believe that it is not dangerous, since we had doctors and a lot of people with us who can provide first aid. And when there were moments when the air raid alert started, we all went down to the shelter and waited there.
Some students came to clear the rubble with their parents and worked two six-hour shifts in a row.
“I go on shifts every day, except for those when my studies don’t allow it, but even then I try to run out and help at least for a couple of hours,” Ksenia Muravyova told the high school student magazine Five Corners.
Victoria, a teacher at Kursk Medical University, says that she approves of such initiatives in universities:
“I welcome all this, because patriotic education in our country is now gaining momentum, we must remember and know this. But I have never [students] been removed from classes. <…> Yes, I would have let him go in that case without any problems.
The teachers with whom the journalist spoke believe that military propaganda and volunteering at universities do not harm their studies. According to Dmitry, who works at one of the Belgorod universities, talking about war can be avoided in technical subjects.
“We [teachers] have long become more careful, even before the SVO we tried to choose our words,” admits Dmitry. — Those times when it was possible to say something without regard to students and their parents are long gone . But I wouldn’t say that I choose every word in class. You also get tired of being afraid all the time.
Involve in war How Russian teenagers become military volunteers - for an idea and for the sake of entering universities
Instead of pairs - injections and dressings
Since the beginning of the academic year, universities and colleges in the Kursk region have been allowed to choose their own learning format - full-time or distance learning. The latter gives medical students the opportunity to work or volunteer in the city’s hospitals, in the temporary hospital, or in the Red Cross.
KSMU student Anatoly, who works as a nurse in a hospital, says that this does not affect his training, only sometimes he gets tired after being on duty. In his opinion, distance learning for senior students without work and practice does not harm medical education if students want to gain knowledge:
“If you are studying online and have a desire to learn, to learn something new, then you will succeed,” explains Anatoly.
According to KSMU teacher Victoria, volunteering while studying is not the best option, because in classes you can ask questions about the topic being studied, but at such a time she considers it justified:
— As a practicing doctor, I always try to show presentations, give examples, photographs. Of course they miss a lot. But, on the other hand, as a citizen, I think that they are doing everything right. <…> The help they provide now is more important.
According to the rules of the Ministry of Health, medical students without accreditation cannot be allowed to perform medical procedures. However, in September 2024, the department issued a new order: in regions with a state of emergency, admission conditions were simplified for students. For example, students who have completed at least five courses of study in general medicine or pediatrics may be eligible to work as operating room nurses or nurse anesthetists.
According to Anatoly, KSMU students are not sent to field hospitals, where it is dangerous, but some of the students - both students and residents - volunteer in a military hospital in Kursk. Students can work with documents, do bandages and injections. Anatoly believes that for medical students it makes no difference whether they treat military or civilians, because they are all people who need medical help.
Students told the journalist that the doctor who survived a drone attack on an ambulance near the Kursk city of Sudzha in August 2024 was a resident at KSMU. The driver and paramedic in the car died.
Even before the invasion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region, Anatoly went on vacation to St. Petersburg, where “everything was quiet and calm,” and when he returned home in early August, he was “greeted by a signal of a missile danger.” “What a beauty, what a beauty, I’ve returned home,” the student says ironically. The first few days after the start of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ invasion of the Kursk region, Anatoly had to reassure his girlfriend, but then the proximity of the front became familiar:
“Now we don’t care about the dangers of missiles and sirens at all. <…> Somehow you don’t pay much attention to it anymore; in principle, explosions are no longer so audible.
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