Discussions about the essence of national education, about the progress of the reform, about our standards - “homemade bicycles”, about the Golden Canon, the national myth - are like New Year’s gifts: as a rule, the number of topics increases before the elections and the temperature of their discussion boils before our eyes. The bill “On Universities” has arrived, the President is meeting with historians at the Russian State Library, and the media are discovering the “Russian educational style.” RJ is trying to figure out these pre-election obsessions.