CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE BED

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There are not enough dormitories in Moscow universities, hundreds of students have nowhere to live Zhenya Malinovsky appeared on the threshold of the Defense headquarters on August 29, just before the start of the academic year. Oborona activist from Taganrog, Zhenya, like many of his comrades, ...

There are not enough dormitories in Moscow universities, hundreds of students have nowhere to live

Zhenya Malinovsky appeared at the threshold of the Defense headquarters on August 29, just before the start of the school year. An activist of the "Defence" from Taganrog, Zhenya, like many of his comrades, entered the Russian State University for the Humanities in 2005. Until he was settled in a hostel for students, Zhenya spent the night at the Oborona for a couple of days. And on September 1, Zhenya found out that he would have to live at the headquarters of the "Defence" (thank you for not being at the station) or who knows where he would have to spend more than one week, or maybe months. Along with two hundred other students, including freshmen, he found himself without a dorm room. Of course, he did not have money for rented housing in Moscow.

The fact is that on May 17, 2005, the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation issued a letter under the number A61-1208, according to which on May 19 the Federal Agency for Education of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation issues Order No. 406 on targeted admission in 2005 of graduates of educational institutions of one of the Russian republics “to subordinate institutions of higher and secondary vocational education”. According to this order, 507 people were to be admitted to Moscow universities. They intended to send 53 people to the RSUH, but the university was able to accept only 43 (from Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kalmykia) who needed a hostel. Then, several more regions of the Southern Federal District were added to the target recruitment program, and more than a thousand students were sent to Russian universities and institutes. Of the Moscow universities, order No. 406 includes: Moscow State University of Printing Arts, Moscow State Open University, Moscow State Forest University and many others.

The pilgrimage of homeless students began to the administrative rooms of the RSUH. The problem was solved in different ways: they asked to leave the dorm rooms of students and graduate students living in the Moscow suburbs, they identified students for whom the rooms were listed, but no one lived there. There were also more exotic ways: at one of the faculties, the deputy dean for work with students settled the children in fact “acquaintances”. The RSUH did not hide the problems: near the student relations department there was a list with the names of students and the dates of their settlement. As of September 27, the names of students not settled in the dormitory began with number 42. Forty people were promised to be accommodated from September 21, and those with surnames from number 83 - "subject to availability." Zhenya Malinovsky stood there at number 117.

The activists of the “Defence” began to help the students left without a roof over their heads from mid-September, when it became clear that the problem had not been solved in the first weeks of September. We wrote a letter to the administration of the Russian State Humanitarian University with demands: to temporarily close the 65-bed hotel located in the hostel, to contact the government of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Education and the Moscow government with a request to provide the Russian State Humanitarian University with additional hostels, temporarily accommodate students in inexpensive hotels or commercial hostels at the expense of the Russian State Humanitarian University. While no answer has been received, the activists of the "Defence" have collected more than a thousand signatures of students, graduate students and teachers of the Russian State University for the Humanities. On September 30, a meeting of activists of "Defence" with the administration of the university took place.

We managed to find out that twenty students should be settled by October 5, and another twelve - a little later. At our request, information about those living in the dormitories of the Russian State Humanitarian University and the terms of settlement was immediately published on the website. We transferred the acting Rector of the RSUH collected signatures of students and teachers.

And most universities simply do not have the funds to build new dormitories. As a result, accepting students simultaneously based on the results of entrance exams, target sets and USE results, universities find themselves in an extremely unpleasant situation when, in an effort to help students from many regions, they endanger other students, peace in the university and their reputation. The Ministry of Education is well aware that, according to the federal law "On Higher and Postgraduate Education", every "student in need of living space must be provided with a place in the hostel that meets sanitary standards and rules." The Ministry of Education of the RSUH promised to start building a new hostel in 2007.

... Meanwhile, Zhenya Malinovsky settles down in the basement headquarters of the "Defence": he does laundry in the sink, cooks on a potbelly stove, sleeps on a cot. And he draws posters, preparing to defend his right to live in a hostel, and not in the basement.