Translated material
Science to win teachers
The FSB expelled from Russia a teacher of St. Petersburg State University Michael Fris for cooperation with a bard college*. Reprisals with "unwanted" continue
The deportation of the American could go unnoticed. But the sudden disappearance of the teacher of the Faculty of Free Arts and Sciences of St. Petersburg State University Michael Frisa on Monday on November 29 alarmed the students who studied from him. In the student telegram channel "Lupa and Pupa", students reported:
“No one knows why and why he lost his workplace. Last week, the teacher led classes in nothing, but at the weekend information about him was simply erased from the faculty website. We specially checked: now the information is deleted, but the teacher’s page remained in the web archive. ”
A little later, teachers of the Faculty of Free Arts and Sciences confirmed to students information about the arrest and deportation of Michael Fris. According to them, the employees of the St. Petersburg department of the FSB detained the teacher on the way to the university and arrested for 72 hours, after which it became known about the termination of his contract with St. Petersburg State University and the cancellation of the work visa.
As the former colleagues of Frice for the university told the "new", the FSB forbade him to enter Russia. The teacher was sent to the teacher, which explains that the cause of the sanctions was the participation of Fris in the activities of an organization recognized in Russia undesirable. The ban on visiting the Russian Federation is valid until November 11, 2026. His violation threatens criminal liability under Art. 322 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Illegal crossing of the border." The notification was signed by the head of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region Alexander Rodionov.
American Michael Frice lived and worked in Russia for the past 10 years. In St. Petersburg, he remained a Russian wife and child. In 2015, Fris graduated from the magistracy of the Faculty of Free Arts and Sciences, after which he concluded a contract for work at a university. At St. Petersburg State University, he taught language and thinking, English, acting, volunteering and the role of man in society. In addition, earlier the teacher oversaw the exchange programs at the bard college*.
Bard-college (named after its founder John Bard) is a prestigious private American university, which is part of the top 200 of the best universities in the world. The St. Petersburg State University, with the assistance of Alexei Kudrin, has been collaborating with him since 1996. At the end of 2019, this cooperation actively developed and arranged both sides: the representative office of St. Petersburg State University opened in New York, on the basis of the American Bard College. “We act on a mutual basis when organizing exchanges, we do not charge the cost of training with American students at the St. Petersburg State University, settled them in the university hostel for free, our American colleagues do the same,” said SPbU, Sergei Andryushin, publicly said.
And in June of this year, a bard college became an undesirable organization. According to the Novaya, the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation established that the activities of the American Bard College "poses a threat to the foundations of the constitutional system and security of the Russian Federation." Any contacts between the American college and Russian legal and individuals were ordered to stop. Otherwise, the perpetrators in relations with the structure undermining the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation are subject to criminal liability. Among them, the rector of St. Petersburg State University himself Nikolai Kropachev himself could have turned out to be straws in time: Kropachev personally signed an appeal to the Prosecutor General about the Bard College in April 2021.
Heads, teachers and students of the Faculty of Free Arts and Sciences in the summer said that they should now also be afraid: either the faculty (which is studying over 700 people) will close, or one of the teachers will be declared “foreign agents”, or they will come up with something else. The forebodings did not deceive.
"New" sent a request to the press service of St. Petersburg State University, by the time of publication the answer was not received.