A Belarusian prankster forced teachers in the Voronezh region to make tin foil hats as part of the “Helmet of the Fatherland” master class.

Local officials praise teachers for their “patriotic attitude”

Actionist Vladislav Bokhan from Belarus sent orders to schools in the Voronezh region to hold a patriotic master class “Helmet of the Fatherland.” He introduced himself as an official from the local branch of United Russia and demanded that teachers make tin foil hats to “demonstrate their readiness to protect themselves from radiation from NATO satellites.” He attached to the order instructions for making hats, compiled using ChatGPT.

According to Bohan, in the end, seven schools fell for his prank. He published photo and video reports of teachers wearing homemade tin foil hats. One of the teachers even “demanded a diploma or certificate of participation,” the blogger claims.

Later, the Ministry of Education of the Voronezh Region responded to the prank. Officials said this incident happened back in July 2024. The ministry noted that it had already explained “information security rules” to teachers, but also praised teachers for their “creative approach” and “patriotic attitude.”

On the one hand, the teachers once again demonstrated their patriotic spirit, high efficiency and creative approach to any task (“helmets” made of foil look very convincing). On the other hand, of course, it was disappointing that they could not distinguish a genuine party initiative from an inappropriate joke. We believe this is partly due to special attention to the safety of citizens in the region - even in this joke, cautious teachers decided to find some truth.

Teachers have already been reminded of the information security rules. And the authors of the most successful “helmets” find out the prankster’s address in order to send him their crafts. We hope he will not have any problems due to the use of political party symbols in the fake document.

This is not the first time that Vladislav Bokhan has pulled pranks on Russian teachers. In 2022, he demanded that the management of a school in the town of Klin, near Moscow, hold a cleanup day and take a photo with the poster “One people, one nation, one ruler.” In 2023, Bokhan convinced the leadership of schools in the Arkhangelsk region to campaign for himself as a candidate for United Russia, a “hero of the Northern Military District ” and a “hereditary Pomor”.