“My parents told me, ‘Man!’”

This is an advertisement for a drone assembly plant in Tatarstan. Children starred in it. They showed how “Shaheds” are assembled. They pay up to one and a half million rubles for publishing such videos.

The special economic zone ( SEZ ) “Alabuga” in Tatarstan and the college “Alabuga Polytech” launched an advertising campaign with the participation of teenagers who tell how they make money by assembling kamikaze drones “Shahed”.

Journalists from the publication T-invariant received an archive of a promotional video called “AP Boats” with a volume of 6.49 gigabytes. The archive, according to T-invariant, contains dozens of videos with students telling how they combine study with work assembling drones. The heroes of the video claim that from the second year they receive a salary of 150 thousand rubles per month, and from the third year - 350 thousand.

“My name is Darina, I’m 16 years old. Next year I will earn 150 thousand rubles a month. I study at Alabuga Polytech and work at the world’s largest drone production plant. My parents are proud of me. Do you want the same?” - says one of the students.

Another student said his “parents didn’t understand” his decision to build drones, but he took the job because he was “a patriot.”

Other students say that “they are helping their country” and “their parents are proud of them.” One of the videos with a third-year student ends with the phrase: “My parents told me: ‘Man!’”

Publishing a 25-second video from “Alabuga Polytech” costs from 250 thousand to one and a half million rubles, depending on the coverage and number of subscribers of a particular blog, said one of the bloggers who was offered to place such an advertisement.

“Over the past year, agencies have come with this once a quarter, but this is the first time with such videos. I believe they spend several tens of millions of rubles in one campaign,” says T-invariant’s interlocutor.

Advertising videos of “Alabuga” with students have already been published by the Z-channel “Rybar” (more than one and a half million subscribers) and the telegram channel of the image board “Dvach” (920 thousand subscribers).

Alabuga Polytech released similar advertising in 2023, but now the videos have become more aggressive and simpler, T-invariant notes.

The publication Protocol and the YouTube channel RZVRT were among the first to report that Alabuga students were sent to collect Iranian drones with which Russia is attacking Ukraine. Students said that students were prohibited from disclosing information about Alabuga, and they could not refuse to assemble drones. In 2024, a college dormitory came under attack from Ukrainian drones.