Fear and Loathing at the Russian Exams
With the introduction of EGE, the most feared and despised satanic technology in the history of Russian education, you can hear high school students moaning about its incompetency all over the country. Basically, it's a general exam everyone is supposed to take in order to enter the institution of their choice. Students, teachers and parents hate it for a reason - the tests are given out randomly and there seems to be no way to bribe the soulless machine spitting out confusing sheets into young capable hands. Indeed, apart from that, the test is not exactly perfect and the whole idea of carrying out similar exams for different-profile institutions is ridiculous. But having a degree from a Russian university I would go as far as making a wild guess that the lack of bribing algorithm in the exam computers is a far greater threat to aspiring yuppies than the concept of the tests. For instance, when I was passing my math exam back in the day we had a ridiculous amount of perfect results from people who barely spent 20 minutes on the exam, while nowadays 20% of students manage to get parashi even though using telephones and internet wasn't prohibited. Brain leak, anyone?
Yet, some fine establishments give their prospective students a second chance. I'm not giving its name, but Well-Respected Institution or WRI would suit it just fine. After you're free from the clutches of the soulless EGE machine, they welcome you to attend the local exams that, as I happened to discover, are just as old-school and orthodox as ever. Of course, the system has undergone some cosmetic changes - every students gets a very special test number with all the contents of the test sheet established beforehand. The funny part is that this number is issued a month before the actual exam takes place, so you might assume, that it's quite possible to learn a bit more than just the number. The only thing that gets checked is the sheet with answers written in a column, your writings and calculations are not taken into consideration. So basically, all a student had to do is write down on his palm or memorize 10-12 numbers and fill in the boxes.
I had the pleasure of witnessing the whole charade on my own, for I couldn't resist the temptation to volunteer for supervising with a friend of mine. Mysterious things pop up at the very beginning - the exam is carried out in the gym. With several buildings full of empty auditoriums of all sizes from small to huge and absolutely enormous, they decided that dragging a shitload of desks into the smelly old gym is the best solution. Yet, unlike EGE, students were not allowed to bring any electronic devices - all their precious phones rested in a bin and a shabby parody on a metal detector was making sure no modern-day technologies are on the students' side. The last, but not the least, dumb okhranniki who refused to let in the my friend in the traditional Russian fashion of fucking up things out of nowhere. Finally, the poor guy managed to get inside after convincing both the guards and their nachal'nik that the exam can't be carried out without him and he doesn't get in it will be a barn full of shitheads till the end of day.
As we saw the head of the show our hearts gave out a drum solo of extremely unpleasant nostalgia. That was our teacher from long-long ago, probably still best known as fiftibux for that's the price of his dignity on any exam. Perhaps he might've added a digit or two or even changed the currency to the more popular on the modern bribing scene euros, but that's not the issue. Fiftibux intoduced us to the main supervisor that we were supposed to assist. Before us stood a bearded furry creature wrapped in a classical injener srednego zvens outfit. After studying his features for a few moments I managed to locate the source of his voice and a few hints on where his nose and eyes might be located. The furry man was obviously some homeless bomzh dragged into the shrine of knowledge for a bottle of vodka or industrial alcohol. He was making lots of noises and waving hands in an unnerving manner, so we decided to sit in the corner and do nothing while the furry gives out the exam sheets.
In 10 minutes time we realized that was a wrong move; a girl came rushing in asking for her test #114 which was nowhere to be found. It soon became obvious: the furry fucked it up. As the girl left in distress we realized how frighteningly easy it is to screw up a person's life in this country.
Soon enough my friend decided that it's time for the moment he's been waiting for all his life - hunt for shpargalki. Surprisingly enough, almost no one was cheating. Either the youth got smarter in the end or it's something else. You decide. Finally, one fine girl broke the idillic scenery; a loud sound of at least 50 pages flipping came somewhere from her crotch. As we rushed to check what secrets are hidden between her legs she shut a huge book and threw it away saying "Cho? It's not mine!"
At last the party came to an end, the furry started gathering test sheets and verifying the assigned numbers. That was when the mystery of test 114 was lifted to the surface - the furry handed it out to someone else. I hope that someone manages to get out of this mess, otherwise it's the bearded freak fucked the system at least twice.
As we got out grunting how annoying and unentertaining the whole process turned out to be, an irritated short kazakh boy came rushing out complaining to us that he definitely failed the exam because he was placed in a room where he had no one to help him. Well, looks like the system is not quite as perfect as it makes out!
For the eXile magazine.