They were fun and not nearly as serious as most of our other classes. I had a blast learning to dismantle and shoot a Kalashnikov and it never led to anything bad. I don't see any reason for my daughter to need to master a Kalashnikov, but I'm not afraid of it happening. In St. Petersburg, classes on what to do in case of an explosion or gas leak had been put on hold, but are now being revived for younger children in preparation for the real military training classes. Sonya's mother, Marina Badkhen, however, was less convinced.
Some teachers are up in arms about the decree as well.
Pavel Mikov, a history teacher and an activist of the local Memorial human rights group in the Urals town of Perm, told The Moscow Times that mandatory military training tramples the constitutional rights of children who might be morally opposed to military service and war. According to the decree, which came from directly from the Defense Ministry and did not involve the Education Ministry, state schools are required to provide at least two to three hours of military training per week. Moscow city education officials, however, are protesting the decree not on ideological grounds, but on economic ones. Officials at the Moscow Education Committee, which oversees the city's schools, say that the costs of rifles, gas masks and special classrooms for military training will take a hefty bite out of the already-meager education budget. Russia's schools are drowning in financial problems.