Alternately terrifying and insanely funny story from Our Formerly Communist Enemies. And we complain about American schools!
MOSCOW (AP) - A Russian teen-ager was stripped of high school graduation honors after writing a letter to President Vladimir Putin asking for a video camera to record her graduation. When Putin’s administration heard of the apparent
punishment, it sent a letter criticizing the regional governor - and enclosed a camera, which Anya Provorova received Thursday, just in time for the weekend ceremony, Russia’s NTV television reported.
Provorova, 17, and the six other graduates at the rural school in the village of Vorobyovo in the northern region of
Vologda dashed off the hand-written letter on a piece of notebook paper earlier this month. “We wrote it at recess … We didn’t think that it would make it past (the regional government at) Vologda,” Provorova told NTV, standing in a field outside her home.
Regional administration officials came to the school and complained the letter was disrespectful of the president. Their main complaints were lack of an exclamation point after
the salutation “To the Esteemed Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin”
and failure to capitalize the word “you” when referring to the president, which is customary in Russian formal correspondence, the Izvestia newspaper said.
Provorova’s grades were then lowered by an administrative decision and she did not receive the silver graduation medal
she had been expecting, the reports said. Teachers interviewed by NTV said the grade lowering “might” have been linked to the letter. “Maybe it was not pleasant for the girls. But it was necessary,” Nikolai Sych, head of the regional education department, told NTV.